643Views
Your car floor mats are among the most important aspects of your vehicle and yet, you rarely spare a thought on them.
Actually, it is understandable. The car floor mats are under your feet. If you are a seasoned driver, you don’t even have to look at the pedals.
Your feet move naturally over various pedals like the accelerator or the clutch or the brakes. You may not look at your car floor mats for many days.
But it doesn’t mean your car floor mats are uninteresting. There are many facts about your car floor mats that you would like to know.
These facts can also act as myth busters. Knowing them well helps you keep your car floor mats in optimal condition.
It will also help you better understand why sometimes they begin to smell or deteriorate faster than you expect. Here are a few of them.
Mold can grow on your car floor mats
Yes, that annoying fungus that grows on your bread, fruits and even behind your wallpaper can also grow on your car floor mats. You can recognize it by the powdery stuff that begins to cover the various parts of your car floor mat.
Mold flourishes in damp conditions mixed with a warm environment. Your car is generally warm. During rains or snow, it also gets damp. A perfect condition for mold to originate and grow.
Although mold can take hold of any part of your car your floor mats are more liable to fall victim simply because you continuously bring dampness into the car through your shoes and slippers.
The warmth inside your car does the rest of the job. Sometimes, the dampness doesn’t even necessarily come from your shoes: it can hang in the air of your car and then settle on your car floor mats.
Hence, it is advised that you let your car ventilate sometimes. You can also get a humidifier if you can afford it.
But what do you do if your car floor mats fall victim to a mold attack?
The first instinct might be just to take out the car floor mats and put them under a very strong hose treatment. Strong water won’t blow away the mold. It clings to the microscopic gaps and openings in the floor mat material.
Use white vinegar. It is strong so you may like to distil it with tap water. Fill the concoction in a clean spray bottle. Then simply spray the mixture on the affected parts and scrub it with a cloth. This should do the trick.
You should also, regularly, put your car floor mats under the sun.
You need extra car floor mat layering if your pet travels with you
No matter how well-behaved Brownie is, he has got his own mind about how to behave in the car. He may shed involuntarily. He may like to scratch your floor mat to satisfy his urge to scratch.
He may also ease himself, unbeknownst to you, if for nothing else then just to mark his territory. He may develop a liking for chewing various parts of your floor mat.
The thing is a single layering of car floor mats cannot protect your carpeting from your pet’s onslaught.
We are not suggesting that you buy the same quality of car floor mats in pairs. You can buy high quality floor mats and put them directly on the carpeting.
On top of that, you can get a regular-quality car floor mat where your pet can do his thing. The lower quality car floor mat is easier to replace. Also, you don’t have to put it all the time. You can put it there only when Brownie is travelling with you.
Just make sure that you use a lower quality mat just for the back seat where the reign of your pet is limited.
Your shoes might be dirtier than you think
Wherever you go, your shoes collect things in the form of germs, bacteria, fungi, sludge, moisture, and all sorts of unseemly stuff you don’t want to think about.
One evening, just sit quietly and make a list of all the places you have visited wearing your shoes. All these places have given your shoes some part of them whether you have visited a public toilet, an abandoned site, an elevator, someone’s home, an office, a crime scene, pavements where people may have spat and animals may have peed and pooed, roads, parks, areas of wilderness, and other places. You get the point.
We conveniently like to assume that all these places are clean, or safely dirty. Or it is such an uncomfortable thought that we don’t want to spend much time thinking it.
The problem is, everything that gets stuck to the soles of your shoes, also gets deposited in various proportions on your car floor mat. You can just imagine the concoction that builds up on the surface of your car floor mats.
Accordingly, you can think how dirty or clean your car floor mat is, especially under the front seat.
There is a compelling reason why a car should have floor mats
Yes, many car owners purchase car floor mats for just their aesthetic value. They feel that since they have seen car floor mats in many cars, they should also have them. This develops a casual attitude towards car floor mats.
Floor mats are critical not just for the safety of your original carpeting that comes with your car when you purchase a car (or when you get it redone once it has been destroyed beyond redemption), it also keeps you safe.
Above we have talked about your feet skidding or slipping when trying to manoeuvre your car. Normal carpeting is not very successful in preventing your feet from slipping.
A floor mat gives you a firm footing. The backside of your foot digs firmly into the floor area while you are pressing various pedals. Then, your feet need firm support. This support is provided by a good quality car floor mat.
A floor mat also keeps your car clean simply because it is easier to clean a mat than the carpeting that comes with your car. Even if your floor mat is fitted using hooks, these hooks can be easily taken off and you can take your mat out and give it a good washing or even disinfected with whatever materials you have got.
For example, the 3D and 5D car floor mats that you get from MudSmart have raised corners. They act as scoops. If a child or anyone else spills a beverage, the raised edges of the car floor mat are going to prevent it from flowing under the seat or somewhere else. You can simply take the mat out and throw the liquid out. It is as simple as that.
Hence, a car floor mat isn’t just for athletics. It protects your car. It also protects its resale value.
Jim Lewis is worked as a Cadillac sales for several dealerships over many years. He is currently managing car dealerships, luxury cars and auto dealers Huntsville AL. He enjoys writing about brand’s vehicles and upcoming projects.
