Half a year ago, I jumped in on a NSX-carpet buy from TFEnt. I bought the carpet in the dark red color because I wanted to accent the red * black of my car.
All this time, I was a little anxious about the time and labor involved in installing the carpet, but last week, I decided it was time to finally start with this project. Also decided to do a DIY on it so others can benefit from what I have learned.
First, for starters, here are a couple of pictures with the car how it was. I had already purchased some red floor mats which already made a difference.
And here is the interior with the floormats removed
Here is the install-story.
First, you have to remove the seats. To do this, move the seat fully forward. The seat rails are fixed with four 14-mm bolts. The two rear bolts are covered with plastic tabs. Remove the tabs and then remove the two bolts.
Then, move the seat back fully upward up and the seat all the way back. The front two bolts are mounted at an angle and are usually more or less hidded beneath a piece of carpet. Using a long wrench to remove the bolts.
Make sure your seat is fully backwards. Then, carefully, lift up the seat and disconnect the seat connector. Now, you still have to remove the seatbelt. If you put a towel over the seat sill, you can rest the seat rail on that. Remove the tab that covers the seat belt bolt and then use a 17mm wrench to take it out.
Now you can lift the seat out of the car. With the rails fully retracted this is not a difficult thing to do.
This is what your car will look like. Repeat the process for your other seat as well. If you have the mountpoints for the floor mats installed, remove those as well.
Now, on the drivers side, remove the foot rest and the gas pedal rest. Both are fixed with two 10mm bolts.
On the drivers side, pull off the fuel door lever from its metal stud. Then, remove the side sill pad by slapping it upward.
Remove the cover from the cabin fuse box. Then, remove the screws holding the side sill trim on the drivers and pull it off. I could not get the forward passengers side sill trim screw off, but I found that I could get the carpet out if I just lifted the trim panel slightly, so I just left it like that
Take off the rear upper trim panel by pulling it off. Don't just yank the stuff off, just slide your fingers over the edge and pull towards you.
Next, pull off the rear trim panels. These are also just clipped on. The side trim panels are fixed with two screws each. Remove these. The passenger side will just come off easily.
Now, remove the engine hatch lever. DO NOT TRY TO JUST PULL IT OFF. It is fixed with a clevis pin, so just pulling it will not work. If you push the side trim panel inwards just a little, you can get to the clevis pin quite easy. Then, remove the rear side trim panel.
This is what your car will look like now
Now, you can pull out the floor carpet. Near the side sill, it is fixed with metal staples, so take care not to get hurt there.
This is what the floor carpets look like.
Forward view of the drivers site foot well
To remove the console carpet, you have to take out the console first. I am not going to describe that because that has been done before. Just make sure you don't damage the finish of your console, don't break any clips and make sure you disconnect all connectors. In my case, I had a little more difficulty because I have the console panel with the four connectors as well as my Clifford alarm there.
The console carpet is fixed with two push pins beneach the center console box. You can just push these out. Also, the console carpet it hooked up to two screws INSIDE the console on two plastic tabs stapled to the carpet. I used a pair of pliers to get to the tabs and then pry them off by twisting the tab carefully.
Now, put your contact on, activate your airconditioning and put it on window defrost. Switch of your contact.
The reason for this is that on the passengers side, a rotating part of the airco will partially cover up the air vent there. And if you put the airco on defrost, it will rotate nicely out of sight :smile:
On the passenger side, remove the one screw there.
Now you can pull down on the console carpet and take it off. It might be a bit diffult near the subwoofer but it should come out with some twisting and pulling anyway. This is what your car will look like now.
Not a very pretty sight is it.
Each console carpet part has a plastic vent attached to it by several metal clips. You need to remove these.
Unfortunately, I was unable to take of the clips without braking off the plastic tabs. I tried to use a Dremel tool to cut through the clips, but this just melted the plastic. In the end, I ended up with a bunch of broken off clips that where no good anymore. But it should be possible by working a little more cautiously.
If you look at the console carpet, you will notice that the carpet is actually fixed to a carton like material. The new carpet is just carpet. So, I just glued on the new carpet on top of the old using a can of spray glue. I put the new carpet on top of the old, sprayed both side with the glue and then pressed the carpet on, starting from one side and 'rolling' the new carpet onto the old.
Immediately, I used my feet and weight to firmly press the two pieces together, making sure there were no wrinkles. The new carpet is a bit oversized, so doing this should not be too much of a problem.
When the glue is dry, cut out the openings for the vents. Since I had broken my clips, I glued on the vent on the drivers side with some contact glue, using a clamp to get a good fit. I did not worry much about the passengers side since you will use a screw to fix it in place anyway.
Now, make sure you cut the new carpet along the edges of the old one. Your center console is only so high and if the carpet is taller than that, you will not get it really upright. However, do not cut off too much. You can always cut off more once the carpet is in the car, but you cannot glue it back on :smile:
Now, put in the passenger side carpet against the console and slide the upper edge INSIDE your center console. This might be a little hard. The new carpet is thicker than the OEM stuff and with both glued together, the package is certainly thicker. This is also one of the reasons why you need to cut it neatly.
Now, with a pair of pliers, pull up the plastic tab sticking up inside the center console and hook it up over the screw again. Don't pull too hard, cause you can pull the tab off.
When you have the tab in place, you can also push the plastic push pins back.
Fit the carpet nice and smooth behind the rear center trim panel. Also, make sure the carpet does not curl up too much in the foot well.
Now, repeat the process for the drivers side. Since I had broken of the tabs from the plastic vents, I had to install one part of the vent on the drivers side seperately. This is what the vent opening looks like. After that, you can put up the
You can just push in the loose vent piece and it will stay put pretty well. Like this:
Now, put in the driver side console carpet in the same way as you sued for the passenges side.
Cut off any excess carpet off where necessary to make for a smooth fit.
The new carpet came with padding material. The OEM carpet has a foam backing where your feet are. I cut the padding in such a way that only the front of the cabin would get any. There is no reason for padding beneath the seats in my opinion.
Now, put in the new carpet. You will already have noticed that the new carpet is heavier than the OEM carpet and also thicker. It is also pre-formed with a bottom that is also shaped to fit the center raised portion of the cabin. Put in the carpet in such a way that especially this raised portion fits just right. Now, flatten the carpet backword and forward and to the sides as much as possible to get a good pre-fit. I used a round wooded dovel to this. You can also use your fist of course.
Once you get a pretty good fit, cut a slit in the carpet and pull the connector for the seat through. Now, shape the carpet around the corners and under the rear trim panels to get a smooth fit. I had to cut off quite a bit becaue the carpet is a bit oversized and covered up the holes for the rear side end center trim panel. Also, since it is pretty thick, it is sometimes difficult to avoid wrinkles at first. With some patience however, it should work out quite nicely.
Once the rear part of the carpet fitted ok, I first cut out all the parts near the side sill to make sure the fit there was ok.
With a pair of pliers I straightened all the staples so they were sticking up. The new carpet was too thick to get all the way through to the carpet, but you can 'stick it on' using a flat bladed screwdriver.
Next, I moved to the front. Here also, patience is the key. There is not much room to move around and many times I found myself lying on the carpet with my legs pulled up, trying to get the carpet in place using blows with the wooden dowel or simply using my hands.
I found the difficult parts to be the part were the floor carpet and the upper center console meet tricky and also the area near the door opening difficult. Actually, I cut a slit in the carpet there which is just a bit too deep to make for a perfect fit.
With the carpet in place, I used my fingers to locate the places where I needed to cut the holes for the seat mounting bolts. In my case, I made the mistake to cut out complete rectangular pieces so these opening now always remain visible. Instead, I should have created flaps that you can move aside to get to the bolts but which will normally cover up the bolts for a nicer look and fit.
Now, I still had to get the air vent on the passenger side in place. Lying upside down, I pushed the carpet all the way in and then pressed the vent opening into the airduct. Once the screw holes lined up correctly, I screwed the vent back in place.
Now, I moved to the drivers side. Because of the amount of carpet I had to cut, I decided to play smart. I put the new carpet on top of the old one and cut off all the excess carpet I could find. Also, in the front, the driver's side as cut outs for the steering column, the foot and gas pedal rest.
BE VERY CAREFULL if you decide to do this. In the end, the holes I cut out for the gas pedal rest were located wrongly.
I would not try this procedure again but just put the carpet in and cut where needed. Again, put in the carpet, make sure the center rib is placed correctly, cut a slit for the seat connector and work from rear to front.
I spend a lot of time getting the carpet near the footrest, steering and pedals right. You don't want your carpet to interfere with your pedals while driving or getting your feet stuck there because a piece of carpet decides to curl up in the wrong moment. My new carpet was fairly oversized in front so it tended to bunch up way to much. I worked from the outside to the inside. Once I had the fitment pretty much figured out, I put the foot rest back in place and then the gas pedal rest back in place.
You can see in the picture how my pre-cut hole for the gas pedal rest turned out to be located in the wrong place. Still have to fix that by glueing an small extra piece underneath that.
Now, with the carpet in place, the car finally starts to look a little bit more decent again.
First, I put in all the rear trim panels. First the side rear trim panels, then the center panel and finally the top trim panel. Reattach the engine hatch lever.
Then, I screwed the screws from the side trim sill trim panel back in and then the side sill pads. The side sill pads are held by metal clips which are clicked in placed and which hold the pads by sticky teeth from the clips. Often, when you take off the sill pads, the metal clips also come out. If so, pry the clips loose with a small screwdriver and put them in their place again. ONLY then, but on the sill pads and click them in place using your hands. Make sure the door trim is correctly in place also of course.
Next, I put back in place the center console and the center armrest. Starts looking like a real car again don't you agree?
Now, you have to remount the seats. Again, but in the seat half way and let it rest on the side sill with some protection. Attach the seat belt. MAKE SURE the seatbelt is not mounted in a twisted way.
Reattach the seat connector. Since you've moved the seat all the way back, you put in the front bolts first. Don't tighten them completely yet. Now, move the seats forward and put in the rear bolts. Now, tighten all the bolts and put the plastic rear bolt covers back in place. With both seats in place, you are finally finished.
Well, not exactly yet !! I still have to cut out two small pieces of carpet to glue on to the left and right front side sill trim panel.
Anyway, this this is what my interior now looks like. I think it really makes a difference :smile:
In the end, the whole project lasted a week, working only in the evenings. I took it easy because I had never done this before. Also took quite a few breaks since you are working upside down often in awkward positions.
In all, it took me about fourteen (14) hours, which was a bit longer than expected.
I would not consider my job 100% because I made a few mistakes, but the end result is quite ok.
All this time, I was a little anxious about the time and labor involved in installing the carpet, but last week, I decided it was time to finally start with this project. Also decided to do a DIY on it so others can benefit from what I have learned.
First, for starters, here are a couple of pictures with the car how it was. I had already purchased some red floor mats which already made a difference.
And here is the interior with the floormats removed
Here is the install-story.
First, you have to remove the seats. To do this, move the seat fully forward. The seat rails are fixed with four 14-mm bolts. The two rear bolts are covered with plastic tabs. Remove the tabs and then remove the two bolts.
Then, move the seat back fully upward up and the seat all the way back. The front two bolts are mounted at an angle and are usually more or less hidded beneath a piece of carpet. Using a long wrench to remove the bolts.
Make sure your seat is fully backwards. Then, carefully, lift up the seat and disconnect the seat connector. Now, you still have to remove the seatbelt. If you put a towel over the seat sill, you can rest the seat rail on that. Remove the tab that covers the seat belt bolt and then use a 17mm wrench to take it out.
Now you can lift the seat out of the car. With the rails fully retracted this is not a difficult thing to do.
This is what your car will look like. Repeat the process for your other seat as well. If you have the mountpoints for the floor mats installed, remove those as well.
Now, on the drivers side, remove the foot rest and the gas pedal rest. Both are fixed with two 10mm bolts.
On the drivers side, pull off the fuel door lever from its metal stud. Then, remove the side sill pad by slapping it upward.
Remove the cover from the cabin fuse box. Then, remove the screws holding the side sill trim on the drivers and pull it off. I could not get the forward passengers side sill trim screw off, but I found that I could get the carpet out if I just lifted the trim panel slightly, so I just left it like that
Take off the rear upper trim panel by pulling it off. Don't just yank the stuff off, just slide your fingers over the edge and pull towards you.
Next, pull off the rear trim panels. These are also just clipped on. The side trim panels are fixed with two screws each. Remove these. The passenger side will just come off easily.
Now, remove the engine hatch lever. DO NOT TRY TO JUST PULL IT OFF. It is fixed with a clevis pin, so just pulling it will not work. If you push the side trim panel inwards just a little, you can get to the clevis pin quite easy. Then, remove the rear side trim panel.
This is what your car will look like now
Now, you can pull out the floor carpet. Near the side sill, it is fixed with metal staples, so take care not to get hurt there.
This is what the floor carpets look like.
Forward view of the drivers site foot well
To remove the console carpet, you have to take out the console first. I am not going to describe that because that has been done before. Just make sure you don't damage the finish of your console, don't break any clips and make sure you disconnect all connectors. In my case, I had a little more difficulty because I have the console panel with the four connectors as well as my Clifford alarm there.
The console carpet is fixed with two push pins beneach the center console box. You can just push these out. Also, the console carpet it hooked up to two screws INSIDE the console on two plastic tabs stapled to the carpet. I used a pair of pliers to get to the tabs and then pry them off by twisting the tab carefully.
Now, put your contact on, activate your airconditioning and put it on window defrost. Switch of your contact.
The reason for this is that on the passengers side, a rotating part of the airco will partially cover up the air vent there. And if you put the airco on defrost, it will rotate nicely out of sight :smile:
On the passenger side, remove the one screw there.
Now you can pull down on the console carpet and take it off. It might be a bit diffult near the subwoofer but it should come out with some twisting and pulling anyway. This is what your car will look like now.
Not a very pretty sight is it.
Each console carpet part has a plastic vent attached to it by several metal clips. You need to remove these.
Unfortunately, I was unable to take of the clips without braking off the plastic tabs. I tried to use a Dremel tool to cut through the clips, but this just melted the plastic. In the end, I ended up with a bunch of broken off clips that where no good anymore. But it should be possible by working a little more cautiously.
If you look at the console carpet, you will notice that the carpet is actually fixed to a carton like material. The new carpet is just carpet. So, I just glued on the new carpet on top of the old using a can of spray glue. I put the new carpet on top of the old, sprayed both side with the glue and then pressed the carpet on, starting from one side and 'rolling' the new carpet onto the old.
Immediately, I used my feet and weight to firmly press the two pieces together, making sure there were no wrinkles. The new carpet is a bit oversized, so doing this should not be too much of a problem.
When the glue is dry, cut out the openings for the vents. Since I had broken my clips, I glued on the vent on the drivers side with some contact glue, using a clamp to get a good fit. I did not worry much about the passengers side since you will use a screw to fix it in place anyway.
Now, make sure you cut the new carpet along the edges of the old one. Your center console is only so high and if the carpet is taller than that, you will not get it really upright. However, do not cut off too much. You can always cut off more once the carpet is in the car, but you cannot glue it back on :smile:
Now, put in the passenger side carpet against the console and slide the upper edge INSIDE your center console. This might be a little hard. The new carpet is thicker than the OEM stuff and with both glued together, the package is certainly thicker. This is also one of the reasons why you need to cut it neatly.
Now, with a pair of pliers, pull up the plastic tab sticking up inside the center console and hook it up over the screw again. Don't pull too hard, cause you can pull the tab off.
When you have the tab in place, you can also push the plastic push pins back.
Fit the carpet nice and smooth behind the rear center trim panel. Also, make sure the carpet does not curl up too much in the foot well.
Now, repeat the process for the drivers side. Since I had broken of the tabs from the plastic vents, I had to install one part of the vent on the drivers side seperately. This is what the vent opening looks like. After that, you can put up the
You can just push in the loose vent piece and it will stay put pretty well. Like this:
Now, put in the driver side console carpet in the same way as you sued for the passenges side.
Cut off any excess carpet off where necessary to make for a smooth fit.
The new carpet came with padding material. The OEM carpet has a foam backing where your feet are. I cut the padding in such a way that only the front of the cabin would get any. There is no reason for padding beneath the seats in my opinion.
Now, put in the new carpet. You will already have noticed that the new carpet is heavier than the OEM carpet and also thicker. It is also pre-formed with a bottom that is also shaped to fit the center raised portion of the cabin. Put in the carpet in such a way that especially this raised portion fits just right. Now, flatten the carpet backword and forward and to the sides as much as possible to get a good pre-fit. I used a round wooded dovel to this. You can also use your fist of course.
Once you get a pretty good fit, cut a slit in the carpet and pull the connector for the seat through. Now, shape the carpet around the corners and under the rear trim panels to get a smooth fit. I had to cut off quite a bit becaue the carpet is a bit oversized and covered up the holes for the rear side end center trim panel. Also, since it is pretty thick, it is sometimes difficult to avoid wrinkles at first. With some patience however, it should work out quite nicely.
Once the rear part of the carpet fitted ok, I first cut out all the parts near the side sill to make sure the fit there was ok.
With a pair of pliers I straightened all the staples so they were sticking up. The new carpet was too thick to get all the way through to the carpet, but you can 'stick it on' using a flat bladed screwdriver.
Next, I moved to the front. Here also, patience is the key. There is not much room to move around and many times I found myself lying on the carpet with my legs pulled up, trying to get the carpet in place using blows with the wooden dowel or simply using my hands.
I found the difficult parts to be the part were the floor carpet and the upper center console meet tricky and also the area near the door opening difficult. Actually, I cut a slit in the carpet there which is just a bit too deep to make for a perfect fit.
With the carpet in place, I used my fingers to locate the places where I needed to cut the holes for the seat mounting bolts. In my case, I made the mistake to cut out complete rectangular pieces so these opening now always remain visible. Instead, I should have created flaps that you can move aside to get to the bolts but which will normally cover up the bolts for a nicer look and fit.
Now, I still had to get the air vent on the passenger side in place. Lying upside down, I pushed the carpet all the way in and then pressed the vent opening into the airduct. Once the screw holes lined up correctly, I screwed the vent back in place.
Now, I moved to the drivers side. Because of the amount of carpet I had to cut, I decided to play smart. I put the new carpet on top of the old one and cut off all the excess carpet I could find. Also, in the front, the driver's side as cut outs for the steering column, the foot and gas pedal rest.
BE VERY CAREFULL if you decide to do this. In the end, the holes I cut out for the gas pedal rest were located wrongly.
I would not try this procedure again but just put the carpet in and cut where needed. Again, put in the carpet, make sure the center rib is placed correctly, cut a slit for the seat connector and work from rear to front.
I spend a lot of time getting the carpet near the footrest, steering and pedals right. You don't want your carpet to interfere with your pedals while driving or getting your feet stuck there because a piece of carpet decides to curl up in the wrong moment. My new carpet was fairly oversized in front so it tended to bunch up way to much. I worked from the outside to the inside. Once I had the fitment pretty much figured out, I put the foot rest back in place and then the gas pedal rest back in place.
You can see in the picture how my pre-cut hole for the gas pedal rest turned out to be located in the wrong place. Still have to fix that by glueing an small extra piece underneath that.
Now, with the carpet in place, the car finally starts to look a little bit more decent again.
First, I put in all the rear trim panels. First the side rear trim panels, then the center panel and finally the top trim panel. Reattach the engine hatch lever.
Then, I screwed the screws from the side trim sill trim panel back in and then the side sill pads. The side sill pads are held by metal clips which are clicked in placed and which hold the pads by sticky teeth from the clips. Often, when you take off the sill pads, the metal clips also come out. If so, pry the clips loose with a small screwdriver and put them in their place again. ONLY then, but on the sill pads and click them in place using your hands. Make sure the door trim is correctly in place also of course.
Next, I put back in place the center console and the center armrest. Starts looking like a real car again don't you agree?
Now, you have to remount the seats. Again, but in the seat half way and let it rest on the side sill with some protection. Attach the seat belt. MAKE SURE the seatbelt is not mounted in a twisted way.
Reattach the seat connector. Since you've moved the seat all the way back, you put in the front bolts first. Don't tighten them completely yet. Now, move the seats forward and put in the rear bolts. Now, tighten all the bolts and put the plastic rear bolt covers back in place. With both seats in place, you are finally finished.
Well, not exactly yet !! I still have to cut out two small pieces of carpet to glue on to the left and right front side sill trim panel.
Anyway, this this is what my interior now looks like. I think it really makes a difference :smile:
In the end, the whole project lasted a week, working only in the evenings. I took it easy because I had never done this before. Also took quite a few breaks since you are working upside down often in awkward positions.
In all, it took me about fourteen (14) hours, which was a bit longer than expected.
I would not consider my job 100% because I made a few mistakes, but the end result is quite ok.
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