The SAAQ clearly states in their special documents for modified vehicles that:
“La partie supérieure de chaque roue doit être recouverte d’une aile sur toute la largeur de la bande de roulement.”
In english that would translate to
“The higher part of each wheel must be covered with a wing over all the bandwidth of bearing.”
(If that made sense, thank the AltaVista’s Babelfish translating system. If not, thank the AltaVista’s Babelfish translating system hehe)
As you can see from this picture, my tires stick out at about 1″ to 1 1/2″
Last year I got pulled over because of this and I basically just thought it was some kid cop that had a really boring afternoon and needed to fill is ticket pot or something but then last Sunday, I got pulled over again *sigh* for the same reasons so … I need to do something about it.
If you are in the same shoes as me and you live in the province of Quebec, you might want to fix that because they are really looking at getting everyone.
Finding a solution
At the beginning, I was looking at 2 choices: 1) Get extended Jeep flares and 2) get 33×10.50 tires which immediately meant new shocks, springs, wheels and since I’m running a gear ratio of 3.07 *sigh* new axles. Needless to say that option #2 quickly went out the window unfortunately. As much as I would have LOVED to change my current setup to this one, money-wise, it’s just not feasible.
Solution: New Jeep flares
There are quite a few extended Jeep flares kit out there and it’s all a matter of durability. Before doing anything to my Jeep, I literally spend days researching everything by reading on various jeep forums out there. After said research, the choices were:
- Warn Trail Flares (expensive but very good)
- Bushwacker Fender Flares (nice, expensive but aren’t very durable)
- Xenon Flat panel design flares (very durable and a generally good price)
- Rugged Ridge (cheap and you get what you pay for)
- EGR Extended Flares (cheap)
Decision: Xenon Flat Flares
After looking through pages and pages of info, reviews and testimonials from other Jeepers I decided to go with the Xenon Flat Flares because of:
1) The price: Alltough still expensive, they are cheaper than the Warn and Bushwackers flares.
2) The durability: From the countless testimonials, they seems to be very durable
3) The look/shape: I really like the shape of these. Many jeepers tend to do something similar to the original sahara flares in order to get more flex. I’m not one for off-roading in really rocky situations and I don’t go every week-end, but at least, they’ll cover my tires and if I ever do get to do more and need the flexing space, I’ll have it.
So they’ve been ordered. Not sure when they’ll get it but let’s hope it’s soon.
