I bought my car in May of 1991 from Tysons Corner Nissan in
Virginia. In the years I have owned it I have driven over 200,000
miles with it. It has never had floor mats. Twelve years of
no floormats and lots of ass time leads to this.
The passenger side wasn't nearly as bad, but it had to go.
First things first- accquire a new carpet. That was easy enough. There are a bunch of places on the web that sell replacement carpets for the S13. I ended up ordering one from Auto Trim Supply as they had quick and helpful responses to email I sent them. I had changes the seats over the previous fall and they went from the grey herringbone pattern to a black with collered patterns that are barley visible. So I decided to get a charcoal carpet. The back seat is still grey but if I ever feel like changing its' colour I can have it dyed.
The new carpet as delivered. Note that it has no holes in it. It took a day of fitting and cutting to get all the holes in it (more or less) correctly.
Here are the steps involved in replacing the carpet:
Step 1: Remove the interior. All of it. Including the dashboard.
Once the dashboard is loose you need to disconnect the vent pipes from the window defroster vents. If you don't they have some weak tabs that will break and thn you dashboard rattles. You can see the pipes in the pictures with the dashboard removed. They come out of the top of the center console and run across the top of everything.
The reason you need to remove the dashboard is that the carpet goes behind the center dashboard supports.
Take the bolts holding the dashboard structure out and get the carpet out. Now you can see just how nasty the old carpet was. Widespread mlidew damage on the padding was evident.
A comparison shot of old and new.
Step 2: Cut the holes in the carpet. Big PITA. I found a set of sheet metal shears worked great, as well as a utillity knife with a new blade for small trimming. The quality of the carpet isn't amazing, but it's not bad. The backing is a thin plastic, it tends to rip around holes that you cut. Be careful when installing the carpet so that you don't make the holes unintentionally larger.
Step 3: Replace the capet and put the interior back in.
A piece of cake.
Step 4: Admire the results.
There is still a little more work to do. Under the door sills the carpet is stapled to some plastic pieces that hold it in place. I don't have a stapler heavy duty enough to staple the new carpet to the plastic so the carpet tends to pop out from under the door sills. I'll address that someday. the parking brake light is staying on all the time. I broke the switch on the hadbrake lever. I'll fix that soon.