Experience with plastic flooring tiles?

Hey all, I recently had my garage floor re-poured due to 40 years of settlement. I'd like to keep the concrete protected from stains and damage in a cost- and labor-effective way. To that end, I've been looking at plastic flooring tiles such as RaceDeck on the high end, TrueLock HD in the middle, and Costco's MotoFloor on the low end. Does anyone have experience with one or more of these products?

I initially looked at polyurea coatings and epoxies, but those require emptying out the garage, surface prep, curing time, and can be costly. The tiles are easy to install, relatively inexpensive ($600-1000 for 400 sqft), come in lots of colors, will protect the concrete, and should look pretty nice.

https://racedeck.com/galleries/photo-gallery/

Thoughts?

I used industrial epoxy fifteen years ago, $500 for my 24 x 28' garage.  Never a regret. I can wet mop it, pour gas or thinner on it, hit it with a power scrubber every other year.  Maybe in another 15 years it will be ready for another coat.

Garage floor covers are probably more comfortable to stand on and warmer if that is an issue where you are.

Plastic covers will just give the gunk another surface to get dirty, how easy are they to clean.  Stuff will still get through the cracks to the cement and stain it.  Now you have dirty mats to clean and stained cement under it.

Maybe this is just my problem I spill a lot of car fluids, grease, weld spatter, rust and paint over spray.

If I just stored and waxed my pride and joy it would be a different story, then I would want some fancy looking floor for my man cave.   So I guess it comes down to the intended purpose of the space.

Hello, I looked into these products a few years ago. Not sure how they have evolved. 

The only concern I had was confirming how it would perform with a slight change in grade from on one corner of the garage. I didn't get a really good answer on what would or wouldn't work. So I did the full epoxy coating and never regretted it. The key is of course surface prep. With a new slab I am not sure what you have done to make it already unsuitable for coating. Any of the tile systems should still be placed on top of a coated (sealed/painted/industrial epoxy coated/etc) concrete slab anyhow. Otherwise the fluids from your projects will get through the seams in the tiles and stain your new floor anyhow. It won't destroy the slab but you seem to want the slab to be pristine in ten years so.......

These floor panels are cool just make sure you have an extra box (minimum of about three borders and four field tiles) of them to replace those that will be damaged. 

Used Behr concrete sealer and stain in 1995. While it is worn and scratched, but oil and grease still wipe off.  I can spray it with brake cleaner and wipe down with no degradation of the finish.  So it may look beat but it still works.

Call me a pragmatist but I've always worked on bare concrete and always found ways to damage it minorly that would have been worse if there'd been a covering or coating to damage. Point being that if you chip your concrete, who cares. If you chip your floor coating or tiles etc which implicitly are only there because you've decided that you care, you will care that they are damaged. None of them are damage proof when you are dropping large pieces of metal here and there, and even just ratchets and prybars can crack a tile or chip concrete if they land wrong. So, my solution is don't indulge in caring about the minor damage, and let the concrete get its chips and discoloration. If I can get it clean enough to lay on and smooth enough to roll a loaded engine hoist or other small castor wheels across it, it is...good enough.

porschenut said:

Used Behr concrete sealer and stain in 1995. While it is worn and scratched, but oil and grease still wipe off.  I can spray it with brake cleaner and wipe down with no degradation of the finish.  So it may look beat but it still works.

I used Seal-Crete sealer mixed with Behr concrete paint. Etched floor with muratic acid and let dry well then applied two heavy coats of sealer/paint. Has held up well to just about abuse I can give it. Seals against spill and cleans up pretty well even with my broom finished floor. Floor is now close to ten years old.

My concern with tiles is how do you clean out the dirt and sand that is going to eventually collect underneath them.  If  you're in a location that has snow, there's going to be salty slush as well.  Oil drips, grease or other fluid leaks could be a problem too.

The CEO of Racedeck is a pretty regular poster over in the GarageJournal Flooring forum.  That forum seems to be my go-to place when I am pondering garage flooring options.  There are several vendors that will answer your questions, and supply you with discounts as well.

I have them in my living room. I wouldn't put them in a garage that sees work. If you just park there, good product, but if I can make them ugly in my living room, I'll destroy them where I do actual work. 

I have them in my garage, I picked them up used for a song.  My tiles are the ones that aren't solid, ie, there are holes in them. 

This is both good and bad. The good is they're not slippery at all in the winter when they get wet from snow etc.  The bad is it makes it basically impossible to clean them properly.

If they were solid I could hit them with my pressure washer and then squeegee the water out of my garage.  If I do that now I then have to use my shop vac to suck all the water out from underneath them, which is a huge PITA.  Plus the tiles still look dirty.

So my solution is to not bother trying to clean them at all.  If I did it again I'd get the solid ones, but since I picked these up used, for cheap, I can't really complain.