2006 4 door tundra fender extensions (or, are they flares)

Greetings Everyone!

I am doing a slow paced facelift on my original owner 2006, 4 door TRD Tundra.
Two questions -

1. Has anyone repainted the fender flares on their own, i.e. with good quality can paint?
2. Does anyone know where I could buy after market replacement fender extensions?
thanks, Richard

 

What is a fender extension?

What is the actual truck package you have? There’s no such thing as a “TRD Tundra”, is it an SR5, Limited, a custom package like X-SP?

And is it an access cab 4-door or a double cab 4-door?

It may be helpful, maybe, to see pics of your truck.

I’ve repainted plastic trim (grille) on my truck and had good luck. But without knowing what color your truck is, it’s really hard to say. What color is your truck?

Want to help but you’re leaving out a wild amount of details, and pics would be worth thousands of words.

Have you worked thru this yet? : https://www.tundras.com/threads/so-you-wanna-buy-just-bought-a-1st-gen-tundra-eh.115928/

 

Hi Richard-
Is this what you're dealing with? I will be shortly too...genius here clipped my buddy's wife's Audi in the street. Pulled it loose from the fastener and bent it a bit. Likely will require some painting....

 

IIRC those wide fender flares have attachment holes drill through the fender unlike the smaller ones.

 

Correct. Seeing as it took only a low-speed, glancing blow, I thought I might be able to get it back into shape with a heat gun. Suspect I am kidding myself however, and will likely shell out the $250 for the Toyota replacement and paint it. Toyota part number for passenger side on a DC looks to be 75873-0C901. Whether or not I will try to paint it myself remains to be seen. Suspect shifty put some info about that idea in the monster thread.....

 

If a heat gun won't work, seriously, junkyard/parts truck. That seems to be the most popular DC color out there, and the DCs without fender flares are hen's teeth. As long as it's not an X-SP truck (or similar one-off custom regional package), it should fit!

 

Sold! Thanks

 

I was too lazy to take Shifty's advice and go to the junkyard (probably a big mistake) and purchased the fender flare new from Toyota. Can I paint this thing myself, or should I have a paint and body shop do it?

I was thinking something like this:
https://www.automotivetouchup.com/spray-paint/spray_paint_matched.aspx

and

https://www.automotivetouchup.com/spray-paint/spray_paint_clearcoat.aspx.

I'm not a paint guy, so not sure if I need a separate primer coat as well on something like a plastic fender flare.

 

If I were you I'd resell the part and take the small hit on it resale, then hit the junkyard to get a pre-matched one on another DC truck. Time is money, and the time you save on trying to paint this properly (which will take hours and likely output a sub-par job if you're a newbie) will be priceless compared to having a properly-aged part that's factory-perfect and whatever 60-90 minutes it takes you to source the part, drive to get it, and install.

The Automotive Touchup paint is what I used (OVER HERE), it wasn't a perfect match, but it was close. You be the judge, see the pics. I'm no pro, but I probably have a couple hundred hours of auto paint experience that led me to that result.

Here's the thing, and @Dakillacore can potentially speak better to this than me. Unlike the Sports Grill painting I just linked, fender flares are flexible plastic. Typically with flexbile parts like our fender flares, bumper skins, and other things that may see some flex or torsion, you really need to be careful about keeping your part surfaces clean, and more importantly, use a good adhesion promotor. If you don't, the paint will ultimately crack when things flex from wind or body torsion, and you'll see stuff like this happen - you may've seen other people's cars like this also. This can either be caused by improperly cleaning panels before paint and failure to use adhesion to promoter, I believe.

​

 

PS - I'll also add, the Automotive Touchup paints are a bit hard. I already have three clean rock chips in my Sports Grille after a few thousand miles of driving, mostly interstate miles. I'm not sure how well they'd fare on a blexible part.

 

Plastic parts get an extra additive which we call "flex additive" or "Flex agent". This helps the paint not chip off and will give it that flexibility. I have attached a PDF describing in detail what this is and how it can be used.

Flex is used on any plastic part like the bumper covers, flares, rocker moldings and so forth.

 

I'll either have a pro paint it and have him do some other stuff as well, or, bite the bullet and take a trip to the junkyard. Your logic is flawless. Have to get over my junkyard resistance LOL They're just all the way on the other damn side of town.....At some point, I think you had mentioned a "junk truck." Sure wish we had those around here...As with many things, NM is a bit behind the rest of America.

 

All that land, so many places to have a yard, so much Hantavirus opportunity lost ...

 

Missed out on the hanta, but got the flare done. Called a few junkyards and no luck. So....took it to a local body shop. They did a bit of paintless dent repair around the front of the flare, painted it, and installed it. Quite pleased. Don't ask what it cost. New back passenger door is next.