i'm putting together an 88 T2, and the carpet is ok, but really faded, and i wonder if anyone has tried to re dye the carpet? its blue. pretty common for the 1st gen people to redo the red, but those didn't come in blue

 

I can tell you from recent experience to not use the spray cans. I took the carpet out, vacuumed, scrubbed clean, rinsed, let it dry, and rubbed the paint in the a bristled brush. Looked great for 3 months and now it's fading.

 

get a replacement carpet you can have it swapped out in 1/2 hour no need to take the dash out

 

I heard good things about the Rustoleum fabric and vinyl paint though it can make the carpet a bit stiff.

 

i used duplicolor vinyl and fabric paint, but it was black, and i figure it will need to be reapplied periodically(was not the actual floor carpet but the headliners and rear strut carpets). it also does leave a stiff layer on the fabric but it looks like new!

best thing to do is get a huge tub of warm water, and dye it properly, with actual dye. wear gloves...

 

If I was going to dye the carpet, I would call Dharma Trading Co. Homepage and see if they had any thoughts. Since they live to dye, they may have products or techniques that will give you better results than grocery store Rit dye.

 

^
I see what you did there

 

I am 99% sure you CAN NOT dye the carpet. I tried. I filled up my tub with black dye and let the carpet soak for 2-3 days. The fabric did not change color at all. I think this type of fabric doesnt actually hold liquid like its some type of plastic. The foam was black but the carpet stayed burgundy.

 

well we will see how my spray on job holds up, so far so good.

 

Hopefully yours holds up. Mine wore off within a couple months and I prepped the carpet properly too. I also used to daily the car. That makes a huge difference in wear.

 

yep, well the other thing is the parts i dyed aren't areas that get much use.

 

That definitely makes makes a difference. I figured I would dye the front carpet instead of paying hundreds of dollars for an actual used black carpet. Did you dye the headliner? I picked up up a full black interior minus headliner and A pillars. Unsure of how well the dye will hold up on those parts.

 

headliner and the 2 carpets that cover the rear strut towers, since the S4 only had 1 car with black interior which was the 10th AE many of the S4 parts just don't exist or won't fit from an S5.

Latex paint works great on plastic, but this time i went a different route since i wanted the plastic to have a perfect matte semi gloss finish. the interior looks OEM, but i haven't gotten around to swapping the front carpet and dash yet.

oh, and i am going to try it on the seat belts which will be a better test for it.

 

Yeah. The black interior I picked up was from an s5. Everything swaps in to my s4 minus the headliner and a pillars. I figured I can dye my headliner. If I really wanted, I could reupholster it. I really don't want to though.

 

A+B, headliner and the rear carpet is slightly too narrow as well, so like 2/3 of the interior won't interchange. lol

luckily i had a 10th AE rear carpet.

 

I personally used RIT dye on the main front carpet and then followed up with the Rustoleum Fabric and Vinyl paint. The dye actually stuck, but made the carpet a deep, dark purple (carpet was blue). What I did was clean the carpet aggressively on my patio with carpet shampoo and a garden hose. I then bought a weed sprayer from Home Depot and filled it with HOT HOT water, a splash of white vinegar and several packets of RIT dye. Sprayed the carpet while scrubbing it in with a stiff brush. Let it sit out in the sun and continually soaked it and scrubbed it. Rinsed it with the garden hose and used a shop vac to dry it out. After it was dry, sprayed it with the fabric and vinyl paint while scrubbing the carpet to avoid the paint from stiffening the bristles. Came out killer and a nice black. I didn't get the RIT dye to stick to the rear carpets though. So far I have not been able to install the carpet yet, but it was still soft and black after over a year of sitting.

 

Weird. My S5 rear carpet fit perfectly. Although, I installed the s5 carpet that goes around the shock towers as well. What part is too short?

I didn't feel like painting everything so I just modified my s5 sails to fit. Cut a 2 clips off and install in a lower position as well as drill a hole for the seatbelt and your set.

 

i suppose they work as a pair for the B pillars, i didn't want to try and figure out how to make the belt pass through the seam. i believe there was other issues as well such as the rear shock tower carpets not lining up correctly so you'd need both B-pillars for each side and the rear shock tower carpets, which i did not have.

seemed every time i'd put a black S5 piece on i was missing something and had to wind up just reusing almost everything i had.

the carpet itself was narrower just behind the seats, however refer back to what i said about the S5 shock tower carpet being slightly wider which woulda covered this small gap.




S5 A pillars won't work: mousetrack belts
S5 B pillar upper and lower: need to be modified for belt to pass through, also requires S5 shock tower carpet
S5 headliner: too narrow, refer to mousetrack belts
S5 hatch carpet: slightly too narrow, requires S5 shock tower carpet and both B pillar trim panels


it all ties together and can be quite frustruating if you don't have all the corresponding parts. most of the rest not listed is identical to S4, could even put a rear cargo cover in the S4 if you got all those parts.

 

Gotcha. Just dyed the headliner today with duplicolor and it came out great. The grad liner material takes the paint in much better than the carpet did