Replaced fender liner, so so fit

On a recent trip a hole was torn in the driver's side front fender liner. So today I replaced it with one of these:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175380608951

When first shipped it only came with some screw retainer's (PNG-CLIP002), but when notified the vendor quickly shipped a pack of compatible clips (in a bag hand labeled PNG-CLIP006) and another bag of slightly larger diameter clips with a printed label PNG-CLIP007.

Jacked up the car, removed the tire, removed the old liner. Every single push clip broke. Noticed that it had some sort of papery, almost diaper like, lining on the top. The new one is just plastic, no lining. Removed the air dam (had to snap off the odd plastic rivets inside of the two screws.) Bolted the air dam onto the new liner. Left the two spaces between the screws empty as I didn't have any fasteners similar to the old ones. (What do people put in those center holes???)

First problem - the hole which goes into a flattened S shaped clip on the bottom, just in front of the wheel, was about 4 mm too far posterior. I had to use a file to extend the hole forward far enough so that the screw would go through it and that S shaped clip would close. After that it pretty much just went back together, replacing all the broken plastic fasteners with new ones. Mostly the fit was OK. The parts which were supposed to be on top were, the parts which were supposed to be on the bottom (inside the fender) were as well. However, there were gaps at the front and the rear between the liner and the metal. In the rear the liner seemed to be a hair too small, so that it made sort of straight line connections between the fasteners. In the front the gap was lateral - the liner is more or less in the right place, but it is displaced a few mm towards the center of the car. To be fair, the original liner was also displaced a little at the front, just not as much. Is there some trick to making that part fit? It is a long way from the clip at the top of the wheel well to the aforementioned S shaped clip, with no other clips in between. There are a couple of other holes in the new one towards the motor side that don't line up with any holes. Not sure what those are for.

So, overall, pretty good fit, but not perfect. I worry that the force on the gap at the rear may break those clips eventually. Can a liner by stretched a little, permanently, like with a heat gun? If I find myself in the pick a part for some other reason I may look for a stock liner. Otherwise this will do for now.

 

OEM is $85 to $113 (plus 10% CA tax) depending on dealer. I have bought plastic bits like this before online and they fit OK. Not so this time. Since I made a hole in it I don't think I can sent it back. Apparently they can be stretched if warmed up with a heat gun. That might fix the back, not so sure about the front.

Come to think of it, isn't there supposed to be a little 1.5"-2" or so high skinny rubbery plastic air dam that runs under the front bumper near the back end of it? I vaguely recall that there was one when I bought the car, but there isn't one now.

 

Grocery shopping this morning there was another Gen 2 a couple of slots over. It had the same front gap in the driver's side liner as my original liner did, and there was no sign of an air dam under the bumper. No gap on the passenger side. I'm beginning to wonder if something about the fender, bumper, or other underbody plastic shifts a bit as these cars age, leading to that drivers side liner gap. (I'm assuming that they didn't come from the factory like that.)

 

When I looked today the used OEM ones on ebay started at around $110 (including shipping) and went up from there. If their web site does not lie is would only be $82 plus tax from Puente Hills Toyota. (The other dealers are more.)

https://parts.puentehillstoyota.com/p/Fender-Splash-Shield-Left--Front/63164135/5387647020.html?referer=parts.toyota.com&machineIDT1=crtnnxruv5apcpinkvqivpou

I don't know what these cost at pick a part, it isn't listed under any obvious name, but a whole fender is $82, so presumably less. The closest thing I could find was a mud flap, which is $8. I'm guessing the liner shouldn't be more more than $30-$40.

 

Is there a diagram somewhere of the types and locations of all the fasteners for this liner? On mine, on the flap that goes out to the bumper, it is roughly rectangular, with a fastener in each corner. Let's call these "ABCD", going clockwise around the section (as if looking down on it from the top of the car), with A being the one closest to the front driver's corner. Two of those (B,D) are screws into the flattened S shaped retainers, more or less like this:

https://www.clipsandfasteners.com/Fender-Wheel-Housing-Nylon-U-Nuts-p/pas1601-15.htm

The other two (A,C) look like this (but smaller head, wider barbs. and black):

https://www.clipsandfasteners.com/Toyota-Headliner-Retainers-90467-05164-E2-p/a21332.htm

The barbed fasteners connect the liner to the bumper in one case, and to another plastic shield in the other. They are both floating, that is, they connect to another piece of plastic, but to nothing solid. I think these may be aftermarket fasteners - when I got the car (used) it was missing quite a few fasteners, and I had my mechanic "replace" them. They probably used whatever they had on hand.. I wonder if that last fastener (C) is actually supposed to plug into something solid, so now it lets that corner sag (it is just in front of the tire, inboard side) which tilts that front section of the liner towards the inside of the car, and that might in turn open up the gap at the front of the wheel well. I need to try lifting at C to see if it closes the front gap.

Edit: Shoved up on C and it seems to have pushed into a hole in something solid. But it didn't close the front gap at all. There is no hole in the liner near the gap which could be used to shove it over. There is a metal flange from the fender (or some other body part) a few inches behind it, with a hole in it. The flange is perpendicular to the liner. Something could be rigged probably to lever off of that, but it might just bend the metal eventually.