Right Front Fender Hot to Touch After Drive

[Infinite5ths]

Hi folks! Loving the 2001 Boxster out here in Los Angeles :-)

I noticed an odd thing yesterday: After a relatively long, fast drive (45min-1hr on highways) back from Malibu to Glendale, the right front fender (metal panel over/around the wheel) was hot to the touch. Another highway drive today demonstrated the same results. The left fender is much cooler. The right wheel-well liner is very warm to the touch as well, though not as hot as the metal body/skin (opposite side cooler - just as it is with the metal body/skin panel).

At first, I thought perhaps it was a dragging brake pad, radiating heat out/up through the plastic liner & into the cavity below the sheet metal. I did recently replace front pads myself. But a few more test drives today seem to indicate that the right fender gets warmer than the left even under mild braking at slower speeds (i.e. in-town, gentle stop-and-go vs highway speeds).

I took the right front wheel off and checked the pads/caliper for any signs of issues. Everything seems fine; and I didn't notice a huge temperature difference (by touch) between the left and right caliper bodies after a subsequent test drive. (The one time I did have a dragging caliper on another car, that caliper was blazing hot, along with all of the lug nuts.) Steering has exhibited no pulling to the right (or left).

Headlights on/off don't seem to affect this either - so it doesn't appear to be an electrical or related issue. And the results are basically the same day/night - so it's not merely the sun heating my black paint.

Both radiator fans are operating, at least at idle and when stopped, with A/C engaged. I got out and put a hand under each exit vent and felt plenty of warm air being moved down and out of each radiator cavity.

The car is not overheating or showing any signs of odd temperature behavior. In fact, if I wasn't checking the smoothness of my my recent wax job I would never have noticed that the fender was hot. Once I did notice, a quick comparison showed that the left (driver's side in USA) was far cooler.

So I'm wondering if there is a known explanation for this. Mostly I'm concerned that whatever is generating the heat might cause issues for things up in the wheel well, especially up under the liner.

It's a base model, so no 3rd radiator in the center.

I'll do a little more testing with slow, in-town driving tomorrow. I suppose it's possible that this is still a brake issue; but there are no really obvious signs pointing to that.

Open to any suggestions for cause and/or troubleshooting...or, if the right fenders on 986's just run hotter, somebody please tell me! I'm a little mystified by all of this, given that I have no recollection of this left vs right temp difference until yesterday - despite lots of car washes & waxes.