W204 Estate Rear Mudflap Fitting Issue

[Superdunx]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum despite having owned, maintained and driven a 2000 reg W202 for the last 12 years and 220K miles!

I have recently purchased a 2011 plate W204 estate and have a set of genuine Merc mudflaps to fit. The front mudflaps look quite straightforward and come with all fastenings.

The rears are where it gets interesting. The problem I have is that amongst other fastenings, the mudflap picks up on a stud and threaded nut that goes through the trailing edge of the wheel arch liner. The thread on the drivers side is not long enough. On the passenger side, the thread is a good 5mm or so longer than the plastic nut so fitting should not be a problem, but on the drivers side it doesn't even show through the nut and you can't even get the thread started when the mudflap is in place. I would have thought that the threads would be the same length on each side, but it appears this is not so.

So A couple of questions, firstly has anyone fitted these before and can anyone provide any fitting instructions or advice?

Secondly am I missing any of the parts? e.g. should there be a longer threaded insert in the fitting kit?

Any help or advice gratefully received! FYI the Merc part number of the mudflap kit is A2048900178.

Regards,
Duncan.

 

[Chrishazle]

Duncan, as you're a new member you can't PM me, so email your email address to my username at hotmail dot co dot uk and I'll email the fitting instructions to you.

 

[Chrishazle]

Fitting instructions can be viewed and downloaded from :

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3FX3V_kb7JvVDBjYzNhYThCeE0/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Chrishazle]

If you post asking for help, it would be polite to respond instead of just disappearing from the forum.

 

[Superdunx]

Hi Chris, apologies, I'm still here but been a bit busy. Your assistance is greatly appreciated so many thanks.

I'll have a look at the instructions as I believe that I may be missing some of the fittings that should have come withe the mudflaps.

Once again, many thanks.

Regards,
Duncan.

 

[Chrishazle]

ISTR I had fun fitting mine, but it's a couple of years ago now and my memory is not what it was! I've recently had a problem with the upper fitting on the rear near side - caught the mud flap on a kerb or something, and the fitting pulled out and now will not engage properly. To my mind the plastic rivet is not long enough for the job, but I haven't got round to attempting a decent fix yet.

 

[Superdunx]

Hi Chris, as I say, the front ones look easy enough. Having looked again at the rears I seem to have all the fittings but the thread that is captive in the rear arch liner still seems too short on the drivers side. At least with the instructions I now know that this is the case and I'm not just missing hardware!
It seems to be a very coarse thread cutting thread so a bit difficult to find a substitute bolt in my big box of metric I have in the shed. I'm about to be sent away on a work trip, but when I get back I'll remove the arch liner and investigate, it may be as simple as the bolt not being properly press fitted into the plastic part behind the arch liner.... Once again, thanks for the advice, It's always good to talk to someone who has done the same job.

 

[Chrishazle]

Thinking about it a bit more, my problem child is offside, not near side - in other words, same as yours!

IIRC, fitting the fronts was easy, just needed to wind the steering lock on to get adequate access. However, I think for the rears I jacked the car up and removed the wheel.