Should I bin the under tray on my motor

[Vince70]

I've just got back from work and could hear a rubbing noise coming from the underside of my old A4 on the way back and did the usual thing and turned the stereo up which covered the sound up nicely, but on inspection once I pulled up I noticed that the front of the under tray was hanging down.

 

Now I could bodge it up with a couple of cable ties if need be but I was thinking the best bet would be just to remove the bloody thing and throw it in the recycling bin for collection tomorrow.

 

The problem being should I bin the offending item or should I repair it.

It's just that even though I drive old chod I really don't like bodging things up if I can help it so is there any reason why I should keep the undertray on the motor.

[dave21478]

Unless its smashed, just zip-tie it up. Its hardly the worst of bodges.

 

Removal is all fine and well, but it prevents muck and road-shart being sprayed up into the engine bay and into the serpentine belts etc and provides a (very) small amount of protection from impacts.

[HillmanImp]

I have binned them on my cars in the past. I am sure I have RUINED the fuel efficiency by 0.00001MPG and will be responsible for the deaths of a hundred dolphins or something but it makes getting at the cars bits n bobs easier dunnit (aableit dirtier).

[Bren]

They stop oil ending up on your block paving.

[alf892]

I'm usually in favour of dumping bits of excess car but I would put it back.

 

They are a complete pain in the arse BUT do a good job of keeping excess water and shit out and away from lektrick bits.

Tis amazing how clean modern engine bays are

[Asimo]

If it is a bit flaky, use lots of zip-ties putting it back, not funny for the chap behind you when it flies off at speed!

[twosmoke300]

It makes a surprising difference to the amount of engine noise you hear . Put it back on I reckon

[Vince70]

Cheers for the help I think the cable ties will have to come out then as its my old winter hack anyway so I guess it will stop all the muck getting into the engine bay.

 

I've just looked underneath properly and it looks like it's been held together by about another 20 of the things anyway so I doubt a couple more will hurt anyway.

 

I was hoping to get rid of the car this week but it looks like it's going to have to stay a bit longer as I've lost out buying my new/old chod anyway.

 

But at least I don't have to worry about getting the block paving oily as my drive is painted concrete which is ideal for my type of leaky cars.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

The rear undertray detached from my mk3 mondeo during a fully legal* high speed test on a closed* section of motorway late at night.

 

Thankfully no one was behind me at the time.

 

(If it helps I did do a loop of the road again and didn't* stop on the hard shoulder before not* running across two lanes of motorway to retrieve it, that would be silly)

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is make sure it's properly secured.

 

I am a fan of undertrays, as while they add time to a job at the start, they generally save time in the middle where otherwise you would be saying words like "for", "fucks" and "sake" because everything is covered in shit and rust and mess.

 

I am usually not a fan of the way most undertrays are fastened on using either plastic or rusty fixings. Usually the fasteners fall to bits as soon as a screwdriver is removed from the tool chest, and you spend the rest of the afternoon searching the "jar of leftover screws and shit" for something similar to fix the bloody thing back on.

 

ANNNNND if you use cable ties I bet 50p you have reason to remove it within a week.

[twosmoke300]

Or those stupid half turn serrated flat head screw things that French cars use . Last one removal if your lucky

[beko1987]

My line manager has a kuga, and dropped a screwdriver into the tray. I had a go and couldn't do it, so we took it round to the local garage who whipped the tray off, recovered the screwdriver and refitted the tray, and wouldn't accept payment. Boss gave the lad £20.

 

My mate dropped a screwdriver down the bay of his Octavia, I managed to get that out with my extendable magnet thing which is usually never fucking about when I want it.

 

Could be worse, I dropped a nice screwdriver bit into the chassis leg of the xm. Heard it exit into the hedge a few days later!

[skattrd]

When I get a car with and undertray or engine cover it is removed when I need access to something (first service/breakdown) and replaced when I sell the car. They just get in the way when you need to get at things. They also stop drips which tell you of minor leaks before they become major.

[twosmoke300]

My dad had an ex fire brigade astra g which had a massive steel undertray held on with m10 bolts . Im guessing it was an option for fb cars

[derskine]

Today my car was misfiring like fuck after driving through a puddle.

It does not have one of these under tray things fitted.

[Mr Lobster]

By odd coincidence, mrs_lobster returned home this afternoon complaining that there was something hanging down under the car and it is really noisy.

 

Looks like tomorrow means I shall be finding out about extricating and reattaching a Toledo under tray...

[Shep Shepherd]

In my experience, under trays are handy at stopping road dirt, water and so on from making a mess of your engine bay and for preventing ancillary bits that fall off from being lost on the road

[Bren]

When I sold my mondeo it had the lower and upper covers present.

 

The guy who bought it told me one of the reasons he bid on mine was because the top cover was still in place - the others he had looked at had been lost / binned by careless owners.

 

If you take it off keep it - having said that my dad had to go back to one garage because they had'nt (couldnt be arsed) re -fitting the lower cover to his passat.

[forddeliveryboy]

I detest not having instant access to every bit of the gubbins under the bonnet, but an undertray on something older is a lot less hassle than having to remove a turbo to replace an oil filter (or whatever - I hate most moderns) on awkward-to-access modern cars. Keeping salt spray off things is a bonus. as are the better aerodynamics. It's surprising how on some cars, fuel economy improves a good bit on fast-ish motorway journeys.

[Junkman]

Make sure to remove the car from the undertray before you bin it.

[warren t claim]

After the fucking fiasco of changing the rear suspension compressor on the E61 I can highly recommend removing under trays and washing the crud out every year. If only BMW had thought about putting that into their service schedule.

[sierraman]

I wouldn't bin the top cover as its partly sound deadening, under tray I slung in the skip long since, during oil change spent more time putting it back than actually doing the oil swap.

[Vince70]

Today I've decided to bin the top engine cover (well thrown it in the boot) as the car started sounding like a diesel so I wanted to get to the bottom of it and it looks like it's coming from the back of the engine under the rocker cover.

 

From what I can make out the cam chain tensioner is most probably knackered so I will need to buy the plastic sliders as the chain wears them out.

 

 

It looks quite a complex job as I will have to remove one of the camshafts plus I will need a specific VAG tool apparently plus a torque wrench.

 

I'm wondering if I should try just turning the stereo up louder.

[Uncle Jimmy]

My Corolla has two under the engine, with plenty of bolts, designed so it doesn't catch on long grass. Then again the Pug I owned, undertray had weird fixings and was ripped off by a plastic bag.

Chap told me he ran over a length of lorry strap webbing; no undertray so wrapped around his prop shaft and mangled both brake and fuel lines- nasty.

[xtriple]

My Insight has undertrays everywhere! It seems to be covered from front to back with holes for the suspension to poke out.  I only really looked as there was something dangling at the back slightly and it was an undertray that covers from the boot/battery area and smooths it all out to the bumper - no gaps. Two cable ties soon sorted it out. Probably knocked 0.000001 efficiency off by the cable ties not being aerodynamic!

[overrun]

The front undertray on my mates MR2 fell down at 70* mph, recently.

He said with that noise, he thought he had lost a wheel.

 

I once hit a bin liner at 70*, also. The bang was big enough to interest Sheldon.

That woke me up!

[Forty-two]

I would keep the tray.  When the exhaust separated from the manifold on my Punto derv it was the under tray catching it that stopped it from being folded back under the car.

[vulgalour]

I don't think the Xantia has an undertray.  I know the car suffers from nose-end lift at higher speeds which can get pretty annoying if I've got an empty boot/car and if it hasn't got one fitted then fitting one would certainly exacerbate the issue.  If there is one fitted, removing it would likely cure this problem.

 

I'm moderately certain it doesn't have one though.

[rml2345]

I'd be inclined to keep it as it's probably there for a reason. The Volvo has a sort of undertray/sumpguard type affair at the front which is very robust and a fairly desirable thing to have as it stops all sort of crap from accumulating under the bonnet. It's also GR11 for wading through flooded bits.

[sierraman]

I once hit a badger, the bugger went up and underneath ragging the under tray off. If that wasn't bad enough the undertray was something mental like £70!!!

[barefoot]

I don't suppose the nice cost accountants at Audi would fit an undertray unless it was designed to achieve/improve something.