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I've spent the last few months adding some sound deadening to my Mk3. I'll share what I've found in the hope that it's useful... My conclusion is that while the engine is almost silent on mine, sadly the chassis and lack of sound treatment makes the Octavia a noisy car on the motorway, on anything but the smoothest of surfaces. However, it is possible to reduce the booming so that it is below the pain threshold(!) Main thing I did was buy a 3.4 sq m pack of Noico 2mm butyl mat (black). It cost about £50. I did this work in Nov-Dec in Scotland. I used a heat gun (hairdryer would do) to heat the metal to 30-40 degrees for good adhesion. First I stuck it all around the spare wheel well. - This made the rear sound a bit more 'solid' when driving over bumps. Then I lifted the rear seats and added noico to the bare metal under the rear seat. - Maybe added a tiny bit more "solidity". Car was still quite noisy. I then treated myself to 4 new tyres, and got the front wheels aligned (tip - if you are non-VRS model and have standard suspension, you only need front alignment - cost about £60). The wheel alignment was quite a bit out, this reduced the roar from the front, but there was still a lot of road noise. I can't say I've noticed a huge difference from the new tyres. They are Goodyear EfficientGrip Performance 2. They are fine but I don't think the bulk of the noise was from the tyres. Now the main noise was a painful low frequency 'pressure', especially on bad motorway surfaces. Next I treated the B-Pillars (as in this post). I ordered some small pieces of acoustic foam to stuff into the bottom sill, and inside the B-pillar itself, taking care not to interfere with airbags and seatbelts. I covered the large 'hole' in the b-pillar metal with Noico, and covered the rear of the bottom plastic trim with Noico. - This helped reduce the 'pressure' feeling in my inner ears. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it was now obvious that there was a lot of noise coming from the front footwells. I lifted the easily accessible parts of the carpet in the front footwells and added Noico under there. What is under there is basically very thin, very resonant bare metal. This is where Skoda have added their biggest pieces of ineffective sound deadening mats, which shows they realise this is a noisy area. I added a layer of Noico to the footwells. This helped to the same extent as lining the spare wheel well did. Now when I go over a bump, the front sounds more solid. However it is still noisier than in a lot of cars. I might still add a second layer of Noico, and maybe some MLV (Mass Loaded Vinyl) over this to further absorb the noise in the footwells. As I was in a rush, I found some 1cm thick rubber mats in Screwfix (designed to go under a washing machine). I put 2 layers of this under the carpet in the front, which helped a fair bit. I'll happily go into more detail if anyone has questions (If there's interest I could even make a project thread with photos?). Oh, I also adjusted the rubber 'spring' type stoppers on the bottom of the boot lid (there was a gap of about 5mm, I unscrewed them so that they just grip a piece of paper when boot is closed (there's a video somewhere in this thread). And I also bought a Z-shaped rubber seal strip for £5 on ebay and attached it to the front edge of front doors - this helped reduce wind noise. PS if it's any small consolation, while the mk3 does seem to be particularly bad for noise, check out the Range Rover and Lexus forums haha they have the same issues - it's maybe all relative...

Haha thanks. I was wanting to remove the whole liner, apply the sound deadening to the liner while is off the car, and then replace the liner. It is the thought of trying to squeeze it out through the gap between wheel and body that looks impossible! I think I'll leave it for now - I'll maybe approach a local garage if the urge gets too strong to resist...

Does anyone know if it would be possible to remove the front wheelhouse liner without removing the wheel? I'm assuming it's too tight a space, but maybe using alternate full lock would provide access? (I'd like to add some sound deadening behind the liner but don't really have the space and tools to easily remove a wheel.) PS - It's my first post but I've already found this forum to be a great place for help and advice - thanks