forester floor mats: carpet or rubber ?

[damian]

I realise this is a trivial question, but given my car is brand new this is the sort of thing you deal with as opposed to head gaskets and such.

 

I am in Australia and I have a new forester. My ladyfriend wants to buy me mats for it for christmas. Aftermarket quality mats are $115, the dealer has carpet for $178 and rubber for $175. The question is which should we buy ?

 

I note in some other threads people mentioning older mats moving around. This is not good for obvious reasons.

 

So do the current subaru mats stay in place ? are they good quality ?

 

I really want one of those under floor trays the US and Canadian models come with but they don't seem able to supply them locally, which is annoying.

 

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Legacy777]

I'd recommend the mats from Subaru as they fit the car much better. I believe the mats have a little hook to keep them in place, at least in the front.

 

As for carpet or rubber....that's really up to you, and what you're going to do with the vehicle. I picked up a set of carpet mats on ebay a couple years ago, and then got a cheap set of clear rubber mats, cut them to match the factory mats and just placed them on top of the carpet to help keep the carpet clean.

 

The Subaru rubber ones are nice though. They have big channels for water and gunk to collect. Cleaning is easy.

Edited December 7, 2009 by Legacy777

[damian]

Thank you for the reply.

 

The aftermarket ones have many spikes to dig into the carpet. They ahve channells to allow cutting to size, but they look a little er...

 

I'll look at the subaru ones before making a decision. It'll come down to which I think will best stay put.

 

Again thank you for the thoughts.

[subaru360]

I have both the subaru carpet ones and the subaru rubber ones. I like the rubber so much that the carpet ones have been sitting in the basement since I got the rubber.

[damian]

I saw the subaru ones last friday. I was surprised that they really weren't that great, given the price.

 

I bought a set of aftermarket rubberwith carpet patches. They fit nicely, seem to be good quality and $40 was a lot cheaper than $175.

 

If subaru expect that money they really have to improve the offering.

 

Anyway thank you for the responses.

 

Now I need some seat covers that accomodate the air bags...