Aftermarket interior carpet - any experience?
 

So the carpet on my FC is pretty much FUBAR, its a horrible grey colour and stained in various places. Its 30 years old and ideally needs replacing.

Now in the UK we don't have anywhere near the aftermarket parts support you guys have in the states and no-one at home makes a new carpet.

I notice on Rockauto (who post world wide), there are several brands of carpets offered.

1988 MAZDA RX-7 1.3L R2 Flooring | RockAuto

2 Cutpile carpets with Dupont yarn, either with or without sound and mass dampening.

And Essex super plush carpet, again either with or without sound deadening.

I was wondering if anyone had experience of the quality or fit of any of those options?

All of those carpets appear to be ACC carpets. That being the case, I'd just offer a warning that for the price they are acceptable when compared to the exorbitant OEM prices. However, fitment is terrible. If this is your first carpet project then you may end up very frustrated. From the factory the folds and creases don't line up. There are missing mold humps for the seat brackets, excess material in some places and not enough material in others. For example, the rear hatch corners in my case were about 2" too short at the floor!

With grey I doubt you'd have much of an issue however in my case the maroon was more like bright red, multiple shades brighter than OEM.

FWIW, I had a customer who ran a restoration supply shop that stopped carrying ACC carpets for anything but muscle cars because the quality generated so many complaints and returns.

Aaron,

Did you make the ACC carpet work or find another solution for your needs?

Regards,

Rob

I used the ACC carpet. It was my first carpet install which didn't help and it took well over a week to shape, trim and secure it as best I could to hide any creases under seats or in other non visible areas. You can see the install starting at the bottom of this page:
Project Tina, August 6th: Fan Controller, Brakes, Suspension and Interior

Thanks for the feedback.

I think I'll do my best to recover the stock carpet then, it seems pointless to go to the trouble of importing a carpet of questionable quality. Hopefully after a good shampoo and some black dye, it will look presentable.

Now I don't know if this will help much but I have found these guy when I was looking a while back.
Mazda RX7 Carpet Molded Interior Replacement Kit

That's actually where I was looking to get mine when I finally start fixing up the hatch. Anyone have experience with those?

I purchased from them 2 years ago. Not a perfect fit, but good enough. Very close. Decent quality.

Anyone have any pictures of the excess/short comings of the aftermarket carpet installed?

Its just a huge pain to fit, install and cut and you have to go insanely slow to not screw it up. Pulling the carpet in and out of the car for cutting is like wrestling a bear in a bathroom stall. The quality of the ACC carpet itself is great, but the cutting/install process is horrid. It was 100% my least favorite part of my entire FD ownership. I eventually got fed up with it, tossed it into a local dumpster, and spent the $600 on a used LHD oem black carpet.

Skeese

A little bit of an update 10 years down the road after installing the ACC "maroon" carpet.

All the fitment issues I mentioned above still apply of course. Shortcomings in some areas, extra carpet in some, missing mold lines, etc.

After 10 years I am noticing some very significant fading where the carpet has been exposed to sun. This means that on the sunny side of the car, the carpet has faded many shades lighter and in some areas starting to appear even slightly orange/white. All my windows are tinted rather dark, beyond legal tint percentage which I would expect cuts down on the direct sunlight somewhat.

Not sure if the other colours would suffer the same fate. Probably not a big deal with lighter colours.

At some point I'll re-dye the areas that have faded but of course this is going to introduce the variable of trying to match the dye to the non-faded areas.

Rx7 Carpet.Com
 

www.RX7Carpet.com

https://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k...7/P3020278.jpg

https://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k...7/P3020279.jpg

https://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k...7/P3020284.jpg

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I didn't go for it in the end as once I thought about it, buying a USDM carpet makes no sense as UK cars are RHD.
The reinforced area normally in front of the driver would be in front of the passenger instead.