Additional Sound proofing

[50p]

I was initially going to buy a Lexus UX but couldn't live with a black interior and headlining. The lighter coloured ones were only available with white or brown seats! Also I could get a newer Toyota for the same money so a longer warantee .. then, after I bought the Corolla the 10 year warantee came along! 😏

[AndrueC]

On 5/18/2022 at 11:14 PM, TonyHSD said:

The entry level Lexus are poorly equipped and I will avoid them at all cost. Fully spec Corolla like gr or excel is better choice. Btw these two Corolla are as god as Audi or bmw inside. 👌👍

I have no complaints about the interior of my Corolla for sure. Nor the exterior actually but since I'm the driver I don't really care what outside looks like anyway.

Apparently this confused the last salesman I spoke to as he couldn't understand why I didn't want to buy a C-HR because of the analogue dash. I tried pointing out to him that the dash was the part of the car I looked at the most but apparently he felt that I should be more concerned with the exterior look.

[Spo2]

On 3/2/2022 at 10:57 PM, clix said:

I am slowly getting into this project. During the weekend, I had some time (and two butyl sound deadening samples), so I took the plunge and remove left side of the boot trim in my TS. This is how it looks like:

Wheel arch is covered by cca 5mm foam/felt type sound absorbing material. There is also a sound absorbing "sponge" located behind a rear wheel arch. And sound absorbing felt is covering the ventilation holes.

I put some sound deadening material on the rear quarter panel and also on the rear wheel arches. Quarter panel does definitely now sound more dead, but for the wheel arch the difference was not that big. If you taped it before, it did have some resonance, but it is fairly high frequency. After I added sound deadening material, the difference was not that big. It looks like the factory spray on material does a fairly good job at managing lower frequency resonances.

I also put butyl mats in the spare wheel opening:

before:

after:

With a knock test, this part now feels noticeably more damped, but if it will actually translate to quieter ride, we will see. I hope that it will at least reduce a bit the loud "ping" noise, when you ride over a dilatation on the motorway. It is quite intrusive.

Few days before, was the first time, that I actually spent some time in the back seat, on the motorway and in the tunnels. In my opinion, back seats are even louder than front seats. What was actually surprising, was how much noise was coming from the rear cabin vent. Especially in the tunnels. 

When I removed this part of the trim, it had a sticker on it:

It would imply, that the same part with the felt exists and probably for a reason. But due to reducing cost and weight, some cars don't have it (maybe all?). Next step is to get some sound deadening foam, felt or maybe eve sound absorbing thinsulate and better insulate this part of the car. I will probably stuff something behind the quarter panel, stick some felt on the trim and also try to put some material in the vicinity of the vent, to absorb as much sound as possible. The good thing is, that sound absorption material is usually not as heavy as a sound deadening or sound blocking material.  🙂 

I would like to point out again, that I am not going for the "put all the materials everywhere" method, mainly because I would like to avoid adding to much mass to a car, that originally has a low payload capability and a weak engine (1.8).  Sound deadening only on "strategic" places, and sound absorbers in the quarter panels and doors. I already received more sound deadening material, that will be used in the future.

Overall, considering the amount of sound insulating material car comes with as standard, and what some other cars have, my guess is, that the car will become a bit quieter, but sadly the low frequency rumble will probably remain.. Low frequencies are verry hard to block/absorb/eliminate. You can check, some Tesla Model 3 and Y forum posts. It already has much more sound insulation material by default, but a lot of users are complaining on low frequency noise, on anything but the smoothest roads. And sound deadening never helped them a lot with this.

I enquired about sound proofing from this guy who did for C-HR here. He says- To soundproof the 4 doors and boot floor area takes a full day and uses 2 Skinz bulk kits.  The labour and material costs are £600.