Probably the most abused part of the interior of any car is its carpeting. Let’s face it, it gets dirty, it gets chemicals from your shoes, you scuff around on it as it moves and so on. That means even relatively late model cars are going to need replacement. Now is it a do it yourself? Yeah, could be, but there are some things you need to know. 

First, you need to buy molded carpeting such as we have here. This is molded so that fits around the curves. Flat carpeting, unless you’re an expert at cutting and trimming and so on you’re never going to get it to fit all the lumps and bumps on the inside of your car. 

Alright now, the molded carpeting, some of it will be like we have here. This has a rubberized back to deaden more sound… keep the inside of the car more livable. Some pieces of our kit came in actually two parts. The padding, which is separate from the carpeting itself… so you install it was two pieces.

Also you can upgrade, our kit has the heal rest for the pedals, the original did not. And here’s a trick, you may have to use a knife to trim the carpeting. And the thing you have the most problem with is really simple to overcome, and that’s finding the holes where the bolts go back through the carpeting. The trick is you take the bolts, you screw them back into the floor, and you leave them there… lay the carpeting… then use the knife to cut a cross over the bolt so they can be pulled up through the carpeting. That way you have the proper position for the holes for the bolts. 

We let the professionals and Paymer and Phillips, Maryland’s biggest trim and upholstery shop handle this job for us and here’s one of the reasons why. They have the tools and experience to handle any problems that may arise with the installation. And in our case, they applied steam to the rubber backing of the carpet to make it more pliable and to make it conform better to the shape of the wheel wells. That’s a nifty trick. They also reuse the backer board and padding for the tailgate and rear side panels and installed the new carpet on those. The carpet makes a nice finish to the interior of our restoration on the Jeep.

Now this could be a do it yourself project, but before you get into doing it yourself make sure you have all the tools necessary and you really know what’s involved, and that you have the capability of doing it yourself. And if you have a question or comment drop me a line right here at MotorWeek.