June 2, 1998
By: Robert Leidy

The rear wheel wells on the 2.3 Z3, 2.8 Z3 and M roadster stick out quite a bit. A few owners started picking up rock chips in this exposed area. Porsche ran into similar problems with its 911 and solved it by adding some sporty looking protective pads.

The say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Keith got the idea to create some stone guards for the Z3 based on the 911 design. Using the same thin magnetic material that people use for those stick on door advertisements. Keith's original design (pictured on the right) was cut to match the contours of the fender flair.

Later Keith redesigned the shape of the stone guards, the protected area is slightly larger but basically the new design is just cosmetically different from the original design. Using the stone guards is pretty simple, it took me a couple minutes to get them installed "just right" the first couple times but now after some practice I can slap them on pretty quickly (for me the secret was to start at the bottom first). As far as care and maintenance goes, I remove the stone guards every time I clean the car and hand wash them with soap and water. I always make sure to dry them off and I never put them back on until everything is dry (don't want water trapped under them). When I wax the car I give the front and back of the stone guards a layer of wax at the same time.

Keith also has some new chrome versions of his magnetic stone guards, the chrome version really makes a statement. Not sure if the chrome ones will visually work on every car, but on some colors they should look pretty cool. Keith sells these and a few other "Z3 Solutions" via his web site. He also has a gallery of pictures of Z3s with his stone guards on if you want to see some more examples.