Topic

Right,
To get the carpets to fit, I first bought a really snazzy full car mat set at Aldi. (you notice I went for best quality!!)
Then I lifted the MG carpet and slid the cheap front mats under it, into both footwells.
Refitted the MG carpet and was pretty pleased with the results. I would say 90% cured.

Coincidently, I was fitting some seat lowering springs the other day and obviously had to remove both seats. See this HOW TO
With the seats out it's clear that the carpet can be pulled away from the centre by about 1/2" to 3/4" to give you sufficient carpet to ensure that the carpet stays fitted into the door rubbers. I also fitted the two rear mats (just squares) from my Aldi set under the MG carpet beneath the seat positions.

All you have to do is to put the seats back in position and loosely refit the securing bolts.(t50 torx) Pull the carpet towards the door seal as you tighten the four bolts, and the seat will keep the carpet in position. Repeat on the other side.

This adjustment along with the carpet set under the MG carpet means that my carpets fit perfectly.

I tried a few photos to show the difference but - black carpet, black rubber seal, Anthracite metalwork - means rubbish photos.

If you're not taking the seats out, you will probably get away with loosening the seat bolts and pulling the carpet outwards and then retighten the bolts.

Having read David's advice on the poorly fitting carpets, which mine were, and had always been something I wanted to try and fix I set to work.

History
I had tried repositioning the carpets and using double sided tape to fix them in position previously but this had very limited success and I was at the point of buying a new set of carpets, thinking these must had shrunk over time.

The Fix;
I first lifted the carpets from the foot wells with the seats still in position, to do this you only need to release a couple of clips and on the drivers side undo the three 8mm bolts holding the foot rest in place. The carpets had worn quite thin in places, see photo below and there were a couple of small areas of damage.



The underlay in these areas was poorly fitting and gave little support to the carpet which had obviously stretched slightly over time causing the damage.

I reinforced the backing of the carpet with strong tape, pulling the carpet back to shape whilst doing so. This made the carpet look good again, here's a photo of the back. I suggest you check and if needs be do this with your carpet before it suffers damage. Once you have it lifted you can see the thin areas as more light will show through.



Having repaired the carpet I set about the underlay and added off cuts from an old boot carpet I had to fill in the gaps and low points in the areas where the carpet had been damaged.

Using the original underlay as a template I cut out carpet for each side and then fitted in place over the existing underlay. I then applied double sided tape around the edges of the door frame and then relaid the carpet.



I now have good looking carpets which fit and have a little extra soundproofing

Whilst doing this I found that in the passenger footwell under the glove box the underside of the underlay was damp around the blanking plate for the LHD steering column.The blanking plate has a foam gasket which must be leaking. I removed it and applied bathroom sealant around the gasket. Hopefully this will cure the leak.


You can see the new carpet underlay on top of the original underlay