Making a Custom Rug for Pontiac Vibe Hatch Area

We purchased a used Pontiac vibe and the hatch area is covered in a hard plastic, meant to make easy cleanup if you put muddy things in back. However if you put anything in there, it slides all over when you stop, start or turn. This makes it impracticality to put things like groceries back there. We checked ebay, and didn't find any custom rugs for our car, and those that we did see that were similar were over $100.00US. So instead I bought a large box at Walmart to make my template, and picked up a large exercise mat at a thrift store to use for the rugging. Total came to under $10.00. Had I not found the exercise mat, I would have picked up a scrap piece from our local rug store. The only tools I needed were scissors, duck tape and a pen.

Step 1: Making the Template

The first thing I did was cut one side of the box to open it flat. I made a thin long piece of cardboard which I had to custom cut for the wheel well and other parts, so eventually it was straight on one side and would fit the trunk contour on the other side. I was lucky, both sides of the car were symmetrical, so I could use this strip as a template for the other side. If the other side was a different contour, I would have had to cut another strip and keep making cuts until it fit. Since its cardboard, any mistakes or if you need to use more than one piece, you can always use the duck tape to secure them. Once you have both sides done, lay them in place and now measure the distance between them, at both the top and bottom. Now cut a piece of cardboard to these dimensions. You should now have three pieces of cardboard that should cover the trunk / hatch area. Now duck tape these pieces together. You now have your completed template!

Step 2: Use Template to Cut Rug or Mat

Flip mat or rug good side down, put template on rug, mark the template with a pen, and trim the rug to the shape of the template. If using a box cutter, please be very careful, one slip and you could have a very bad cut.

Step 3: Install and Enjoy

Since my trunk area mat has the wheel well wings, these will hold the rug in place, you might need to use rug edging tape if you have frays on the edge. Keep the template in a safe place in case you need to make another one,