Truth About Soundproofing Your Car

Most information you obtained on vehicle soundproofing are MAINLY derived from the Internet....from articles and websites created by suppliers of soundproofing materials and car audio retailers who perform sound proofing jobs.

 As per usual marketing sense, their marketing objective is to:
1. Promote their brands
2. Increase usage quantity and usage of a wide variety of their materials.

Hence, you still see the outdated, old-school approach created by the early leaders in this industry where the entire car flooring and firewall are covered by shiny damping materials. Just imagine the weight increase and tremendous cost without any guaranteed results!.

The noise that envelopes you in the car interior are a combination of engine noise, tire noise, wind noise and external traffic noise. These MUST be kept in balance. Eg: Aggresively reducing 1 type of noise could make the other noises more apparent/louder. Even a Lexus is not 100% quiet, as a perfectly quiet car makes you feel uncomfortable, just like staying late at office with the air-conditioning and other stuff switched off. It gives that eerie sensation if you're not used to it. Complete silence can be deafening.

Due to excitement generated by the media, many car enthusiasts jump into "soundproofing" their vehicles using these "classic" methods and approaches such as using loads of costly and heavy asphalt and/or butyl-based damping materials (eg Dynamat,GSI etc), and slathering these materials all over the car. Many have convinced themselves that there's an improvement while others have been quietly disappointed. Many have even used materials for home roofing (Peel and Seal) simply due to its lower price, and believing that these are equivalent to damping sheets meant specifically for automotive sound damping without considering its effect in the longer term and adhesive quality.

Many car owners have their own approaches such as heavily doing up the 4 doors with damping sheets without even knowing IS the problem mainly contributed by the doors themselves!. Others will vigorously attack the floor. The above is the main reason why many car owners are experiencing the "high-end hi-fi syndrome" when it comes to vehicle soundproofing...a never ending, expensive pursuit to chase after different elusive targets. A never-ending game. In short, most owners have never investigated: 1. What is the main type of noise that annoys them? 2. Where is this noise mostly emanating from? 3. What's the most cost-effective method to give the most "bang for the buck" results? On modern vehicles, the No1 noise problem is mostly tire noise/road noise, and my next blog deals with this issue.