I was washing my Prius Sunday and noticed that the lower part of the fender (drivers side in front of the door) was popped out. It only has 2300 miles on it so I took it to the dealer service department today and they said they had never seen that happen so I should bring it in on thursday to have someone look at it and if they can't figure it out, I will have to bring it back and leavi it for a day so the body guys could look at it (they sub contract the body work). My question is, what holds that bottom portion of the fender in to the body? IE; does it curve under the car with a slot that a bolt goes through (before the very end of the fender)? I tried pushing it and it seems to be in a solid position.
I bet they have never seen that before. It appears to me that those pieces should be welded together.
The PDF is a section of the body manual showing how those pieces go together. I would let the body shop fix it since you are under warranty. If it is coming apart, it won't be easy or cheap to fix.
The .pdf file opens fine for me, using Windows IE 7. What browser are you using to access the Internet? A few other posters have also had trouble downloading attached files in the past.
Disregard the PDF anyway. I just went and looked at my car. The outer fender bolts onto the floor beam (the part that I thought was coming apart) There is a bolt underneath to hold the fender. There may be a second bolt where my mudflap is that also holds the lower part of the fender. On your car, the bolt must be loose or missing.
I'm using IE6 with all current updates. This is the first time I have ever had a problem opening a PDF file. I also tried to download it (save) and it seemed that it was downloading but there was nothing there when I went to the download location. I looked underneath and there are bolts a few inches in front of where the fender is sticking out but they "seem" to be tight.
On my car, I can feel the bolt head of the one just in front of where the seam is. I'd say its about an inch or so in front of the seam. Maybe its missing from your car?
On further inspection, I saw the bolt you are talking about. I tried turning it with my fingers but it feels tight, but if thats what holds the corner of the fender, it must have loosened enough to let the fender corner slide out. When trying to push in the corner, there seems to be a lot of outward pressure on it, which leads me to believe that this may happen again after it is fixed.
I would let the dealer worry about it, but if I had to fix it myself, I would try to find all of the other bolts and loosen them all to allow the fender to be positioned correctly, then tighten evenly. The body shop should be able to do this for you easily.
Actually thats what will have to be done because the small part of the fender thats sticking out is an appendage off of the fender (like a finger) that basically covers the space between the fender and the panel under the door. There is no part of it that rolls under to use that bolt you were talking about. Although the rest of the fender doesn't look like it has slipped, it must have?
BTW Patrick & dogfriend, I went to ADOBEs Knowledge Base and was able to download that PDF that I had a problem with earlier. There were other suggestions there also in case anyone else has a problem. Configure Internet Explorer or AOL to display PDF files for Acrobat and Adobe Reader (8.0 and 3D 8 on Windows)
I took it in today and the mechanic that looked at it said that evidently one of the techs (either locally when I had my oil changed 2 weeks ago or when the dealer prep was done) had missed the jacking point by just a little bit and bent a "tang" on the underside of the fender attachment point. He straightened it out and said it should be fine. We'll see I guess. Since I don't have a drawing of how that fender attaches underneath, I'm a bit clueless as to what he straightened. I guess this is a good warning about how critical the jacking points are
He must have missed by quite a bit. You can see where the correct location is by looking at the flange under the door sill - there is a small notch to indicate where the jack should go. Also, see this thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/care-ma.../35358-jacking-lifting-points-your-prius.html
