Carpets and floor coverings

The body engineer has a choice of materials,ranging from carpeting of the Wilton type for prestige vehicles,through polyamide and polypropylene moulded needle felts,to rubber flooring for economy versions. The main requirements of flooring are wear resistance,colour fastness to light and water, and adequate strength to enable the customer to remove the flooring from the car without it suffering damage. The method of manufacture of pile carpets varies:in some cases the pile is bonded to hessian backing; in other cases it is woven simultaneously into the backing and then anchored in position with either a rubber coating on the back surface or a vinyl coating. Quality is normally controlled by characteristics such as number of rows of tufts of pile per unit length,height and weight of the free pile,overall weight of the carpet,strength as determined by a tensile test in both the warp and weft directions, together with adhesion of pile if applicable. Rubber flooring generally has a vinyl coating to provide colour.