In technical terms, Fenders are used to cover the wheel of an automobile, be it a truck, car, bike, and scooter. The primary purpose of a fender is to restrict the throwing of dust, mud, slush, and other liquids present on the roads on the vehicles behind. Fenders are generally rigid in nature and can break easily if not handled with care. There are different types of fenders available in the market, such as drop fenders, super duty fenders, and quarter fenders. Moreover, fenders are also fitted on a vehicle to prevent the stones from flying high when the tire passes over it.
What is Drop Fender?
Drop fenders are a bit different from conventional fenders, which are generally fitted on the vehicle. If we see carefully in some trucks, the carriage and trailer are separated from each other. Thus, in these types of trucks, the fenders cannot be integrated with the body. Therefore, separate fenders need to install on the tires of the truck. For this purpose, drop fenders can be used. The drop fenders are greater in length when compared to a conventional super-duty fender.
The drop fenders have an extra 5-inch length which covers the tires entirely along the radius. Therefore providing an excess area for the mud, water, and slush for contact. Moreover, with these types of fenders, the excess water which might hit the other metal parts of the vehicle will reduce and thus prevent the corrosion from happening. These fenders are generally made using a blend of Aluminum and stainless steel. Aluminum makes the fender light, whereas stainless steel increases the strength and durability of the fender. Furthermore, there are different shapes available for the fender. However mostly, C shape and L shape fenders are installed on the trucks.
Benefits of Drop Fenders
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Save water and money when washing your truck
Having a conventional fender will reduce the cost of cleaning the truck. However, a normal fender would still have some shortcomings in preventing the dust and slush from sticking to the truck. But, this isn’t the case with drop fenders because they extend five inches more, due to which the excess dust and mud, which otherwise would have stick to different parts of the truck, don’t settle in. Therefore, washing the truck becomes easier as only the area around the fender needs to be cleaned. Hence, the lesser the area, the lesser the charge for washing.
According to research cleaning a truck can consume water between the ranges of 2000 gallons to 20000 gallons. Although, the water used for cleaning is recycled. But still, some amount of gets wasted in each wash. Since the area covered around by the drop fender is more, other parts of the vehicle won’t get that much dirty. Hence, a greater amount of water can be saved during the wash.
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Drop Fenders enhances Road Safety for other Vehicles.
Whenever a driver of a small car approaches near a large truck, there are several things going on their mind. As the truck is large, even a small nudge might wreak havoc on these car drivers. However, the most pronounced tension is for the pebbles that might fly from the truck tires. Because the tire tread of trucks is way deeper than that of a car, and the deeper the treads are, the faster the pebbles can travel from these tires.
However, drop fenders completely remove the chances of these flying pebbles hitting the vehicles present behind them because of their extended length. A pebble that could have hit the vehicle behind and might have injured the driver or the passenger is successfully blocked by the extra stretched out part of the drop fender. Thus the chances of pebbles flying are completely eliminated.
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No Additional Weight Addition
Many of us don’t like adding modifications to our vehicles. One of the main reasons behind hesitation in doing modifications is the increments in weight it might cause. Increasing weight leads to more fuel consumption. Therefore, inducing modifications to your vehicles might increase your monthly expenditure on fuel.
However, this isn’t the case with drop fenders primarily because drop fenders are manufactured using a blend of Aluminum and stainless steel, which makes the light. Therefore, if you are planning to install drop fenders on your truck, then there won’t be a considerable amount of weight addition that will affect your vehicle’s fuel efficiency. Moreover, the drop fenders also increase the aesthetics of the vehicle, and thus installing them will make your truck look attractive.