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Rubber Mats vs. Race Deck - Tire Marks?

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MSG C5

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Jan 11, 2011
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Sarasota Area
I am in the process of redecorating the "Baby's Room", aka garage. I want to pull up my old, residential grade rubber mats and replace them with either commercial grade (thicker) rubber mats or Race Deck.

Since my garage already has a nice coat of residential epoxy, I am only looking to cover the parking areas and not the entire garage floor wall-to-wall.

My questions is if I choose Race Deck diamond tiles, will they also over time form tire stains as show below on my existing mats? If so, what preventive measure exist to prevent these stains? Also, would it be better to design the floor so that there are darker tiles under the tires, vs. lighter color tiles? I live in Florida and the tire heat, especially wet tire heat after driving in summer rainstorms, lifts the residential epoxy, thus the need for the mats.

Thanks!

Garage.jpg
 
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RaceDeck1

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Salt Lake City , Utah
Hi
RaceDeck is a full suspension flooring system that allows air to circulate underneath, which is very important in humid climates to prevent odor causing mold & mildew from occurring. Also, RaceDeck is non porous and will resist most all house hold chemicals and petroleum products. Staining from tires should never be an issue and if it were, we replace it.
If you do choose another option, I would not recommend Rubber flooring in the garage or with children. Rubber is porous and with many rubber products they are made from petroleum based materials as well as random scrap materials where there is no control on what is really in them. The other issues are rubber smells and it expands like crazy with temp swings.. :beer:
 
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MSG C5

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Sarasota Area
Thank you for your quick response. I have a sample Race Deck tile and it is very solid.

I've seen many great floor designs on the Race Deck website and I was curious whether any of the white tiles or lighter color tiles would discolor over time as a result of the tire heat.

You're right about the rubber mats. I pulled them out a few weeks ago to clean them and although the tops are pretty much shot in terms of improving their looks, the floor was pretty gross underneath in terms of moisture.

How does rain or other water actually run off the Race Deck tiles? Even with the garage floor pitch, won't the water get stuck underneath the tiles if there is boarder trim installed?
 
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James E

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Raleigh, NC
MSG, you park very consistently. If I had a rubber floor in my garage my wife would never stain the rubber because she never parks in the same spot twice.
 
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MSG C5

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James E said:
MSG, you park very consistently. If I had a rubber floor in my garage my wife would never stain the rubber because she never parks in the same spot twice.
Click to expand...

This is my side of the garage. I park a Corvette near the wall and I park my DD next to it, pretty much in the same place to make sure I get enough door opening space. We have a 3-car garage so my wife parks the van on the other side (not pictured) and her tire marks are all over the place. :headscrat
 
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mikeyr

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I have a cheap Harbor Freight rubber caster/wheel on my welding cart that has stained (left a small yellowish area) a few Racedeck but car/motorcycle tires never have stained, neither has any fluid I have spilled (and I have spilled a LOT).
 
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RaceDeck1

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mikeyr said:
I have a cheap Harbor Freight rubber caster/wheel on my welding cart that has stained (left a small yellowish area) a few Racedeck but car/motorcycle tires never have stained, neither has any fluid I have spilled (and I have spilled a LOT).
Click to expand...

Let us know if you need to drop a few replacement tiles in the mail to you at n/c.
 
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mikeyr

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Thanks for the GREAT offer but not needed. I only mentioned it because I was surprised at what abuse the floor has taken with no damage for these casters to do that. 8" rubber wheels from HF for the back of my TIG cart, the stains are small and now I just make sure to park the welding cart on the black or red tiles and not the white ones.

My floor is too dirty most of the time to notice anyway and I have lots of areas that are much worse for the wear.
 
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XRetailGarageGuy

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Nov 18, 2008
Messages
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Nice Garage but I would look at a PVC Garage floor. Not true with all manufacturers about smell and excessive expanding. Statements that are coming from a manufacturer should always be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to competition. I was a Gladiator dealers as I see you have in your garage. I would never install rolled flooring after my first one because of the lack of airflow underneath. (ugly performance) We sold RaceDeck under the Gladiator brand and it is a solid floor except the hollow sound you get when you walk on it. I can also tell you that it also expands and if your garage is facing west it can expand a decent amount.
That being said there are some good PVC flooring options. We used to sell Norsk-Stor and Lok-tile. What we liked about NorskStor is that it also had Airflow design so moisture would wick away. Costs were good, performance was outstanding and it cut and installed better than some of the Polypropylene tiles we sold. Cutting and trimming of a poly floor is twice as hard than cutting a PVC floor.
With regards to durability you can add a anti-graffiti coating on the PVC floor and have NO issues with Hot tires or any spills. There is no perfect floor! All have flaws including Epoxy, Polyaspartic, Polypropylene, PVC etc.
Just weight the options you want and the price you want to pay and go for it
 
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touchdowntodd

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milwaukee wi
too bad shipping would priobably be expensive, id love to take the old mats off your hands.. im dying for anything to cover my floors on a budget

let me know!
 
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MSG C5

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touchdowntodd said:
too bad shipping would priobably be expensive, id love to take the old mats off your hands.. im dying for anything to cover my floors on a budget

let me know!
Click to expand...

Heck, if you lived locally, I would give you the mats when I'm ready to make the change. They have a lot of life left in them, they just look bad.

S&H would probably be outrageous. I tried selling a rolled up rubber trunk mat from my Corvette to another Corvette Forum member and the cost to ship the mat from Florida to California was over $50, plus the packaging was over $15 as well. Multiply that 3 mats and the total coast would probably be over $200.
 
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Gottspd

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I highly recommend the racedeck flooring. I agonized over the decision and finally decided to go with it and I'm really pleased that I did. I think it looks great and while it's only been 4 months, i've not had any issues with staining (and I have massive low profile tires on a pretty heavy (and super fast :)) SUV). My other car is a fair bit lighter, so that should never be an issue...

Garage-1.JPG
 
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MSG C5

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Sarasota Area
Gottspd said:
I highly recommend the racedeck flooring. I agonized over the decision and finally decided to go with it and I'm really pleased that I did. I think it looks great and while it's only been 4 months, i've not had any issues with staining (and I have massive low profile tires on a pretty heavy (and super fast :)) SUV). My other car is a fair bit lighter, so that should never be an issue...

Garage-1.JPG
Click to expand...

Very nice! Thanks for the pic.

My DD is an Acura and they are built like tanks! Is Acura ever going to make another NSX? I thought they were working on one a few years back before the economy turned.
 
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MSG C5

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Sarasota Area
touchdowntodd said:
yup from milwaukee

nick name came up a LOOOONG time ago.. im somewhat of a football fan, and ofcourse i favor the pack! :beer:
Click to expand...

Reason I asked is that I'm originally from Chicago (born & raised) and I'm really hoping for a Bears-Packers NFC Championship showdown! :thumbup:
 
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Case IH

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Green Bay WI
If you want something heavy get cow mats they are 1in+ thick and solid rubber....dairy farmers use them in cow stalls mostely in freestall barns but they are heavy, thick, and can take a ton of abuse... i think they also make foam ones that are softer
 
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