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Anyone here had to replace their fender before? I had a run in with a gate a few years back and I am about to start using my truck alot more and I decided it's time to replace mine. Was wondering how hard this job will be? Also I heard of people having issues matching paint on older trucks. I heard that if you use the same color from the factory, It won't match because the original paint has faded.. Any truth to this?
fading - it shouldn't be too noticeable if the truck has been cared for well paint wise. if the paint has been given a chance to fade much, well, logically fresh paint won't match.
the paint can be blended onto the adjoining panels to reduce/remove the noticeability of the difference, if fading isn't severe. body shops will often scan the trucks paint to adjust the new paint to match it.
the fender, I've always heard, is a bolt on process but a lot of bolts to deal with. I can't help so much in that regard though.
If it really matters to you, I would get the truck repainted or do a 60% overspray or something.
I had to replace my fender after my tire came off and it's a pretty simple job. Justtake out the fender cowel thing, then there are 3 or 4 bolts under the hood that are easy to get to, then there is I think just 1, might be two bolts between the fender and door. Easy to get to when you have the cowel out.
Here is my fender (passenger side front) almost a year after I got it painted (this was a green one off of an expedition):
I didn't want to pay full shop prices and I just wanted my door to open lol. To me it's good enough. In reality the whole truck needs to be repainted. The paint is bubbling on the bed, who ever painted the doors did them outside because there is dirt in the paint, etc.
Damaged Fender, Replacing.
