A Buyers Guide to Enthuze Floor Liners and Floor Mats
Friday, October 9, 2020
With so many options for floor liners and floor mats out there, it’s easy to get confused! How do you know which of our Enthuze products is best for you? Read on and we’ll break down the options for you.
Floor Mats vs Floor Liners: What’s the Difference?
Although lots of people use the terms floor mats and floor liners interchangeably, there is a distinction between the two.
Floor mats have a different shape. They’re flat and only cover a certain portion of the vehicle’s floor. While they can protect against spills and liquids, they’re also a great and inexpensive option for protecting your vehicle interior against wear and tear.
Floor liners are larger, so they offer your vehicle’s floor more protection. They usually have a raised lip to contain spills. A lot of them have custom designs to fit your vehicle’s specific interior.
What’s A Floor Mat?
Our floor mats are designed to cover specific areas of your vehicle against spills, dirt, debris, and other materials that can get into your interior carpeting. Your Enthuze floor mat’s job is to protect your vehicle’s floor against these things, so you can have a nicer looking car with higher resale value too.
Floor mats are usually available in three different types of materials: carpet, rubber, and thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) –also known as thermoplastic rubber. So you want one of our Enthuze floor mats. Then which of these materials are best for your car? Let’s break down the options for you below:
Carpet Floor Mats are a stylish, comfortable option that matches the floor of your vehicle. However, they get dirty easily and are prone to staining, so you’ll have to clean them often. Because they get dirty quickly, they might not be the best option for those with children.
Rubber Floor Mats are easy to clean and stain-resistant but are usually more expensive than carpet floor mats. They usually designed as universal fits, so you can get floor mats for cars and trucks, regardless of what you drive. But their universal fitting means they don’t give you as much protection from stains and spills. They don’t have as many custom options and are usually only available in brown or black.
Thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) Mats are made of a combination of plastic and rubber. This gives them the flexibility of rubber, plus the ease of cleaning and durability of plastic. They’re good at maintaining their shape without getting stretched or warped, giving them a long lifespan.
Installing
One of the upsides to floor mats is that they are easy to install. Simply remove any old floor mats you may already have and put the new car mats in their place – no special tools are required. If you bought a set of floor mats, they usually include a driver’s side, passenger side, and two rear seat floor mats. The driver’s side floor mat usually comes with a shape cut out at the top right so it doesn’t interfere with the gas pedal. It’s very important to make sure your floor mat doesn’t interfere with your gas pedal, brake pedal, or clutch! Be sure to check your mats frequently to make sure they haven’t moved. The passenger side floor mat doesn’t have this shape, so it’s easy to distinguish the two. The two rear seat floor mats can go on either side.
Some floor mats include a small hole with a metal circle. If you have an anchor hook on the floor of your car, you can put it through this metal hole to keep it from slipping. Not every mat includes a hole for an anchor hook but might have other methods to keep them in place.
Care and Maintenance
Floor mats are durable and should last as long as your vehicle does, but in order to keep them looking good, it’s important to clean them frequently. To clean them, you should take them out of your vehicle and vacuum up any debris. Rubber or TBE floormats can be hosed down and scrubbed with an interior car cleaning liquid, then left out to air dry. Carpet floor mats usually have special instructions. You can use a vacuum to clean up loose dirt and then use a scrub brush for the most effective cleaning. Like rubber or TBE floormats, they should be left out to air dry before putting them back in your car.
What Are Floor Liners?
Floor liners are a little different than floor mats. They’re usually made out of a plastic/rubber material called thermoplastic elastomer (TBE), which is a material mentioned in our floor mats section. Unlike floor mats, which are one size fits all, our Enthuze floor liners are usually designed with a specific vehicle in mind and cover the entirety of your vehicle’s floor, including cargo liners or third-row floor liners for your vehicle’s rear. Many floor mats usually have raised edges to contain spills.
Types of Floor Liners
Each Enthuze floor liner is unique, but the one thing they all have in common is that they’re all made of some sort of form-fitting plastic/rubber hybrid to fit your vehicle type. This material also makes them completely waterproof and allows them to keep their shape in extremely warm or cold temperatures. What sorts of materials are used in our Enthuze floor liners? The different types of materials are as follows:
TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer) is a combination of plastic and rubber that has both plastic and rubber materials. This means they’re flexible, easy to clean, stain-resistant, and can be formed into any shape and keep that shape. They have long lifespans and can hold up to a wide variety of temperatures and abuse.
TPO (Thermoplastic Olefin) is a polymer/filler blend that uses a mix of thermoplastic and filler material. TOP is UV resistant and doesn’t degrade from sun damage, so it’s an ideal material for floor liners.
Polyethylene (PE) is the most common plastic material and a thermoplastic. It’s inexpensive but very durable.
Polypropylene (PP) is a thermoplastic polymer. It’s similar to polyethylene but a little harder and more resistant to heat. Compared to Polyethylene it’s the second most commonly used plastic because it’s very durable. It even stands up to chemical solvents! They usually have a surface that’s easy to clean but becomes slippery when wet. This material is also more susceptible to fading and oxidation, so it may take on a chalky white appearance the longer you have it.
How To Install Floor Liners.
Floor liners are easy to install. Just remove any stickers or packaging from your floor liner. If it has a safety label, you can put it in your owner’s manual for safekeeping. Clean it with a heavy-duty vacuum. Make sure to identify which side of the car each floor liner should go on. Then you should attach the floor liners using factory-installed retention hooks, or hooks that were packaged with your floor liner. Make sure to check that your liners don’t overlap with your brake, gas, or clutch pedals, and then you should be good to go!
Care and Maintenance For Floor Liners
Our Enthuze floor liners are so popular because cleaning them is a snap! You should make sure to clean your floor liners every time you wash your car. To clean your floor liners, you can detach your liners from their hooks. Make sure to lift them off the floor without spilling any debris in your vehicle. Once the liners are removed, you can shake them to remove any loose dirt, then spray them down with a garden hose or spray gun from the local car wash. If neither of these is available to you, a bucket and water are fine. Scrub the floor liner with a soft sponge and mild detergent (dish soap is recommended), because more abrasive chemicals can damage your floor liner. From there, rinse them with water to remove the suds and either air dry or towel dry them. After that, you can reattach them to their hooks, similar to when you first installed them. Just make sure they’re not interfering with any pedals!
And there you have it! Whether you’re looking at floor liners, floor mats, or deciding between the two, now you know a little more about the different options when shopping with Enthuze. We offer a huge variety of floor protection for cars and trucks, so no matter what choice you make, we can guarantee you’re getting a top-quality product from Enthuze!
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