Rhino Boot Liner Review (Audi A4)
August 1st, 2016
By Andrew Dodd in Reviews
Product Full Name | Rhino Boot Liner – Audi Extended Liner
Retail Price | £100 (various custom options)
Available From | Rhino UK
Rhino Boot Liner – custom boot liners to protect your car
Unless you’re lucky enough to be part of the van club, or use a bike rack of some kind you’ll probably be familiar with loading your bike in the boot of your car.
In the middle of summer the mess is less of an issue, but when it comes to winter packing your muddy bike and kit in there can be a pain – especially if you’re soaked through and want to get home to get cleaned up.
Rhino are a British company that make custom boot liners for virtually any make of car, to virtually any spec you want.
The Details
We chose a Rhino Boot Liner to suit an Audi A4 estate, with the back seats folded down.
There are options for just about anything you could require on the website, including being able to split the rear seats; completely cover them or even box out the whole back of your car.
Our camouflage option has loops for the head rests, and covers the rear doors. There is a built in bumper flap that doubles up as protection for the inside of the boot door too – great for perching on when getting changed.
When our Rhino Boot Liner arrived, the thing that surprised us was the heavy weight of it, and the high quality stitching. When they said each one was hand made to spec, we didn’t realise how much goes in to producing each liner.
The stitching is heavy duty through out and the entire seam is covered in velcro fabric, with 3M sticky back velcro already in place for fastening to areas in side your car.
One particularly neat feature is the ‘hook’ side of the velcro is sewn on to the boot liner itself – meaning that it can also fasten directly to the carpet lining in your car.
Not wanting to add velcro to the entire inside of my car, I only added velcro strips on the inside of the boot sill, on to the sides of the entrance. The carpet lining on the rest of the back of the car was fine for the Rhino Boot Liner to attach to.
This combined with the head rest straps holds the boot liner in perfect shape and keeps every thing protected.
In Use
The Rhino Boot Liner is perfect for slinging a bike straight in. It’s just what you want when it’s hammering it down, your bike is filthy and you want to get home.
The material is thick, and waterproof – making it a perfect bit of kit for mountain bikers. Usually I have to wrap my bike up in sheets; carefully place in the boot then get changed and pack my dirty kit away. With the Rhino Boot Liner it’s a case of stripping off, throwing all your dirty kit in with the bike and worrying about it all once you get home.
I actually leave the liner in my boot permanently now – just unlooping the head rest straps so I can fold the seats back up.
Although this Rhino Boot Liner fits my Audi perfectly, I’d not taken in to account the mesh pockets on the sides of the boot when I installed it.
I use these pockets to store knee pads, gloves etc – so they do affect the fit marginally. When you install your 3m Velcro, do it with the anything in place that you are likely to have – then the fit will be much better.
I have since adjusted mine as the Rhino Boot Liner comes with a lot of the stuff for perfecting the fit.
We Say
The Rhino Boot Liner is a great bit of kit. The fabric is tough, waterproof and cleans up easily.
It protects the inside of your car, and really does make mountain biking a lot easier when conditions get in the way.
Bear in mind the basic price changes according to your car specs; the fabric used and the custom options you want. But really it’s a great value bit of kit – and certainly much higher quality that any other boot liner we’ve seen. It is also machine washable – though we’ve just waited for mud to dry and have used a dust pan and brush to keep it clean.
The Rhino Boot Liner is so good, that we’re going to order some seat covers in the same material too – we won’t even need to get changed to drive home then!