BMWBLOG’s long term BMW i3 is going to see year round duty which includes snowy Midwest winter weather. Stepping into your brand new BMW with dirty slushy snow covered shoes, it can make a mess of your interior.
Enter winter mats to save the day. I’ve been intrigued by WeatherTech’s Floor Mats because they look like they are super duty made for some severe weather. Compared to BMW’s winter floor mats, the WeatherTech’s are much more fitted and have much higher side walls to keep winter grunge off of your BMW”s carpet.
WeatherTech Floor liners are shipped rolled together in a rather large box and included front and back seat floor. Installing them was straightforward. The part that amazed me was how well they fit. The deep side walls tuck right up along the edge of the i3 giving me confidence that they will indeed keep our Tera World Solar Orange BEV i3 clean.
WeatherTech tells me that they have to have an actual car in their hands before they can produce the floor liners. This means, it took about a month from the release of the i3 before they had the floor liners available for purchase. Given the tight tolerance of how well these things fit in our long term i3, the 3D lasers that WeatherTech uses, these are the only other company I would consider for floor liners other than OEM.
The benefit of WeatherTech over the OEM floor mats, is that these are built for severe weather. They are going to capture and hold more melting snow and slush off of your shoes than OEM which can spill over as I’ve experienced first hand in our X3. WeatherTech mats are cupped and can capture and contain a greater volume of the crud we OCD car nuts like to keep off the carpet.
The company created a rigid core for strength that helps to retain its custom-fit shape, while offering a soft tactile top surface that feels comfortable underfoot. Specially designed channels carry fluid and debris to a lower reservoir, away from shoes and clothing.
We’ll keep you updated on how they handle the winter since that shouldn’t be too far out.
WeatherTech Floor Liners are available in black, tan and grey. The custom fit Weather Tech cost $209 and come with a 3 year guarantee. Because there is no transmission tunnel in the front of the i3, the front and the back are contiguous liners and provide total floor protection. The front liners include anchor points.
Here is a photo gallery of the products:
Disclaimer: WeatherTech has sent us the floor mats for evaluation.
