Verbier winter snow, ice, water and salt . . . . A weekend in the Porsche Carrera 4S Cabriolet.

I suppose there’s two types of Porsche owners, the weekend, event, and touring kind - probably careful about putting (km) on the car and the kind like me who use it day-to-day for work and at the weekend to go to the mountains during winter, spring, and summer. Who would rather spend time enjoying my Porsche Carrera 4S cabriolet in the environment where it excels - on the road!

I love my Porsche is a 911.992 Carrera 4S Cabriolet (Miami Blue); it has everything I need for the Swiss outdoor lifestyle in the summer, with the top-down to real road performance during winter with the 4WD capability. 

So as I crash around the A9 from Lausanne into Valais for the winter ski season, with my skis wedged in the back, I realise that I am driving through those summer, autumn, winter, and spring weather conditions in one day! 

Snow, ice, water, dirt, salt, you name it, I get hit with it. It's on my boots, skis and everywhere, it just is what it is, but it takes its toll on the inside of my car!

Now, I’m not a #carclean fanatic, like this is the last thing I want to do at night or in the morning, is to vacuum my car out from yesterday! I’m more of a get home, part, the damn car and chill for the last few hours before tomorrow.

I’m not thrilled by stuffing my head into the depths of the front cargo area, nor around the back of the 2+2 Coupe to get this dirt of the day out with a portable vacuum off my carpet; no this is not in my plans!

So to car mats, you don’t think of them much, because every car has one, usually OEM, cheap for the manufacturer, but carpet inside the floor of an active car is not a good choice. So, I need to find a real Porsche floor liner that fits my car and keeps it clean!

So, this year, we think differently. I hope there’s someone or some company out there that’s been in this situation and there’s a “no-vacuum” solution for my Porsche.

So, what do I need?

1. It has to look good. I own a Porsche for “***sake” so quality is number 1; no rubbish is going inside this baby!
2. It better fit and fit well; I don’t want it moving around while I’m driving, getting stuck under a pedal, or not covering the entire area, including up the walls of the floor area.
3. It better be waterproof, so it contains everything in the area, with no side leakage.
4. It must be easy to fit and remove, so if water, snow, or dirt is in the floor, I can remove the liner without spilling all the contents on my car floor during the process.
5. The materials should be top-of the range, modern, and environmentally sound.
6. It must be easy to clean (they should have specific cleaning fluid), so it can look like new in minutes and it has to last the lifetime of my ownership.

So with a bit of research, I looked at Porsche, but these floorliners are not really robust enough; they're an extension of carpet (they are carbon-carpet plus CHF800) and they do not go up the sides of the floor area and they're really not “winter-proof.” 

So after a little research, I came across WeatherTech 🇺🇲 (through a friend of mine), who has been through a similar situation while living in the USA and realised that the Swiss Alps 🇨🇭 and outdoor activities resemble very much that of the variable weather in the USA.

So, we go and buy a pair of weathertech Porsche 911.991 FloorLiners for the driver and passenger side. After 3 days, they arrive in a plain brown box, with WeatherTech tape and the QR code for installation and service, with a simple delivery note and returns label. So far, so good.

On extracting them, the first observations are

1. They are fairly heavy 2.5Kg, so you are adding weight to the car. They are much heavier than the carpets. 
2. They are branded with WeatherTech on the outside near the sill; I'd rather it say Porsche, however WeatherTech does sponsor the GTP class - Proton Competition IMSA series, along with its own Porsche team. So, we let this one ride; they're in our camp!

So what are these FloorLiners like!

1. You notice that they are completely 3D moulded in an exact form, with sides that are 80mm or more high. You look at them and think, “that ain’t gonna fit my car!”
2. They are super quality, really nicely made with the undersides providing additional grips, so I think they are going to stay in place. 
3. Installation, now you don’t need the manual for this. Just take out the original carpets, and drop these in. Put the front in first and curl under the driver's pedals and slot in at the back.
4. They are already aligned to the retention clips in your car, so they fit perfectly into these slots and “wham” you are in.
5. They are a perfect fit! Just incredible fit on the floor, around the edges, the door sill to the front of the seat area.

Out on the road

The first thing you notice, is that you’re not on carpet anymore, which gives you a bit more freedom around the foot-well area. Not only that, they really, really don’t move nor do they make much of a sound either. Also, they get muddy very quickly. We were just driving around the Lausanne area, stopped to take these photos, and it’s amazing how much dirt you drag back into the car.

In the mountains it's a totally different story; these mats really work. They hold almost everything and at the end of the day, you pull them out backwards and shake off the debris from the day and probably give them a quick wash and off you go.

Overall for the winter, these are super good. In the end, I really don’t bother with cleaning them anymore. I leave them for some time. If I’m at the car wash, then I hook them out, stand them against the wall and just power wash them for 30 seconds and they’re done. They dry very quickly, so you can put them back in again.

 For the front cargo area, they make so much sense, to just keep them in all the time. They fit exactly around the cargo area, with the extension up the sides; they keep the area totally free of dirt, and again, they are easy to remove and clean.

Also, I don’t want excessive wear’n’tear on my car where I can avoid it. Yup, my km’s are going up, but that’s not a reason to have the inside of my car look like it’s been doing lots and lots of trips. These liners do protect the inside of your car, and the original carpets in and around the footwells appear like new. 

So overall for 300CHF for the complete set, it's worth having something better than carpets in winter; I'll probably even keep them into spring and autumn. Let's see what summer brings.

WeatherTech are now a partner of the pff.de community.