Do you prefer Carpet or Vinyl?

I did carpet on the last truck. I am considering vinyl on the F-350 simply because it should be easier to clean and keep stain free etc. But if I remember correctly the 86 had vinyl and it held dirt like crazy and didn't hold up well. Granted that's 1986 vs 2024 material.

I'm  torn on the subject. The carpet is nice and fitted mats are available. The Vinyl is more utilitarian.

Which do you prefer and why? If carpet any particular pile type?

I'd say it depends if you use your truck as an actual truck, or it's a grocery getting fashion statement.

Do you live in the north, where snow and salty slush is unavoidable?  Vinyl.
Do you work on a farm or in a barn where you're guaranteed to have animal excrement on your boots?  Vinyl
Even just mud or grease from your job is going to make a filthy mess of carpet, and if you have that type of job, you're not likely to have the time for constant cleaning.
I'm embarrassed at how nasty my floors can get, but what can you do?

If I realistically could have carpet I would want loop instead of pile, but that's not how XL/XLT trucks came...

I met a guy the other day in the parking lot of Dollar General with an absolutely gorgeous, black 5.0 XLT 150 with the bordello red interior and Alcoa wheels.
Velour seats with barely any wear. The aluminium tailgate panel and reflector was mint!
He said he bought it on the spot from some older gentleman who decided it was time to stop driving
Anyway, the carpet was beautiful!

We got to talking because he seemed a bit concerned about how I was looking it over.  
And then he explained to me that he doesn't drive it much because it stumbles and/or dies when warm and asked to accelerate (classic TFI symptoms)
I suggested he get the oldest mechanic he can find to diagnose it, and that Fat Foxx or McCulley Racing make TFI relocation kits with heatsinks that get the PS modules off the distributor and onto the radiator support or inner fender.

I considered vinyl for Big Blue given what I planned to do with him.  But I had the old carpet that was in pretty good shape, so put it back in.  So far the carpet has held up well so I'm glad I put it back in.

Carpet should absorb more sound in the cab than vinyl will.  But vinyl is heavier than carpet & somewhat limp so should do a better job of stopping sound coming through the floor than carpet, by itself, will.  So if you are trying to get the cab quiet you need to think about how each of them help in that quest.

Doesn't the carpet itself have a pretty heavy backing?

As a builder I've installed mass loaded vinyl a number of times to reduce low frequency sound transmission, but if you want a really quiet party wall you need to make it more of two separate walls with no direct contact and hang your wall surface on resilient channel.
That, a long with a couple of differing densities of insulation in the cavities is the most effective.

Gary, I know you have Killmat or Noico or similar all the way up the firewall and in the doors to deaden engine and road noise.

Usually those products use low density foam rubber to decouple the vinyl from the sheet metal.

The carpet has a heavy backing, but it isn't a solid sheet like vinyl - which is closer to a mass-loaded layer.  But then the vinyl usually gets constrained at the edges and it is stiff, so it isn't as flexible and resilient as it should be for sound control.

To me an ideal layering would be mass loading, like Kilmat, then a layer of foam like the Noico I used, then a mass-loading layer of vinyl, then foam, then carpet.  The foam would decouple the vinyl layer and allow it to work properly.

. It would be like stepping into a bounce house!

Not quite. The foam is only about 1/4” thick. So 1/2” with two layers.

I prefer vinyl.  I don't wash or vacuum my vehicles all that often, but it's easy to use a little whisk broom to sweep out the vinyl floors and it looks presentable.  My one modern (2000 model) truck with carpet has the fitted weatherguard style floor mats, but they still aren't 100% coverage so the carpet needs to be vacuumed rather than swept more often than I'd like.  But I track a lot of debris into my vehicles since most are parked on gravel with a ton of leaves around.  

either has its benefits yet I will add one point MOISTURE!
with carpet and its backing, you have no barrier to moisture absorption. but as it may be slow it can dry out.
with vinyl and its backing, you can get a false impression that water cannot get through (true until the first crack appears) but water can still get in around the edges and go mostly unnoticed and stay where it will hardly ever dry. mold and rust come next. and in the case of dirty or rusted cowls this moisture can sneak in. I remember seeing truck guys pull up to the car was after a day of mudding and spray out their trucks. saying "its vinyl".
either way. you have an empty cab at the moment. get a gallon of paint. roll as many coats as you stand to do on a sound surface. do not spray. you want the build and the mechanical action of the bond.

Or have a bed liner sprayed in?  They built up 1-8 - 3/16” of it in the bed of both of my trucks, and it is dense but pliable. And TOUGH. Doubt moisture can get through it.

I believe this can be added below the vinyl

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6024480&cc=1126257&pt=14534&jsn=1463

What really differentiates the classic trucks is all the wonderful colors that are absent in today's vehicles. Just about any new vehicle today comes with the generic black and gray, all over. Maybe some beige accents.

As mentioned above, if it's a grocery getter and a possible show truck, carpet would be better for the aesthetics. Vinyl only if it's a heavy mudding or farm rig. If it's still used in a suburban setting as a work truck (such as my 84) carpet will a floormat will do the job and look better than vinyl.

That said --- If I ever bought a brand-new truck and wanted to hang onto it for 30+ years. I would go with Vinyl. Simply because modern carpeting is generic and boring and above all not functional in a real heavy use truck over the long run. (I am just not very much in routine detailing of my newer vehicles hence my views)

This is my 1000th post !! Not bad since joining in Feb :)

I agree with this 100%....

I like carpet on the old trucks simply because any leaks are more likely to be unnoticed. There are plenty of leak spots (cowl drains, cowl to hood seam) that will cause water to go under the flooring. With Vinyl, there is no way to notice it.

I found wet carpet on so many vehicles after a rain (From sunroof leaks, cowl drain leaks) that would have not been noticed on vinyl.

That is also why I don't like the waterproof mass backing layers under the carpet, because they prevent that "feedback" if/when a leak arises.

I did a combo in the 86 on my build thread. I used a eva mass load, kill mat etc then covered it in jute and foil, then covered that in carpet the problem I had was the gas petal hanging up on the carpet lol so keep that in mind. I posted some stuff I found on Amazon yesterday that uses a 50mil butyl mastic (killmat.is 80mil)then the middle layer is an 100mil acoustic foam, then the top is anoter 50 mil mass load membrane. That's bought and going on the firewall then 1/2 CCF on top of that.

I was going to use kill mat throughout the rest of the floor but maybe I will use some more of this hybrid material. The problem is price.  35 sqft of 80mill foil backed butyl depending on brand runs $50-65. This hybrid is $75 for 25sqft. Nearly twice the price per sqft.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Doesn't the carpet itself have a pretty heavy backing?

As a builder I've installed mass loaded vinyl a number of times to reduce low frequency sound transmission, but if you want a really quiet party wall you need to make it more of two separate walls with no direct contact and hang your wall surface on resilient channel.
That, a long with a couple of differing densities of insulation in the cavities is the most effective.

Gary, I know you have Killmat or Noico or similar all the way up the firewall and in the doors to deaden engine and road noise.

Usually those products use low density foam rubber to decouple the vinyl from the sheet metal.

Rock Auto sells carpet with different piles and densities. You can also by carpet pre backed with a mass load membrane.

mat in tn wrote

either has its benefits yet I will add one point MOISTURE!
with carpet and its backing, you have no barrier to moisture absorption. but as it may be slow it can dry out.
with vinyl and its backing, you can get a false impression that water cannot get through (true until the first crack appears) but water can still get in around the edges and go mostly unnoticed and stay where it will hardly ever dry. mold and rust come next. and in the case of dirty or rusted cowls this moisture can sneak in. I remember seeing truck guys pull up to the car was after a day of mudding and spray out their trucks. saying "its vinyl".
either way. you have an empty cab at the moment. get a gallon of paint. roll as many coats as you stand to do on a sound surface. do not spray. you want the build and the mechanical action of the bond.

You and Gary have a point. I sprayed the 86 and then put everything down I have some rust still bleeding through the a pillar even though it was ground out. Treated with corroseal, primed and painted. I believe that corroseal is the issue and will stick to acid for now on like ardwrkntruck suggested years ago.

Definitely think I am going to roll on bed liner after I blend out and acid treat any rust. Probably continue that down into the rocker channels. I can then put any mass load material over that and seal with HVAC tape over every seam that's going to stop any moisture. All screws and bolts through the floor get dipped in sealant before being installed then encapsulated on the outside this prevents any wicking of moisture into the cab. At that point it doesn't matter what goes over it. I live in SC and am always tracking a tone of dirt, water and sand I to everything. My weather tech floor mats are pretty.much permanently ground with dirt and I can't get them black no mater what I do.

Maybe carpet and fitted mats is the balance.

I love the trucks had color in this era but I hate how everything was just washed in one color. A red truck had red paint. Trim, carpet and seats.

I have a pile of saddle tan paint and some parts that are already saddle tan and figured I might go that route because I have it. But that's the only reason.
Maybe two tone so the pillar trim is black dash pad black, dash tan, carpet tan, seats black or black with tan inlays or tan with black inlays. Door panels tan as well with black arm rests. IDK yet.

It has the bench seat with the textured inserts. I can't find anything but 100% vinyl replacement covers for the bench. Last night I was perusing replacement seats with high backs and or head rests. The junk yard has a few 90s era F-150s I could potentially steal a couple bench seats from. I'll post.that in a different thread.

I used to prefer at least the idea of vinyl from a maintenance perspective.  But my '97 F-250 has original carpet, and while it doesn't look new, it's certainly not any worst looking than the rest of the truck.  So I'm thinking that unless you really abuse your carpet it might not be a bad choice, even from that perspective.  (My truck is mostly a suburban daily driver, but that does include Minnesota winters, and a fair amount of use hunting, or at the cabin, or whatever where my boots don't stay clean, I can't speak for it's first 15 years of use).

As far as bedliner to keep the metal protected, like vinyl it'll do a great job of keeping moisture away from the metal until it does a great job of keeping moisture against the metal.  If it's applied perfectly and if the metal and bedliner stay solid it should do a great job for a long time.  But once moisture finds its way in the bedliner won't let it out.  It also won't let it migrate to other part of the metal, so it still might be a great idea.  But Neil Young was right, rust never sleeps.

I strongly dislike vinyl. It does a great job of holding moisture IN and rotting out the cab. It shows dirt worse than carpet. Capet cleans out just as nicely with a stiff whisk brush. If your feet at too gross for carpet, removable mats are a better solution than a rubber floor.

I would answer as others, it depends of your usage.

For Big Bro, I hesitated and finally decided to change the old vinyl for new vinyl (plus sound mattress), and I’m glad I didn’t go for carpet.
Despite our forum friends teasing , Big Bro is really a farm truck.

Having said this, I realize that the first factory accessory I buy for each of my new vehicles is always a good and well molded floor mats kit.  Carpet is so well protected that I can’t even tell its color…


Finally, in all cases, depending of my usage… it ends vinyl.

All of the vinyl I can find for an '86 F250 has the 4WD "hump" molded into it. I have a 2WD and this hump is unsightly, can't get the vinyl to flatten out and it catches dirt. Does anyone know of a source for vinyl flooring without the hump?

I can assure you that 80-90, Bronco, 150, 250, 350, all the same front floor.
Broncos & Supercabs kinda kick up in the back but that shouldn't be a concern.

The vinyl floors I bought were stupid thick and no amount of heat seemed to help them lay flat near the firewall.
So, I got a thinner rubber floor from Mexico, on eBay.