Cupra ST Mud Flaps

[SRGTD]

If it's a small gap you could fill it with black silicone.

Matter of taste, mug flaps. I put them on my first car because I was young, daft and just wanted to do affordable things to my car. Not bothered with them since although they do dramatically cut down on damage from stones. My wife's car came with them, it was a demonstrator and had a few extras.

I used to have them on my cars up until 2016. There wasn't an OEM set of mud flaps for car I bought (VW Polo GTI) in 2016 and I’m not a fan of aftermarket universal mud flaps (poor fit on some cars) so cars I’ve owned for the last nine years have been without mud flaps. I have to say in all honesty those cars without mud flaps haven’t suffered any worse from stone chips or dirt accumulation than previous cars owned with mud flaps fitted, although I appreciate the types of roads a car is driven on will be a factor in how vulnerable a car will be to collecting stone chips and mud (I rarely drive on muddy rural roads).

Looking at the OEM mud flaps for the Leon, they do seem quite short - especially the rears for the ST (see picture below) so I wonder whether they’re actually very effective at providing much protection, other than to a quite small area immediately behind where the mud flaps are fitted. Being quite short, I also wonder whether they provide much benefit from road spray for following drivers .

 

[Mo_86]

Got mine main for aesthetics but they don't look as good as i thought lol.
I'll keep them on for now, i guess you don't know until you try.

 

[Mr Pig]

I used to have them on my cars up until 2016. There wasn't an OEM set of mud flaps for car I bought (VW Polo GTI) in 2016 and I’m not a fan of aftermarket universal mud flaps (poor fit on some cars) so cars I’ve owned for the last nine years have been without mud flaps. I have to say in all honesty those cars without mud flaps haven’t suffered any worse from stone chips or dirt accumulation than previous cars owned with mud flaps fitted, although I appreciate the types of roads a car is driven on will be a factor in how vulnerable a car will be to collecting stone chips and mud (I rarely drive on muddy rural roads).

Looking at the OEM mud flaps for the Leon, they do seem quite short - especially the rears for the ST (see picture below) so I wonder whether they’re actually very effective at providing much protection, other than to a quite small area immediately behind where the mud flaps are fitted. Being quite short, I also wonder whether they provide much benefit from road spray for following drivers .

View attachment 49018

Mudguards this small are not going to do anything at all to reduce spray. They're not going to reduce stone chips much either but they do help a little.

On the rear, they help stop the paint getting pebble-dashed off the bumper. Does make a difference. My car does not have mudguards and there is a patch of paint removed. Not very noticeable as it's low down but it's there.

The front ones are arguably more beneficial as stones can chip the paint off the front of the sill or lower edge of the wing leading to rust. If you look at older cars it's a very common place to see rust. Probably the two best things you can do to help prevent it is mud-guards and keep the gap between the back of the arch and the sill clean.

 

[Seriously?]

The one thing I did notice with a couple of cars I had fitted with these "conformal" mudflaps is that over time grit can get in between the rubber and the bodywork and cause paint damage. A bit ironic as they're partly supposed to stop damage...
I took to fitting a piece of clear Helicopter Tape to the body before attaching the mudflap.

 

[Mr Pig]

The one thing I did notice with a couple of cars I had fitted with these "conformal" mudflaps is that over time grit can get in between the rubber and the bodywork and cause paint damage.

Yes. That can happen with any close fitting part or trim. You can get grit between the bumper edges and the wings which grinds through the paint. Sometimes they'll leave larger gaps, like the front wing to sill gap, but dirt and larger stones can still build up in there and do the same thing. It's important to clean out these gaps regularly.