[jagizzi]

I have a lot of faith in VHB tape but I also understand that things fail, over time, with weather, sun and heat exposure. I chose an adhesive with a mechanical backup based on those thoughts and some personal experience.

I have always had rain guards on each of my three Ford F-150's. Ford parts with preinstalled VHB tape on the guards. Each truck had 4 guards for a total of 12 over the years. One of them came off of the truck going down the highway. The tape was on the truck but the guard had come away from the tape and left the vehicle. Poor surface prep on the part of a factory I am sure.

My techs used VHB tape for simple window handle installs in my service department for Yachts and boats. Almost always we had no problems, customers were happy and we never saw them again once the handles were reinstalled but...there were several times that the handles came away from the tape and we had to do the job over. Poor install conditions most certainly in one case and bad surface prep in another that i can remember.

A factory install failure and several failures on a low stress part convinced me that I would prefer to have a mechanical fastener as a safety backup. My choice, based on my experience. Was something done incorrectly with regards to surface prep or install conditions (temp, humidity etc) with the VHB tape, most certainly. This makes any spec for bonding strength invalid.

This was my thought process for my install.