All weather floor mat modification

Greetings-
I wanted to share a little improvement I made today to my Mazda all weather floor mats. I really don't like Mazda's floor mat lock design because it took way more force that I thought necessary to remove the mats. My wife has a late model Subaru and her mats have a large hole that loops around two corner posts so that gave me an idea since the Mazda design is kind of the same.

Here's what I did:
Take the mats out of the car and grab your electric drill with a inch bit. Using the drill, ream out the plastic hole in the floor mat just a little bit. With a slightly large hole the floor mat will now go on and off the carpet post much easier! After doing this I'm able to just lift the mats out without have to use a screwdriver or two hands.
 
No idea why you seem like you need to modify it so you can take it off more easily.
Do you take the mats off all the time?
The reason for the design is so that the mats do not move accidentally and interfere with the accelerator.
 
No idea why you seem like you need to modify it so you can take it off more easily.
Do you take the mats off all the time?
The reason for the design is so that the mats do not move accidentally and interfere with the accelerator.

I take my floor mats out all the time when I vacuum my interior. I get the safety issue but whoever designed the click lock thing at Mazda over engineered it in my opinion.
 
I think someone posted on here a while back about a slightly more elegant solution. Some of the mats are very difficult to remove. The clearances all line up the wrong way and they are tight. We have one post on ours that was this way - almost impossible to remove. Someone suggested using a fine sandpaper on the post to polish it up. Did that and it works great. Took five minutes, the mat will come off with just a little bit of force on the center post now - works great!
 
No idea why you seem like you need to modify it so you can take it off more easily.
Do you take the mats off all the time?
The reason for the design is so that the mats do not move accidentally and interfere with the accelerator.

Living in SoCal you have absolutely no idea how quickly the mats get filled up with salt and brine solution like they do here in the Northland! So yeah, they come in and out of the vehicle frequently, especially in the winter. The thing is, they can still be secure without being so overly secure that you feel like you're going to pull the carpet out of the vehicle! :) I'm going to try the sandpaper trick just as soon as it get above 0 degrees F. Oh wait, that's going to be a while yet...
 
Get some WeatherTechs, then you won't have to take them out so often.
 
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