Hi,

I have a 97 honda civic and it's lowered. All of a sudden the inner fender got loose and has been rubbing against tire making this horrible grinding/rubbing noise. Is the driver side front inner fender hard to replace? is it part of the splash shield too?

 

They can be pretty annoying to replace, but are not too difficult. I'd rate it a 3 on a scale of 1-10. There are somewhere in the ballpark of 20 plastic clips that you will have to replace. Clips on older Hondas are weathered and will just break every time you try to remove them. That's what makes this more time consuming.

You'll have to jack the car up, remove the wheel, and start removing every plastic clip you see. There are also some screws that hold it onto part of the side skirt. There are two screws IIRC that hold it to the bottom of the front bumper below the headlight area, but it is not part of the engine splash shield. The front splash guards and liners are 3 separate pieces.

I have replaced 3 of these due to tire rubbing damage or because they fell off.

For the life of me, I can't remember if all of the clips are the same. I think there are actually 2 different types of clips for it. (At least, there were 2 types for the 7th gen Civic I did once...) If possible, take the whole liner off and save the pieces of the clips. Compare and make sure. Then, put the wheel back on and take some pieces to your local Autozone. They have some generic body clips that are a helluva lot cheaper than buying them from the stealership for a dollar apiece. (And you need like 17 of them or so.)

 

well a local shop quoted me like $150 with part and labor to replace it but wanted to save money by doing it myself. Oh i thought there was only a clip and a couple bolts. that's what it looks like on this site: Part Detail

 

Ah, diagrams are always helpful. If you look at part #13, the clip, it shows a required quantity of 14.