Devildog2067

So I was on the road for 15 hours yesterday, Chicago to Tallahassee (my ex and kids live in Florida). I usually fly, but with my schedule last week I ended up not being able to get a plane ticket before I returned from Europe, and I figured WTF I'll just drive instead, I could use some quality time with the Boxster.

It was a beautiful 80-degrees-and-sunny day, and the first 8 hours went great. About 8 PM, when I stopped for gas the second time, I realized that there was a weird scraping sound coming from the front somewhere. I was only able to hear it above the wind noise once I slowed down.

I walked around the car and noticed a STRANGE hole in the front of the passenger side front wheel well liner. Upon further inspection, the front piece of it (the bit that tucks under the bumper cover) had come loose. Once it opened up a bit I figure the 80-mph airstream pushed it down against the pavement, and it twisted so that the tire was rubbing on the inside of the wheel well liner.

I have no idea how it got loose. The other side looks fine.

So anyway, I'm a hundred miles from Nashville in the dark. The only thing I could come up with was duct tape, so the wheel well liner is now taped to the underside of the car. I don't have any tools or a lift or garage or anything here, either, so some sort of duct tape repair is going to have to get me home as well.

Anyone else experienced something like this? I'll take some pics later today, it was totally weird... At least the tire seems none the worse for wear. It must have been rubbing for a bit judging from the size of the hole in the liner.

Devildog2067

BTW, can anyone confirm that it's part number 996 504 203 06? I think that's the front one, at least I hope so it's $200 cheaper than the other one.

senna21

A fix to get you home would be zip ties. Punch/drill some holes in the plastic pannels and run a few zip ties through them then tighten them down. Not pretty but it'll do the job.

Good luck

legend motorsports

if it's the r/s (passenger) liner, the part # is 996 504 204 06
I stock these, and currently have 5 on the shelf. the MSRP is $131.07

If you would like one, I can ship it to you. In fact, I offer discount of 15% to fellow board members

you can call me at (631) 691 7700 ext 328 or just ask for Mark in Parts.

Macster

having car repaired after hitting road debris -- on highway 50 in Kansas 8 to 10 miles west of Strong City (around 11pm and me with no cellphone!) and breaking driver's side radiator. (Used hand held CB radio to get big rig truck driver to stop and he graciously allowed me to call flat bed tow truck which showed up around 45 minutes later and flat bedded my Boxster into Wichita where I had it into dealership next AM for repair.)

Left dealership and after giving car shakedown to make sure cooling system working properly headed back to the scene of the incident to see what I had hit.

Got there and saw nothing.

Turned around and was heading back west on 50 highway and towards CA and home when from underneath vehicle a ways in front of me a piece of tire debris.

Drove right over it center on. Cringed as I heard/felt thumping and looked down at dash to see if any warning lights appeared.

None came on and then I glanced up with relief just in time to spot another piece of tire debris.

Thankfully no damage, at least none that caused any warning lights to come on. Car remained vital fluid tight.

Continued west tpo I-35 and down south to eventually catch I-40 west out of Oklahoma City. Near dark and I stopped outside of Oklahoma City -- on I-40 -- at restaurant for a dinner.

After my meal got into Boxster and driving through parking lot with window down heard scraping sound. Pulled into nearby handy Walmart parking lot and examined car.

In hitting the road debris a 2nd or 3rd time had caused driver's side front wheel liner to detach from under bumper and hang down. Not enough to bend back and catch wheel, just enough to hang down and lightly scrape its leading edge on road surface.

With no tools went into Walmart and returned with blue colored plastic tape and taped wheel well liner back up to front bumper, slipping liner back into its slots and using tape in place of missing fasteners. Used tape to ensure no air could get in and force liner down.

Tape held quite well until I reached home base in Livermore and sourced new wheel liner from local dealer along with new fasteners and replaced wheel liner. (Fragment of tape still remain under front bumper but front bumper very pitted and even has crack from first contact with road debris that busted radiator but have lived with front bumper. Expensive to replace unless necessary.)

Oh, paid roughly around $130 for liner and $20 for a handful of fasteners/screws/plastic rivets, etc, because I knew from front bumper removal to clean radiators some time before those fasteners are better replaced than much effort expended at attempting to salvage them for reuse.

Sincerely,

Macster.

Devildog2067

Thanks for the offer, since I was driving past AutoAtlanta I decided just to pick it up from them. They were a bit more expensive but I think the difference would have been made up in the shipping.

Thanks again.

franko

My 07 started making a weirtd scraping noise last week, I read your post and checked all of the wheel well liners, couldn't find a thing. I took the car to where I could jack up each wheel and determined that the noise was coming from the left rear brake, pulled the wheel and the brake pads and found a rock lodged against the rotor. The rock wasn't very big but it made a lot of noise, constantly changing in volume and timbre, sounded like the wheel was ready to fall off. Franko