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Am I the only one with Weathertech floor liners on a 2013 series MDX? If not, I'm curious to hear your experience.
Living in New England I had to have something with more protection from slush and salt than the OEM all-weather mats. Weathertech looked perfect. I wanted the best so I paid the most. The passenger side fit like a glove. The "walls" fit tight to the console and sill. Lots of protection and no way for salt and sand to get in to soil the carpeting. The driver's side? Different story.
The side along the console fits perfectly. Front where the controls are and the back near the seat? Perfect. The side along the sill? There is a gap, from 1/4" - 1/2" along the whole sill. Of course, the side where the salt/sand/slush is going to drip in from my feet. I contacted Weathertech and they were very good about apologizing and said there must have been an issue at manufacturing, then sent me a new mat set. The second set installed exactly like the first! Is it me? I can't imagine all 2013 MDX owners have a poor fit like this, especially for the money. Does anyone else have this issue?
Definitely a poor design. This is my second set and both are misfit the same exact way. Customer service said a heat gun may work so I'll be giving that a go this weekend. I'm still wondering why this hasn't come up since 2013 cars are not new. I'm not sure how long the footwell has been unchanged in these cars, but nobody has noticed this gap?
Perhaps they are like me? I wanted to get this exact set for my MDX but My issues are less troublesome than snow, My boots carry a lot of rocks so my floor area is full of small rocks all the time..I wanted to get these for that and probably a little bit of mud for when it rains...
Have you tried rising your feet higher when hopping up? When I get mud on my boots I put my left foot on my running board and hover my right feet directly into the floor mat then seat myself and hove the other foot in trying to avoid the plastic sills.
Have you tried rising your feet higher when hopping up? When I get mud on my boots I put my left foot on my running board and hover my right feet directly into the floor mat then seat myself and hove the other foot in trying to avoid the plastic sills.
I am not fanatical about my car's detail, but I am pretty close. Even the kids raise their feet over the sills and prior to, knock their feet together to shake off any snow, slush, salt before it gets in. I'm the only one who drives my MDX and despite my best efforts there is always some sand or whatever that happens to get in between the sill and the mat. The gap is going to bother me. It's not like these Weathertechs were cheap. "Laser measured" for some other fittment, maybe? Did the footwell of the pre-2013 MDX have a different shape?
not sure.. how odd..
did you follow up with them and say they fit the same way?
Of course I did. The patient customer service person shrugged her shoulders and said to turn the mat upside down with something heavy on it to spread the plastic out. I know already that is not going to work, but plan on putting some heat gun time into them to see if I can make it work. Something I shouldn't have to do with a premium product at a premium price.
It does fits better and have better rubber material for grip BUT it doesn´t cover as much area as the Weather Techs....
Actually, the OEM rubber all-weather mats don't fit nearly as well as the Weathertech. The soft edge is warped along the sill. Not as attractive either.
Hey, I would like to chime in, on our 2013 MDX, it fits like a glove! There is no gap at all, let me take a pic tomorrow AM. I absolutely love the weather tech, the OEM is not bad but snow/sand/dirt accumulate on the carpet right under the accelerator pedal. The weathertech, covers that whole side.
Edit : I just looked at your pic and mine is the more popular Black color while yours is Tan, maybe there is a different manufacturing tolerance for both colors?
Hey, I would like to chime in, on our 2013 MDX, it fits like a glove! There is no gap at all, let me take a pic tomorrow AM. I absolutely love the weather tech, the OEM is not bad but snow/sand/dirt accumulate on the carpet right under the accelerator pedal. The weathertech, covers that whole side.
Edit : I just looked at your pic and mine is the more popular Black color while yours is Tan, maybe there is a different manufacturing tolerance for both colors?
Thanks in advance for the pics! I would love to see how yours fit compared to mine. Do you have a part number for your mats? Mine is: 451141 which may differ from yours for the color, but should be similar.
Not sure it's a tolerance issue. The contour of the sill area is much different than what the mat is expecting. Not just the current mats either, both the original and replacement were exactly the same. As mentioned earlier, passenger side is tight all around.
Hey, "track day" here are the pics of my weather tech. They are dirrtyyyy and nasty.. It's been snowing and raining out in the NY/LI area. My wife uses this car, I now can see that the driver's side is not as "perfect fit" than the passenger side, but it is still a good fit. My sister has the 2013 MDX and she uses OEM all season and I can tell you their fit is worse than the weather tech. These things cover the whole carpet area basically. There is a slight gap, but not as big as the one on your pic.
Hey, "track day" here are the pics of my weather tech. They are dirrtyyyy and nasty.. It's been snowing and raining out in the NY/LI area. My wife uses this car, I now can see that the driver's side is not as "perfect fit" than the passenger side, but it is still a good fit. My sister has the 2013 MDX and she uses OEM all season and I can tell you their fit is worse than the weather tech. These things cover the whole carpet area basically. There is a slight gap, but not as big as the one on your pic.
Thanks Long Island! Very helpful. I think with some heat I can make mine work as they seem identical to yours except for the gap.
The odd bit is that scallop where the door pillar is. Mine has the same and it looks terrible. An obvious mistake in the "laser measuring" department.
My OEM all season mats fit terribly.
PS, I spent some work weeks in the Port Jefferson area back in the 90s and we were auditing the titanium smelting plant. Good times and fantastic food down there!
Thanks Long Island! Very helpful. I think with some heat I can make mine work as they seem identical to yours except for the gap.
The odd bit is that scallop where the door pillar is. Mine has the same and it looks terrible. An obvious mistake in the "laser measuring" department.
My OEM all season mats fit terribly.
PS, I spent some work weeks in the Port Jefferson area back in the 90s and we were auditing the titanium smelting plant. Good times and fantastic food down there!
You're welcome! I agree about the scallop where the pillar is, it is odd, they charge a lot for these mats after all, great thing about it is they are Made in the USofA!
Come to think of it, I think mine had that gap when we first got it, and over time as you use it, it will just kind of "blend in" in the contours of the pillar and the gap will not be as huge.
Port Jeff is a great little town, the marina, food is great, brews are great also!
Perhaps they are like me? I wanted to get this exact set for my MDX but My issues are less troublesome than snow, My boots carry a lot of rocks so my floor area is full of small rocks all the time..I wanted to get these for that and probably a little bit of mud for when it rains...
Have you tried rising your feet higher when hopping up? When I get mud on my boots I put my left foot on my running board and hover my right feet directly into the floor mat then seat myself and hove the other foot in trying to avoid the plastic sills.
Putting feet on the sills when entering/exiting and shutting the door really hard are 2 things I had to tell my friend to STOP doing after about the third time. Now everyone who gets in any of my cars knows to avoid it like the plague because I WILL point it out haha. Not to the point where I'm over the top, but man when people step on the sills it scratches and dirt gets grinded into the plastic leaving deep dirty scratches and it drives me nuts come cleaning time...speaking of which (not to go off topic) I LOVE that the MDX is silver, rarely ever shows dirt compared to my filthy dark blue RDX.
^ Try living with a Formal Black MDX....
It cant stay clean longer than a day.
Hey about the sills getting scratched my Driver door sills are scratched to hell, I bought it this way... I think I will try to sand them off because it looks nasty, If I make it worse I might change it altogether.
^ Try living with a Formal Black MDX....
It cant stay clean longer than a day.
Hey about the sills getting scratched my Driver door sills are scratched to hell, I bought it this way... I think I will try to sand them off because it looks nasty, If I make it worse I might change it altogether.
I had dark blue and while it isn't as bad as black, it is pretty damn close. It literally would not stay clean for more than an hour. I would spend 3 hours washing, waxing...etc only to have it get extremely dirty like 30 minutes later on a nice dry day without any mud or rain. It attracts dust like crazy even just sitting in the garage. The MDX on the other hand can look like it has just been washed for literally upto 3 weeks now!!
My door sills are actually pretty nasty as well. Deeply deeply scratched in some areas and discouloured. Good idea on the sanding, but the sills have this graining to them and I am not so sure it would work out well unless you sanded the whole entire sill (which obviously you would to make it match so this is porbabky a non-issue). I think because it is not coated but is actually a black piece of plastic, it will work easily.
I wonder though, is there any way to protect these sills? Like say you bought new sills, of course other than avoiding stepping on them, how else would you avoid scratching them? Are some cars less prone to this than others? I know a lot of cars sell fancy scuff plates and illuminated door sill guards but these accessories are just garbage in terms of their intended function because they end up scratching really horribly and it shows even more.
I'm a PITA about the sills as well, but there is only so much you can do. I'm going to buy a replacement set and just swap them out every couple of years. Sanding will look like shit, but maybe melting the damage down with a heat gun will help hide the scratching?
Update to my sitch: New England was blessed with a sunny 50* Saturday in January and I pulled my mats and spent about an hour trying to heat and adjust the massive gap along the sill. Here's a tip: don't bother. I am pretty good with a heat gun and have used it for plenty of things, but the plastic they use for these mats doesn't react the same way as other plastics I've manipulated. I had a hard time keeping enough heat in the mats to adjust them along the whole edge and when they cooled the edge warped in a funny way. Not for nothing, after paying so much for these friggin things I shouldn't have to deal with this sort of crap. "Laser measured" apparently means nothing. Much disappoint. Me no buy again.
01-16-2017, 07:49 PM
