Can someone explain the purpose of the stock mudflaps?

[Snax]

Those look great. Did u have to drill?

No drilling at all. Just some screws, washers, and clips. Took about 15 minutes to install all four flaps.

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[Springboks]

I know on my frontier the mud flaps do keep the mud spray off the sides of the truck. They are functional for sure especially on a darker color truck. I ordered them on my XLT.

Not talking about the rear flaps. Talking about the front flaps

 

[Springboks]

Anything to reduce the amount of grime, rocks, slush, etc. thrown from my truck is a good thing. I just added some RokBlox front & rear flaps to my truck. They were easy to install with the included hardware, and they have great coverage.

Ford Maverick 2022+ Mud Flaps – RokBlokz

Edit: No drilling required. Helps to have a right-angle Philips screwdriver/socket wrench. The black flaps with black logo look really nice on my velocity blue truck!

not talking about rear
Flaps. We
Are talking about front flaps

 

[Therabbittree]

Ah mud or rocks go both ways, especially sticky stuff. Look at any tractor tractor without rear full fenders, it will quickly throw spray/ mud all over the back of the cab , cover fuel tanks etc etc. Often the small flaps in front of wheels are to block crap from blowing into a void or recess under the body, or to protect a painted edge. Chevy has them alot. I have them on my own vehicles and it helps with spray. Its Common on commercial trucks too, you will see front flaps even on front bumper... allows clearance and keeps stuff from sand blasting denting bumper too.

 

[Snax]

not talking about rear
Flaps. We
Are talking about front flaps

Indeed. Front “flaps” also reduce the amount of spray coming off your truck by directing it downward. As I said, I’m in favor of anything that reduces it, including adding flaps behind the wheels.

 

[Sjbuck2021]

Not talking about the rear flaps. Talking about the front flaps

That's what keeps the sides of the truck clean is the front flaps. The spray kicks up and comes off the bottom of the front tires. The back flaps keep the rear quarter panels cleaner and might prevent throwing up a rock into the vehicle behind you.

 

[mamboman777]

It's all areodynamics. This is my 2012 Ford focus.... It's clearly not intended to do anything that requires mudflaps.

 

[wyouger]

That stuff in red.

Those are not mud flaps!

 

[DanielHSmith]

That stuff in red.

So I got the front ones off. I took the two screws out of the rear and could not get them off. Almost seemed glued? Any tricks?

 

[Mach 1]

Main purpose aerodynamics..wheel wells are huge area of drag.

Not mentioned yet, how about channeling/directing rain/water from direct center tread contact to help prevent hydroplaneing(sp).

 

[MakinDoForNow]

They are basically invisible and serve enough of a purpose that Ford went to the expense and bother to install them.

They will deflect air away from the tire. Will not save much if any gas at slow speeds but driving 80 mph into an oncoming 30 mph head wind could save 3 or more mpg.

 

[Tiger Dude]

It's clearly an air dam, it isn't for "mud."

 

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Frontier added them to the rear wheel wells of the 2nd gen model around 2013 (they had the fronts from the get go in 2005)... They refered to them as Wheelhouse Air Deflectors. They were added for aerodynamics to improve mileage. I picked up a pair for $19 and added them to my 2006 Frontier XE (welded a little bracket for them but that was just time). Frontier also added a gasket between the cab and bed and changed the trim over the tailgate to a spoiler like device that same model year.. Again all aerodynamic improvements. I didn't go that far retrofitting my 06. However, I added front and rear mudflaps, so my white frontier has a bit more black plastic on it's profile.. LOL.

So yeah, Ford taking a play from the Gen 2 Frontier.

 

[Mymaverick2021]

I know on my frontier the mud flaps do keep the mud spray off the sides of the truck. They are functional for sure especially on a darker color truck. I ordered them on my XLT.

You can't order something that comes Stock

 

[AutobahnSHO]

Those are on many newer cars-

" An important observation is that results cannot be generalized because the behavior of airflow is very sensitive to the smallest difference in vehicles parameters"
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/444/7/072005/pdf

See page 7, they show deflectors in front of wheels combined with covers around the rear wheels. A small shape change makes a pretty significant difference in drag.

-------------
Here's a paper which geeks out pretty bad about just the size and shape of the front wheel cavity:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/16878140211066842

"Enlarging the wheelhouse cavity volume could result in a gradual increase in aerodynamic drag coefficients, the ratio of the wheelhouse cavity volume increased by 2.9% and 9.8%, the drag coefficients increased by 2.5% and 4.5% respectively."

Drag coefficient has a HUGE effect on gas mileage. You should drive without them for a few months then put them back on and watch gas mileage with the same driving going on (or vice versa)....

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