Finding the best Floor Mats for your Vehicle

From 3arf

Floormats are not an absolute necessity for a vehicle, but they go a long ways in protecting the flooring areas of your car or truck. In fact, regardless of what you drive, almost every new vehicle sold will come equipped with them. Without floormats, the carpeted portion of the floor becomes vulnerable to whatever collects on the bottoms of your shoes or feet.

Wherever you've been, remnants of where you've walked will accumulate on your footwear and rub off onto the floor. This can include dirt, water, mud (a combination of both), snow, grass, sand, and anything that can stain the fabric, such as oil or even animal droppings. Other unwanted additions to a vehicle's carpeting can include spills from food or beverages and, should you or one of your passengers get an upset stomach, even vomit! Any combination of these or other substances can ruin a carpet in no time, and floormats were designed to help protect that flooring, just as a mats or rugs in doorways do for indoor areas.

For whatever reason, brand new cars will oftentimes have their floormats sealed in plastic and hidden away in the trunk. This seems a bit odd when considering that several different people will likely test-drive such a vehicle before deciding to buy it, so why wouldn't the dealership want to keep the interior carpeting as clean as possible? The justification, of course, is to keep those floormats new until someone purchases the car, but one would think that the floor inside the car itself would be given priority. Some sellers realize this and they'll at least place a protective sheet of paper over the driver's section of the floor. Many repair shops will do the same, and that's with well-used cars to boot.

At any rate, just about any new car's standard factory floormats have one thing in common: They are all made of cloth. Sometimes, they'll come with a rubber backing, but the top (where you place your feet) will be made of felt or cloth. Others will be constructed completely of cloth. If you want the best advice, get rid of them and buy floormats made completely of rubber. While cloth floormats will protect the carpeting underneath, they will show wear in a very short period of time and as a result, look bad. They will stain just as the carpeting underneath would in their absence, and they tend to progressively deteriorate each time you run them through a washing machine. You could wash them by hand instead, but it would be very time-consuming, and in time, they still won't hold up.

All-rubber mats, on the other hand, are very easy to wash by hand, and thus they will still look new for many years. All you need to do is remove them from the car, place them in the driveway, apply soap, and spray them down with a garden hose. Another option is to take your car to a self-service car wash, remove the mats, and clean them with their high-pressure hose. In either case, rubber mats are far easier to keep looking good, and they also do a far better job of trapping outdoor elements that get attached to your feet. Some rubber floormats will even have ridges and crevices built into them to trap water before it can spill to the floor that lies below.

Many car manufacturers make heavy-duty rubber floormats that are model-specific and thus ensure a perfect fit. They are usually on the car's option list of interior accessories. The main drawback to this is that they are typically grossly overpriced. It's not uncommon to see a $100 or higher price tag on such factory rubber mats. There are also aftermarket auto suppliers that carry floormats for specific makes and models, and their prices are a bit lower than what the dealerships will charge. Conversely, you can visit the automotive department at Wal Mart or any auto parts specialty store and get an entire set of four good quality rubber floormats for $30 or less. The only real difference in factory or aftermarket rubber mats and those in the chain stores is how they're cut. As mentioned above, aftermarket and factory mats are cut to exactly fit a specific make and model of vehicle while those at your neighborhood store have a universal shape. In almost every case, the universal shapes will work just fine, as long as you don't care about the driver's side and front passenger's sides of the floor being contoured differently. Universal mats will still cover them adequately with no problem. After all, where you place your feet is the issue. In fact, with universal mats, you can switch the front mats and rear mats respectively from the left side to the right after cleaning, and it won't matter.

It doesn't matter whether you live in a climate that experiences long, snowy winters or summer-like weather all year around. In either locale, rubber floormats are a far superior choice. They provide better protection for your vehicle's carpeting, are much easier to clean, and will retain their new looks for years.

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