Road Noise.

rackz30

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After owning the car for little while now, I noticed that road noise is being very audible compared when I had it when its brand new. Some people say it has something to do with the tires but Im thinking if theres any way we can lessen road noise like some deadening materials or what not. any ideas would be really appreciated.
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After owning the car for little while now, I noticed that road noise is being very audible compared when I had it when its brand new. Some people say it has something to do with the tires but Im thinking if theres any way we can lessen road noise like some deadening materials or what not. any ideas would be really appreciated.

As you've mentioned, this is often due to tires. Especially on front wheel drive cars, unless the tires are rotated religiously, the rears can cup a bit and get noisy.

I noticed this a lot when I worked for a rental car company. The vendor who handled our maintenance was getting lazy and not rotating tires. I noticed that the rear tires on some of the cars in our fleet were getting cupped, and you could hear it on the road. I marked some tires one day and caught them when a couple of cars came back from an oil change and "tire rotation" with the tires in the same position as when they left.

Anyway, long story short, I'd suspect your tires as a general rule. I've found that rotating my tires every 5 or 6k miles greatly reduces the chance I'll see any odd wear or cupping of the tread. It's a slight pain, but I do it myself, so it really isn't costing me anything except a bit of time.
 

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It's definitely your tires... I've noticed this myself. I can't believe how loud they have become... but they are also the reason I'm getting 45mpg.

I'm going with a much more premium tire when I replace. I'm thinking Michelin Primacy MXM4.

I'm also planning to do my sound deadening this year, but tire noise is the hardest to remove acoustically.
 

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i have a 17 Si Sedan and I couldn't stand the cabin noise (115 miles a day commute Minimum). I did some 80mil Norinco butyl and in the trunk and doors and it was a Massive improvement. Now I notice it coming from the floor and of course the firewall and wheel wells. I have probably 35 sq feet left and will be pulling the front seats and carpet to cover the floor and firewall soon from the inside. I also bought the weather seals for the front engine bay and they made a HUGE difference which surprised me. I have some sound foam that I will do in the front fenders as well but didn't realize and bought the 2 part taht requires a special gun other wise I would have done it already. Once I can borrow a gun or have a buddy do it at dealership, I will report back on this. I can can doing the trunk made a large difference as there is nothing back there, not even under carpet mat, I will be going back into the trunk and doing MLV and then also will go over the inside of my door panels with MLV as well. Between the Butyl and MLV alone I will expect a large difference.

The only reason I will not do the whole car in MLV is it's 2lbs a foot which adds up and it's extremely expensive. IT was time consuming and in removing my rear tray I lost my tweeters - my replacment tweeters will be in this weekend though so will have my full sound back and have been without them since before Christmas lol. I took the opportunity to upgrade them as well for really only a few bucks more:) So just to update - taking the 6-8 hours to remove all of the rear seats, trunk items, panels in the back and door panels to do Butyl was very worth it, however it then made me more picky and Iwill be removing all carpet and doing the floor with 60-70% coverage under the carpet to help even more. The tire noise was helped by the engine bay covers which I didn't expect it to help that much, and I will be restless until I have matched my old 4Runner's quiet cabin taht was achieved with nothing more than Weathertech floor mats lol.
 


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i have a 17 Si Sedan and I couldn't stand the cabin noise (115 miles a day commute Minimum). I did some 80mil Norinco butyl and in the trunk and doors and it was a Massive improvement. Now I notice it coming from the floor and of course the firewall and wheel wells. I have probably 35 sq feet left and will be pulling the front seats and carpet to cover the floor and firewall soon from the inside. I also bought the weather seals for the front engine bay and they made a HUGE difference which surprised me. I have some sound foam that I will do in the front fenders as well but didn't realize and bought the 2 part taht requires a special gun other wise I would have done it already. Once I can borrow a gun or have a buddy do it at dealership, I will report back on this. I can can doing the trunk made a large difference as there is nothing back there, not even under carpet mat, I will be going back into the trunk and doing MLV and then also will go over the inside of my door panels with MLV as well. Between the Butyl and MLV alone I will expect a large difference.

The only reason I will not do the whole car in MLV is it's 2lbs a foot which adds up and it's extremely expensive. IT was time consuming and in removing my rear tray I lost my tweeters - my replacment tweeters will be in this weekend though so will have my full sound back and have been without them since before Christmas lol. I took the opportunity to upgrade them as well for really only a few bucks more:) So just to update - taking the 6-8 hours to remove all of the rear seats, trunk items, panels in the back and door panels to do Butyl was very worth it, however it then made me more picky and Iwill be removing all carpet and doing the floor with 60-70% coverage under the carpet to help even more. The tire noise was helped by the engine bay covers which I didn't expect it to help that much, and I will be restless until I have matched my old 4Runner's quiet cabin taht was achieved with nothing more than Weathertech floor mats lol.
I'm gonna be doing the full MLV treatment. I've always heard that if you don't do a full encapsulation of MLV it drastically diminishes the performance. I was going to install speakers when I do this, but I think I'll just run speaker wire so that I can easily upgrade down the road. I've been having a hard time spending the money for a sound system AND the sound deadening at the same time.

Post some pics when you get it done. I'm not real sure when I'll be doing mine yet, probably closer to summer.
 

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I'm gonna be doing the full MLV treatment. I've always heard that if you don't do a full encapsulation of MLV it drastically diminishes the performance. I was going to install speakers when I do this, but I think I'll just run speaker wire so that I can easily upgrade down the road. I've been having a hard time spending the money for a sound system AND the sound deadening at the same time.

Post some pics when you get it done. I'm not real sure when I'll be doing mine yet, probably closer to summer.
I agree I will do the trunk completely blocked off via mob, and the doors completely as well. I will not be doing the floor at all with the MlV, the butyl alone added will be enough. I have pics posted on Facebook si club if install should add on here and maybe make a build thread
 

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i have a 17 Si Sedan and I couldn't stand the cabin noise (115 miles a day commute Minimum). I did some 80mil Norinco butyl and in the trunk and doors and it was a Massive improvement. Now I notice it coming from the floor and of course the firewall and wheel wells. I have probably 35 sq feet left and will be pulling the front seats and carpet to cover the floor and firewall soon from the inside. I also bought the weather seals for the front engine bay and they made a HUGE difference which surprised me. I have some sound foam that I will do in the front fenders as well but didn't realize and bought the 2 part taht requires a special gun other wise I would have done it already. Once I can borrow a gun or have a buddy do it at dealership, I will report back on this. I can can doing the trunk made a large difference as there is nothing back there, not even under carpet mat, I will be going back into the trunk and doing MLV and then also will go over the inside of my door panels with MLV as well. Between the Butyl and MLV alone I will expect a large difference.

The only reason I will not do the whole car in MLV is it's 2lbs a foot which adds up and it's extremely expensive. IT was time consuming and in removing my rear tray I lost my tweeters - my replacment tweeters will be in this weekend though so will have my full sound back and have been without them since before Christmas lol. I took the opportunity to upgrade them as well for really only a few bucks more:) So just to update - taking the 6-8 hours to remove all of the rear seats, trunk items, panels in the back and door panels to do Butyl was very worth it, however it then made me more picky and Iwill be removing all carpet and doing the floor with 60-70% coverage under the carpet to help even more. The tire noise was helped by the engine bay covers which I didn't expect it to help that much, and I will be restless until I have matched my old 4Runner's quiet cabin taht was achieved with nothing more than Weathertech floor mats lol.
Do you have a link to the weather seals in the engine bay?
 

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If you're talking about the covers you can find on ebay that cover up the sides of the inside of the fenders I'm not surprised it helped. I was completely floored when I opened up my hood and could see the back sides of the plastic fender wells straight through the engine bay! I've never seen that with any other car. I thought about removing the fender wells and covering them with something or at least stuffing some MLV into the recess but then I thought it might trap water and cause it to rust over time. I've got 5k miles on my car and the tires (Hankook Kinergy GT) are getting noticeably louder. I might try buying those covers and also getting some Pirelli P7s to replace the tires eventually.

Edit:

These are the covers I think we're talking about?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/FOR-2016-1...ash=item2845c4a24f:g:-D0AAOSw0W5aAkvd&vxp=mtr
 

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Get new tires. Not only will the road noise improve, you'll have a safer car. The stock tires are horrible.
 


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My old Firestone's had 30k on them and seemed loud to me so I purchased new Goodyear Comfort Turing tires. Maybe a little more quite than the Firestone's but not by much. Ride is smoother but I'm a little disappointed as they didn't make that much difference in road noise.
 

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Bahndrvr, the engine mount side covers, is there room to stick the Dynamat underneath the side covers and have the pieces still fit and mount properly?
 

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Its sad when I upgraded to 19" wheels with Nitto tires that the road noise was less than my stock firestones.
 

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Bahndrvr, the engine mount side covers, is there room to stick the Dynamat underneath the side covers and have the pieces still fit and mount properly?
The side covers listed above are what I have they are called leaf covers, and yes there is plenty of room to stick on the h derailed but it’s textrude. I may spray boom mat on the underside or rubberized undercoating over putting butyl on it as mounted upside down and exposed more to heat and weather I would feel better about longevity with a spray based.

Tires will make it quieter but that’s a temporary solution only! I will be going with probably smaller tire, harder tread and low noise for the stock rims when I replace, of course I’ll have a set of dedicated autocross tires and rims by then and probably a set of slicks for drag passes:). So I’ll be looking for lower noise and better mpg from the lower rolling resistance and I take my playtime to the track not the streets so no concerns there
 

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The side covers listed above are what I have they are called leaf covers, and yes there is plenty of room to stick on the h derailed but it’s textrude. I may spray boom mat on the underside or rubberized undercoating over putting butyl on it as mounted upside down and exposed more to heat and weather I would feel better about longevity with a spray based.

Tires will make it quieter but that’s a temporary solution only! I will be going with probably smaller tire, harder tread and low noise for the stock rims when I replace, of course I’ll have a set of dedicated autocross tires and rims by then and probably a set of slicks for drag passes:). So I’ll be looking for lower noise and better mpg from the lower rolling resistance and I take my playtime to the track not the streets so no concerns there
What kind of sound and how much of a difference does the engine side covers make?
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