so im not sure if i should take off my flaps or not...
ive heard that if you take them off then it can cause the paint to crack and stuff...
should i replace them with some rrubber flexible ones?...
HELP ME OUT GUYS!

Ditch em. Only mall-crawlers need mud flaps.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r99/nattybread/Xterra%20Stuff/DSC00819.jpg

I like mine much better now that they are gone. I say let them go.

My thinking was I'd leave them on until I broke them off so I was able to get about 18 months out of them haha.
I agree it looks better with them off but I still can't bring myself to take off the front ones, I just don't like the idea of all those quarter panel chips.
Just remember to put most of the screws back in as thats what holds the wheel well liner in.

i leave them off for most of the year, but when it gets snowy i put the fronts back on to protect the finish from salt and sand. the rear panels on the 2ng gen are plastic, so i don't worry about them

I had the same internal debate on mine. I don't off road much, in fact its mainly just gravel forest roads. I wanted to leave the mud flaps on to keep rock chips down to a minimum. However, with only a couple hundred miles on the clock, I was touching up chips all down the rocker panel from a gravel parking lot I had to go two twice for training. The first few unimproved roads I went down yielded dozens more chips. This was not a good situation to be sure.

Keep in mind that I am running BFG AT's which are basicall rock chuckers and will pick up every piece of gravel and sling it blindly behind the tire. Regardless, the stock mud flaps were too short to do any good at all. Add to that I kept reading about them rubbing the paint off of the fenders. Remembering the mess that my flaps left on my Tacoma when I took off the broken ones I didn't want a repeat so I took the ones off the X.

What I've found since is this....rock chips are still happening, but at no greater interval than before. The truck looks better. I do have some slight rubbing in the paint on the front fenders which supports the fact that had I left them on for a year or more I would have some serious problems to deal with. There was also the chance that road salt would have gotten in there and caused rust later on down the road.

I am planning on bed lining the rockers in the future, but for now, I don't really miss the mud flaps.

The flexable ones get ripped off also, they are not worth the work to keep them attached.

I say ditch the stockers and get some old school "back off" mud flaps.... :)

First mod......done!

I removed mine awhile ago and it does make a big difference. The problems start once you lifting it and adding more aggressive tire. I have a 3in lift and BFG A/Ts and like Trekker mentioned, they like to spit rocks in every direction leaving you with dozens of tiny paint chips. Being as I beat my rig up anyway, it's not too big of a deal, you just gotta keep up with it so it doesn't start to rust out.

I have barely taken mine off road yet but I have removed the flaps. I haven't seen any chips yet but I am running km2 mud terrains so not every rock is an issue. I am also planning on doing the bed liner on the rockers. Also having sliders seems to deflect a lot of the rock and debris.

Yeah, the mud terrains will be easier on the rockers, however, based on the tread size, whatever they chuck up will leave a dent instead of a chip. My poor rockers are all kinds of chewed up. Really looking into a bedliner fix for it. Don't regret taking the mud flaps off though as the areas that are affected by rocks are the exact same ones that were getting hit with the flaps in place.

All I wanted to know about removing the mud flaps, I guess I ll remove them asap.........

If you remove the lower flaps, and leave the upper portion, it provides more protection w/o loss in clearance, as its only the lower section that gets broken off...except that if the lower gets snagged, it can RIP off the upper with it, so, if there's no lower to snag (Yosemite Sam type or otherwise), then nothing bad happens.

If you have the correct backspacing, so that the tires are not sticking out so far that they throw stuff at your rocker panels, then that issue is also solved if the upper portion is still in place.

I would remove them they just tear other things up...watch them in this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wxXn9wIQ64

http://www.jaos.com/preview.asp?catid=15

saw these on another forum