I have been thinking of removing some of the road noise in our Roomster, and just bought some dynamat. I am thinking that the best place to start is either the trunk and/or below the rear seats, or then the front doors.

Has anybody done something like this before, and is this even the right place to start? Could I get better result by starting somewhere else. Also tips on how to remove the interior would be greatly appreciated.

I thought the engine on my TDI 1.9 Scout sounded loud , with the window open going down country lanes (sounded like a machine gun).

But I hadn’t had it long and as it was new to me , and you do tend to be over critical with a new car listening for every sound.

I put an extra layer of soundproofing felt ,( borrowed from my old VW which is laid up) under the existing bonnet soundproofing , being mindful of its proximity to the engine and any possible fire risk.

The existing soundproofing behind the dash seems to be an inch thick sheet of rubber foam sound insulation , and also seemed to extend under the seats, so I felt I couldn’t improve on that.

I went around the back of the interior of the car , tapping to see if anything was drum or cavity like.

I couldn’t see much scope for sound insulation of the luggage bay , when I took the side panels off , accessed by screws recessed behind the pull out bag hooks. And what put me off was the fiddly trim clips which tended to spring off into mid air. Luckily I found them all.

The boot door I removed the trims top and bottom and stuffed the cavities with felt soundproofing.

The boot floor I just put another layer of carpet down, over the existing.

Also put another layer of carpets in the four foot wells.

Happy now I’ve done all I could , and I can hear the radio at all speeds which is good.

On the old VW I bought self adhesive rubberised sound deadening pads which I could cut to shape, and stuck under the bonnet and also after taking the door trims off to the metal door skins.

I should add I tend to be wary of removing door trims in general.

I prefer to leave them well alone , unless it’s a faulty window regulator where you have no option. I tend to find the plastic fixing lugs tend to break off, or you end up breaking the waterproofing /condensation sheet.

Maybe the Roomsters different but I doubt it.

Maybe this thread will help you.

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/131758-removing-door-trims-and-rear-speakers/

Maybe this thread will help you.

http://www.briskoda....-rear-speakers/

Hi. This will definately help, thanks for the link!

One of the most effective parts of the car to do, is the boot floor, rear arches and if you have one, the spare wheel well.

That makes a large difference to any car, that's quite open at the rear.

I've taken my door trims off and put them back on loads of times and never broke a anything. It's only a piece of moulded plastic with some fabric and door handle which is held in place by clips and screws. if the clips break you can buy them cheap from the dealers. as for the sheet of membrane, it's just a piece of material that's stuck on. (on the fabia anyway) you can buy this also for about £3 from the dealer but you shouldn't need to. I stuck mine back on

which dynamat did you get, if you bought deadener it won't cut the noise out, it's designed primarily to cut down on vibrations. you'd need closed cel foam, mass loaded vinyl and sound deadener. i would consider other brands as dynamat is not cheap.

Now I have ordered the materials, Dynamat Extreme and Silent Coat Noise isolator and Sound Absorber. I have decided to start from the back, and soundproof the rear hatch and the panels and floor in the trunk first. If that goes OK I'll have a look at the doors as well, but those seem to be more scary to open...

I'll document it and post more detailed info later.

look forward to seeing progress pics. are you doing wheel arch as well.

Please document your work in progress with pics and results. I am (like many others in this forum) very interested in it. Other things I have taken into consideration - not sure about them, though - are:

- sound-proofing wheel arches from the outside with specific spray foam or material

- replacing the panel under the engine with the model fitted in diesel roomsters, which is larger and apparently more efficient (my petrol roomster has a reduced area panel).

- putting a sound reducing half rigid carpet behind the back seats when I use the outer ones in two-seats only configuration, since this is my usual setup.

Experience from professional people is always welcomed

I am by no means professional, more like a happy amateur that during my younger years have taken a few cars apart from the inside to add insanely large speakers, and even managed to get the cars back together again

The materials are arriving today, and I will probably start the project tomorrow. I'll try to remember to take pics and show what I have done. The rear wheel arches should be fairly easy to soundproof from the inside once I take the side panels from the boot off, and this is where I expect the biggest improvement. The front arches can be covered from the outside with the dynamat (or equivalent). More details to come...

Short comments: Pics available here: http://photobucket.c...ng_roomster2012.

A more thorough howto will come once I have recovered from this work, this took about 4 hours of sitting in the boot (including some unnecessary work due to mistakes.

Short summary: The panel is fixed with 6 screws located under the bag holder (1), the luggage net holders (2), in the back corner (1) and by the C pillar under the top part cover (2). Otherwise removing was fairly straightforward with few comments:

- DO NOT UNSCREW THE 12V PLUG FROM OUTSIDE, ONCE YOU GET THE PANEL OUT YOU CAN UNPLUG THIS EASILY. I did this mistake, and spent half an hour trying to get it back together and burned the fuse in the process :(

- Do not put too much noise dampening stuff on the part of the panel that is close to the wheel arch, it won't fit...

The material I used were:

Dynamat Extreme

Dynaliner 1/8

Silent Coat Sound Absorber 35

The Dynamat whas easy to work with, even in ~10 degrees temperatures. The original "sound proofing" was glued with some clicks of glue here and there, but was very hard to remove, so some sort of chemical is highly recommended for this project.

I will continue with the other wheel arch and the front doors once I have time and the weather permits. I have a subtle feeling that the road noise on the left side of the car is lower than before, but with the rights side "stock" I can't tell certainly.

Edit: screw position added, I had one left over and now I remembered where it came from

Edited 4 May, 201214 yr by the_raz

Impressive!!

One thing worth keeping in mind that I learned from my sound dampening efforts on the Superb, is that the interior spaces behind panels in the boot are also used for ventilation, so it is best not to stuff them completely with sound dampening material, leave plenty of gap throughout.

Thanks for tip about the socket, will need to take boot panels off on my wife's Roomster this weekend as I need to put in the towbar and connect the electrics.

New pics added to http://photobucket.com/soundproofing_roomster2012

Today I did the hatch and the other side of the trunk.

The hatch was an easy job. The panel is attached with 20 or so sturdy plastic clips and one screw located next to the strap. Below this there is plenty of bare metal just waiting for soundproofing. When completed closing the trunk sounds like a much more expensive car, and it also closes more easily as it is now a bit heavier.

Materials used:

SIlent coat

Silent Coat Noise isolator 4

Silent Coat Sound absorber 35

The noise isolator is far worse than Dynaliner to work with. It sticks immediately (even to your fingers) and is impossible to remove in one pice. It does also feel more "plastic" than Dynamat. Getting it to different shapes in no problem though.

The other wheel arch was done in the same way as the first one although I probably added more Dynamat and Dynaliner than the first. Otherwise the treatment was the same. Disassembling and assembling was much easier now that I knew where the clips and screws were, and how to remove the panel.

Impressions: much less road noise than previously, so well worth the effort. So far I have used about 2 sheets of Dynamat, 1/2 roll of Dynaliner, 1 sheet of Silent Coat, one sheet of SC Noise isolator 4, and 1 sheet of SC Noise absorber 35.

A fairly unscientific noise level measurement done by my cell phone shows decrease of sound pressure at both 80 and 100 kmh of 2-3 db which means that the sound is more or less half of what it was previously. The measurments are taken by holding the cell phone facing rear at ear level in the middle of the car between the seats. The road noise from the rear is almost completely gone, but now there is more wind noise instead, and I will continue with the front doors once I have some more time.

Looks like a job really well done . You really stripped the side panels right off. Much more than when I did my investigations into the side panels.

Ironically my daughter rode in the back of mine the other day , and said how noisy it was.

Perhaps a job for the future!

Well done!! You may not be a Professional but have done it in a very professional way!

Questions: is it necessary to employ three layers of different stuff? Haven't you thought about using something simpler, though a bit less effective?

Did you ask for professional advice when buying the insulating stuff?

About the different materials, are there differences in prices?

Did you notice quality/effectivity differences between different materials?

THX

Thanks for your positive comments!

Since the big part of the work is removing the panels (and more specifically getting them back again) I just wanted to make sure that I put enough stuff in the first time around. 3 layers is perhaps a bit overkill, and I have no means of knowing what the efficiency of each layer is, but as there were room I added all of them, and at least I will know I did all that was possible.

The general rule is that closest to the surface you need to add some kind of damping mat (Dynamat etc) that will stop the metal (or plastic) from vibrating and causing resonation. Here a single layer of the mat is usually enough since it it stiff enough to stop the material from resonating.

The next step is to prevent sound coming from elsewhere from penetrating the panel, and this is done using the mats (Dynamat, noise isolator etc). Here the more material you can fit in the better the insulation, so adding a second layer (or twice the tickness) can definately make a difference, so the general rule is put as much material as you can fit. Generally it is easier to put two layers of a thinner mat than one layer of a thick mat since the thinner ones are more easy to work with (lighter, more flexible, easier to cut etc), and in the end it does not make any difference, it is just the total thickness that counts. The noisier the other side of the panel, the more insulation needed.

I was mostly just reading different comments on the web regarding insulation and also info from different workshops on how they do the insulating.

The Dynamat and Dynaliner is much more expensive than the Silent Coat counterparts, but for the mat I actually prefer the Silent Coat. The Silent Coat is patterened which means that measuring and cutting is easier, and also getting it to fit different shapes. At least to me they feel to be more or less equal, and also applying them is more or less equally easy.

The Dynamat is much more easy to work with than the Noise absorber. The noise absorber is annoyingly sticky, and if you get it stuck in the wrong place it is almost impossible to remove. It also breaks up easier. The Dynamat has a more "rubbery" surface and feels more sturdy, while the Noise absorber feels almost greasy. The Dynamat seems to be around 4x more expensive, but at least you get something for your money.

A general consenus is that the Dyna products are the best and preferred by experts, but for the average joe the much cheaper SIlent coat counterparts works as well.

...and the story continues. Yesterday I opened the drives side door, and threw in some silencing. Getting the panel of was fairly easy even though I ended up breaking 2 plastic clips that obviously were glued to the door since I couldn't even get them out when the panel was away and I could access the clips directly.

First you need to remove the outer part of the handle as shown in pics linked earlier in this thread. This does really sit quite hard, so a bit of confidence is needed to get it off. And remember, just the outer part of the handle! Below that there are two screws that need to be removed. Two more are found at the bottom of the panel, and then you can bend the panel free. On the back side there are a few wires that are connected to the panel, but they are all with connectors and can easily be removed.

In the door there were not too many obvious parts to soundproof. I did not dare to remove the window mechanism, and from my first experience with the boot panel I was also afraid to add too much soundproofing, so I ended up putting a few patches of dynamat/silent coat and dynaliner/noise isolator here and there. In the door there were also quite a few wires and different holes that I did not want to block. The difference was certainly not as big as with the boot, but I was left with a feeling that I might have been able to do more. The door took around 1.5 hours including a short coffee/snack break. A few pics added, but I was obviously not focused enough yesteday to get images of every step.

I would suggest few sound dampening techniques like replacement of the rubber washers along the door linings. The rubber washers wear out in due course of time and hence needs replacement. We usually dont notice its importance but ya for my Fabia it did make a difference .. Last week one of my friends got his new set of Rubber linings and the sounds and vibrations in structure did improve a lot after that. he owns a skoda laura 2009 model. Apart from these i would suggest careful usage of doors and windows. Slamming up the door might end up in structural sounds and other disturbances very soon. Visit http://automanix.com for latest information on Indian cars.