Forgive me if this has been discussed before - I did search "Heritage carpet" and only 6 posts came up, none relevant.
I'm nearly done installing the Heritage Parts Centre T5/T6 cab carpet in grey. I'd wanted something nicer than the standard Highline rubber mat and got a few quid off the Heritage carpet in a Black Friday offer. I thought I'd tell you how it's gone. Make yourself a cuppa as I'm as tediously wordy in print as I am in real life!
The carpet arrived in a big box, folded twice so that the carpeted side was outermost. This had creased it a bit and rubbed the edge of the crease against the inside of the box. I had a few days before installation so laid the carpet out flat in a spare room and pretty much all of the creasing had gone. I expect the rest will go now it's installed but I wasn't overwhelmed at the lack of protection.
The carpet is weird in that it's designed to fit on top of the grey rubber mat so you have to keep the old mat, which does the job of filling in the trenches and holes of the bare van floor. The carpet is quite thin, being a sort of pile stuck into a semi-stiff backing. It's easy (almost too easy if you slip) to cut with a sharp Stanley knife. Incidentally, I use Irwin blades in my Stanley knife as they're practically indestructible and don't go blunt, even when dragging the blade through carpet lining.
I'd strongly recommend this carpet if you like a challenge and have a wide vocabulary of expletives you haven't used in a while. In short, it's a fight to get it fitted. There's a very good instruction sheet for the T5 and T6 and a link from Heritage's product page to this Combe Valley Campers installation video. But watch the video carefully and you get the impression in places that he's fighting with it a bit. I fought with it a lot.
It doesn't really fit perfectly. Nearly, but not perfectly. Which means there are places where there's a gap under the carpet such as under the driver's footrest, in the centre below the gear stick and around the wheel arches. The corner where wheel arch meets floor meets door step is particularly tricky. More concerning is the fit around the pedals as the accelerator fouls the carpet at the bottom of its range. I did a bit of cutting and gluing (with high temperature spray adhesive) around this area, which spoiled the look a bit but ensured I'd never risk a stuck throttle. You're meant to trim the carpet around certain areas but I found that some of those areas required no trimming whereas other areas unmentioned in the instructions needed a lot.
The instructions are really good at telling you what order to refit the lower dash. They're pretty useless at telling you how you're supposed to shove some of the dash components back in place now that you've essentially bulked up the original mat under the gear stick panel. I eventually realised that the foam pad they give you to fit on top of the mat just behind the gear linkage mound actually stops the centre section of the dash from clicking home to the tune of a whole inch. I cut down the foam by half and it fitted much better but screws that are there to hold stuff together are actually under a lot of tension.
And I still haven't finished, yet. There's a vinyl flap you're meant to glue to the outer edge of the metal around the wheel arch, where the door seal goes. Then the seal traps this as you hammer it back on. I ran out of time and light this afternoon and test fitting suggests I'm going to have another battle getting this bit to work. Wish me luck.
In summary, it looks OK but a poke about with the tip of a boot will show up areas that squash down into empty air below. And had I known the blood, sweat and tears I'd have to go through to fit it, I probably would've saved my £240. The carpet mat I was using before was about 60% of the coverage of this carpet and looked pretty good, if you ignored the grey mat around the wheel arches. I have a cupboard full of running and triathlon medals so feel some sort of award should be forthcoming after this level of endurance.
I'm nearly done installing the Heritage Parts Centre T5/T6 cab carpet in grey. I'd wanted something nicer than the standard Highline rubber mat and got a few quid off the Heritage carpet in a Black Friday offer. I thought I'd tell you how it's gone. Make yourself a cuppa as I'm as tediously wordy in print as I am in real life!
The carpet arrived in a big box, folded twice so that the carpeted side was outermost. This had creased it a bit and rubbed the edge of the crease against the inside of the box. I had a few days before installation so laid the carpet out flat in a spare room and pretty much all of the creasing had gone. I expect the rest will go now it's installed but I wasn't overwhelmed at the lack of protection.
The carpet is weird in that it's designed to fit on top of the grey rubber mat so you have to keep the old mat, which does the job of filling in the trenches and holes of the bare van floor. The carpet is quite thin, being a sort of pile stuck into a semi-stiff backing. It's easy (almost too easy if you slip) to cut with a sharp Stanley knife. Incidentally, I use Irwin blades in my Stanley knife as they're practically indestructible and don't go blunt, even when dragging the blade through carpet lining.
I'd strongly recommend this carpet if you like a challenge and have a wide vocabulary of expletives you haven't used in a while. In short, it's a fight to get it fitted. There's a very good instruction sheet for the T5 and T6 and a link from Heritage's product page to this Combe Valley Campers installation video. But watch the video carefully and you get the impression in places that he's fighting with it a bit. I fought with it a lot.
It doesn't really fit perfectly. Nearly, but not perfectly. Which means there are places where there's a gap under the carpet such as under the driver's footrest, in the centre below the gear stick and around the wheel arches. The corner where wheel arch meets floor meets door step is particularly tricky. More concerning is the fit around the pedals as the accelerator fouls the carpet at the bottom of its range. I did a bit of cutting and gluing (with high temperature spray adhesive) around this area, which spoiled the look a bit but ensured I'd never risk a stuck throttle. You're meant to trim the carpet around certain areas but I found that some of those areas required no trimming whereas other areas unmentioned in the instructions needed a lot.
The instructions are really good at telling you what order to refit the lower dash. They're pretty useless at telling you how you're supposed to shove some of the dash components back in place now that you've essentially bulked up the original mat under the gear stick panel. I eventually realised that the foam pad they give you to fit on top of the mat just behind the gear linkage mound actually stops the centre section of the dash from clicking home to the tune of a whole inch. I cut down the foam by half and it fitted much better but screws that are there to hold stuff together are actually under a lot of tension.
And I still haven't finished, yet. There's a vinyl flap you're meant to glue to the outer edge of the metal around the wheel arch, where the door seal goes. Then the seal traps this as you hammer it back on. I ran out of time and light this afternoon and test fitting suggests I'm going to have another battle getting this bit to work. Wish me luck.
In summary, it looks OK but a poke about with the tip of a boot will show up areas that squash down into empty air below. And had I known the blood, sweat and tears I'd have to go through to fit it, I probably would've saved my £240. The carpet mat I was using before was about 60% of the coverage of this carpet and looked pretty good, if you ignored the grey mat around the wheel arches. I have a cupboard full of running and triathlon medals so feel some sort of award should be forthcoming after this level of endurance.
