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1. Why are your cocomats more money than the cocomats being sold through catalogs such as Performance Products, NLA and AutoSport, and online retailers such as drivingcomfort.com, roadworksauto.com, autoseattle.com, stateofnine.com, autofrills.com, bav-auto.com, worlduph.com, gprparts.com, etc... ?
Our cocomats are more expensive than the catalog and online retailer cocomats because they are a much better product and because they cost us more to manufacture. The question that should really be asked is “Are all cocomats made the same?” and the answer is “NO”. Just like any other product, you have Companies that manufacturer to the highest standards and you have other Companies that copy the same high standard products but use lower quality materials and sell for a cheaper price. In this case, there is one Company that manufactures for all of the catalog and online retailers (“catalog cocomats”) and their cocomats are just not the same quality of product that we manufacturer. If you are considering purchasing a set of cocomats for your car please take the time to read below the many significant differences between the products. We currently only sell direct to the consumer and to several large Porsche and Mercedes Car dealers in the U.S. Our company also sells to many of the top Mercedes Benz and Porsche car restorers worldwide. You can also see our cocomats in many of the beautiful classic cars in the Mercedes Benz USA Museum, in Newport Beach California. We do not sell our Cocomats to any catalogs or online stores. 
"Catalog Cocomats": less than 1 year Palm FibreCocomats: less than 1 year
Cocomats are made up of 4 important parts, as outlined below ( A-D): bottom, matting, heel pad and edging.
A. Bottom. Our cocomats come with an expensive 100 % natural rubber-nibbed bottom. The “catalog cocomats” come with a low-priced PVC (hard plastic) bottom, designed to imitate a nibbed rubber bottom; however, it is just an inferior bottom designed to look like the real thing. A two-piece front set of our cocomats weighs approximately 13 pounds. The “catalog cocomats” same two-piece front set weighs in at about 5 pounds. The heavy rubber-nibbed bottom on our cocomats moulds to your floor and will not move around. The “catalog cocomats” with the lightweight PVC bottom does not have the weight or the traction to stay in one place and will slide around while you are driving. In addition to this, if you are buying your mats for an older European classic car that has a factory rubber mat on the floor such as a 356 Porsche, 190 SL Mercedes, 230 SL Mercedes, etc.., you need to be aware that you will have a problem with the hard plastic nibs from the “catalog cocomats” damaging your expensive original rubber mat through either puncturing, tearing or leaving permanent indents in your factory rubber mat. Our rubber bottom will not harm you rubber mat.
B. Matting. Our coco matting is woven from coir yarn and in Eight of our dot patterns we have incorporated a sisal yarn. Coir yarn is spun from the tough fibers extracted from the outer husk of Coconuts, hence Cocomats. Coir fibers and yarn have many grades of quality, and this along with the quality of weaving determines the ultimate matting quality. We use only top grade Angenjo yarn, which is the most consistent quality, and the most expensive. The yarn must be a very hard twist or the fibers will start to come apart after a short period of time ( Click for picture # 1). We use the best available dyes and our fibers and yarn are dyed in a “state-of-the-art” dyeing plant. In most cases we dye the yarn but in several of our colors we actually dye the individual fibers and then spin them into yarn. This is a much more expensive technique; however the quality of the matting increases significantly. Inferior quality yarn is dyed in dye vats over wood fires yielding little or no consistency or quality. The technique used to dye the fibers and yarn determines how long the color stays in your matting. We have been sent many mats from customers that have bought the “catalog cocomats” and the dyes do not last, the mats fade and fall apart. (see picture below)
"Catalog Cocomat" Driver and Passenger mat, Black-Red. Less than 1 year old
Our matting is woven on automatic looms. This is a much more expensive procedure, however it is very important since it is the only way to get the weave tight and even: tight and even mats, last longer and look better. The least expensive way to weave matting is on hand looms, which is how the samples we have seen of the “catalog cocomats” are made. We have also seen samples of the “catalog cocomats” that have used dyed “coir yarn” versus “sisal yarn,” in their dot matting. The original dot colors were developed in Germany during the 60’s and made available in Porsche, Mercedes and Volkswagen cars. The dot was always made from a sisal yarn. Sisal is a more expensive yarn and is the right look and quality for this dot matting, not dyed coir yarn, which is much cheaper and creates an inferior mat.
C. Heel pad. Our mats use an expensive rubber heel pad that is pressed and hot glued into the matting, and then double sewn, in order to lay flush with the top of the mat after installed. This makes it so that your feet will not catch on the heel pad and so that the heel pad is always flat and rigid. The “catalog cocomats” use a cheap plastic heel pad that is single stitch sewn onto the top of the mat. The differences are very important: The plastic heel pad not only cheapens the look of the mat, but the plastic heel pads are very dangerous when you get water on them, because water on a plastic heel pad will cause your feet to slip while you are driving. The “catalog cocomats” plastic heel pads will also buckle up after time and with no support underneath will cause problems while driving (see picture below-"Catalog Cocomat" plastic heel pad). The single stitch holding on the plastic heel pad also could very easily come loose with normal wear and start to come off causing a dangerous situation. Our rubber heel pads were designed to not only look good and compliment the natural fiber matting, but our rubber heel pads will help to keep your foot in place, even if water is present and will never come loose. (see below Palm Fibre Rubber heel pad) 
"Catalog Cocomat" plastic heel pad
Palm Fibre Cocomats Pressed Rubber Heel Pad
D. Edging. We use a very tough and expensive vinyl edging in colors that compliment our matting colors. The floor mat of a car gets a lot of abuse, so we sourced a vinyl that looks like leather, but is tough enough to stand up to the floor of a car. Our edging will never crack, tear or rip. The “catalog cocomats” use a very cheap and weak vinyl edging that will tear and crack in a short period of time (see picture below). We sew our vinyl edge down with a very tough 277 Nylon thread, which will never break. The “catalog cocomats” use an inferior 68 size thread to hold their vinyl down, which is weak and susceptible to coming apart very easily. 
"Catalog Cocomat" Torn vinyl edging.
Manufacturing and quality. Our quality control is very high and a set of mats will not leave our factory unless it meets our tough standards. All of our heel pads are straight, vinyl edging is correct and all matting material is aligned correctly on our cocomats. Every mat goes through a quality check at each of our production steps, as well as before shipping out. We double stitch the first stitch of the mats, that holds down the fibers prior to sewing on the vinyl edging. This is very important so that coir yarn does not come loose later on and the mat start to fall apart. We also double stitch our heel pads with a heavy duty 138 nylon thread after they are pressed and glued in, so that they will never come loose. Every set of our cocomats is treated (twice) with an expensive product from 303 Products called High Tech Fabric guard. This material was developed for and is used on boat sails, building awnings and convertible tops and covers. After a lot of testing, we have found that this product protects and seals the coco matting even further from spills and dirt, and so every one of our mats are treated (twice) with 303 fabric guard.
We have seen “catalog cocomats” with matting not aligned on bottom of mat (see below), crooked heel pads (single stitched) and with poorly sewn vinyl edging. Just not up to the standard that our customer comes to expect. 
"Catalog Cocomats" Crooked matting.
Our Company has built its reputation on providing a top quality product for a fair price. A speech was just recently given by Mr. Peter Schwarzenbauer, President of Porsche North America, where he quoted John Ruskin, a 19th century British economist, that sums it all up quite nicely: “There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man’s lawful prey. It is not wise to pay too much, but it is even worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you will loose a little money, but that’s it. But when you pay too little, you can sometimes loose everything because the purchased article can not fulfill the purpose it was meant for.”
Our customer care department is always available to answer any questions on our quality or anything about our mats. We are also happy to send out swatches of our Cocomats for review, prior to any purchase.
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