Does Soundproofing The Exterior Wheel Arch Make Any Difference? [PT6] 

Hi, folks! I recognise some of you have commented saying that you need to remove the wheel arch lining to properly soundproof the wheel arch, which I recognise, but at the time the video was shot, I was still learning. I'll post an update video on the channel in due time. Cheers!

I have successfully removed a LOT of drone noise and NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) from my car after doing four things that made a big difference. (And I had like everyone else started off by trying to get things quiet using butyl mats/dynamat etc. I realised that that had a very limited effect and beginners usually end up sticking down way too much of the stuff and later regret it because you start thinking how much you’ve weighed the car down by. And a year or three down the line you end up taking two thirds of it back out - or trying to). Here in England I run a 2011 Ford Mondeo (Fusion) estate/station wagon. MY FOUR BIG TIPS for INSTANTLY reducing noise (REMEMBER - you are NOT going to get your sub-$25thousand dollar car to hush like a Bentley. BUT - you can get a LONG way towards it.) NUMBER ONE - REPLACE YOUR TYRES. If you want quiet, you need to LIFT the car further away from the ground and have less tyre in contact with the ground. So run NARROWER tyres with a TALLER SIDE WALL and if you can a SMALLER RIM SIZE. I replaced my 215 55 R17 tyres with 205 65 R16 tyres on replaced 16 inch rims. This dramatically reduced the rolling drone of the tyres on the road and gave a softer ride because the taller side wall raised the car further above the ground as well as reducing the contact with the ground. Yes you will get less of a sporty ride but I’m not interested in a sporty ride. NUMBER TWO - INSERT SURGICAL TUBING into all your door seals. You need to improve resistance to outside sounds coming in. Adding surgical tubing into all your door seals makes them nice and snug. Don’t go TOO tight though - get the right tube width - or else you won’t be able to shut the doors and you’ll feel real dumb. NUMBER THREE - Buy cheap ‘RECON FOAM’ cut it up into small cubes and shove it compacted into all the empty cavities under the trim around the console, footwells and glove compartment. You wouldn’t believe how many just open holes there are in that area doing nothing but causing sound from the engine and up from the ground to reverberate around. Foam (NEVER USE SPRAY FOAM - it will enter places you really don’t want it to get and you will never get it out in the event of a repair requirement) dampens all that NVH and contributes to the multi-pronged solution we are going for. You need to do a LOT of things to add up to removing those decibels. NUMBER FOUR - Go to the back of the car. On most cars under the rear bumper on the left and right corner areas hidden away you will find a one-way ventilation flap on each side of the car. These are interior pressure flaps that allow air to escape from the car when the doors are closed and to allow ‘used’ air to escape from the cabin as new air enters from the front air vents. BUT they usually are located behind a very large cavity that sits adjacent to the rear wheel arches. In some cars you can reach into this large empty cavity through the back hole at the rear of the small felt door/closet you find in the left or right wall of the boot/trunk - the little hidden hole you might put an emergency traffic cone or yellow jacket in for example. I discovered these cavities causes a LOT of droning noise. The noise from the rear wheel comes straight through them, reverberates and comes out through the interior rear air escape vents. FILL ONE OF THESE CAVITIES UP! Don’t fill both - you need one to maintain the ability to release the cabin air pressure remember - and often the fuel fill area prevents access to one of the cavities depending on if you have a left or right hand drive. But if you can get access to one side - fill it up tight with old rags, recon foam, old carpet that can be scrunched up - you want as much as possible to remove cavity space that creates reverb. Use anything not too heavy but DENSE. So recon foam, being more dense, is a lot better at dampening and muffling drone than, say, bubble wrap. Pack it in tight - and there’s room for a LOT of foam and rags in there. The more you stuff in the quieter you'll get. This for me REMOVED 80 to 90% of the heavy drone in the back of the car - which had been particularly irksome on long motorway journeys. NUMBER FOUR POINT ONE (!) Not essential but this improved my car dramatically - If your car is one of those that tilts down slightly towards the front end (to allow for the backend to dip slightly and the car to even out when the trunk is fully loaded) buy a pair of polyurethane lifting spacers to sit at the top of your front struts. Your garage can fit them for about $250. They again move the front end higher off the ground, away from the noise of the road. So coupled with the tyres we’re really changing how close we are to the noise of the road. Plus they make the car sit more evenly and look a lot better... SO These are my main tips for really getting to a quieter, pleasant drive. And they have really worked for me. I wish you all the best with your own particular car - every one has its quirks and every one will have slightly different solutions. It's a lot of sometimes unpleasant work, but persevere and you can get a nice result.

I've done lots of private cars so I can share my knowledge what works and what doesn't. -Wheel arches - silent only the engine and maybe 20$ of the road noise. Most road noise is transmitted thru metal - hence suspension. The stiffer the suspension you have the worse the results will be. Silencing them with alubutyl, foam and felt (closed in a foil). Silencing the parts where the struts go to, but do it with you hood open - use polyester. Engine cover - polyurethane foam. -The roof - 50% of the noise coomes from the roof - airborne noise - use polyethyleneand alubutyl and a thick felt (12mm at lest). -A, B , C pillars, cover both ends with thick 8-10 cm polyurethane foam. Inside of the pillar put a felt or thinsulate. -NOW - the big part, the floor. take out all the seats and carpets: - alubutyl - 20-40% of the coverage area but it should be 4-5mm thick - then felt - 8mm but hard felt - and epdm rubber You need three layers. Dampening, absorbing and blocking. Don't use foams - they are already present in your carpets for sure. If you use foams they won't absorb the sound - jest block some reverbing sounds so it doesn't sound like a tin inside, hence we use polyethylene foam on the roof. -The doors, some alubutyl on the outerlayer of inner door cavity, just 30-40% - don't put too much like in "big companies" trend. Now use polyethylene with a glue to cover the area juest under the door trim. Then add felt - use an adhesive tape, and then an epdm rubber. -Now - under the rear seat - alubutyl plus polyethylene plus epdm. The trunk - same thing like under the carpets. I did a loud volvo. Came down from 76db! to 65dB (65dB is the level of BMW F10 at 85mph) That adds quite weight to your car. It feels like a completely different car. Now no raising voice or turning the volume up when driving 85mph on a harsh highway...

I’ve done similar wheel arch sound dampening with Morel 2.6mm damp mats for all of the wheel arches. As you have mentioned the sound proofing is more evident at higher speeds of 100kmph+ . It’s worth the effort.

you have done what i have thought of doing to my toyota. thank you for sharing.

Love the Hey Bear 🎵

Wow that sounds realy different!!

Thanks for doing this. The faster speed might be the higher air noise at speed. I would like to do this on my wheel arch too. Thanks for sharing. 👍

The problem with soundproofing especially on a cheap car is for me, when you cancel out one noise, the small rattles before that were quiet are now noticeable 😂

You did it wrong, there are 3 types of sound proofing for cars. Vibro: remove vibration, prevent metal, plastic to rattle or resonance due to loud subwoofer, we use this to completely remove the sound of rain drops by installing this on car ceiling.The one you install is a vibro. Insulator: as the name suggest, we use this material as 2nd line of defense. Absorber: this is to absorb leakage sound that slip from the insulator. Install facing inside the cabin to absorb car audio leaking to outside and install facing outside to absorb the road and traffic noise. Go for Silentcoat they made they best car soundproofing. Go for noisekill if you want to make it cheaper. Watch CAS audio, they make good tutor.

Well done on your continued efforts Jamie , I think I would have persevered with getting those wheel arch liners out to stop any drumming of the wing being a thin steel panel. Even if it meant a few new trim buttons from ebay or toyota mate

In addition to soundproofing, this would protect from stones flying off the wheels chipping paint and starting rust. Good video mate, keep them coming!

Butyl doesn’t do much in the wheel arch by itself, but it makes a great base to add more layers. A 10mm soft closed cell foam on top helps more. There are also multi layered mats that have different densities in one, which are even better.

Another thing you could do is upgrade to 16 inch wheels, that would allow you to buy Hankook Ventus S1 Evo-2 tyres. they a have polyurethane foam inlay sheet on the inside of the tyre that help alot with the interior noise inside and out (if you drive with the windows down)

😂 that sound dampening material is for interior use under your carpet. IF you want to sound dampen your wheel wells, raptor undercoating or spray on truck bed liner is best. I actually had the trunk of my 1968 impala sprayed with the stuff because of the risk of oil leaks from the hydraulic suspension system.

Good humor. I like the video. Personally I think the loss of effect at higher speeds is because at that point, more noise is coming from the wind, and not the wheels. You would have to do the floor and the front.

What's up bro. I'm about to spray some dei boom mat spray on the underbody of my s2000 to try and lower road noise and maybe exhaust drone? We'll see. "Thinsulate" maybe I'll win 🤞. Keep on making some cool s2000 videos bro 😎

Try a smooth or flat underbody, that should reduce air noise

Thanks for the videos, you're inspiring me to do the same sort of soundproofing for my Toyota. If you're going to keep taking your wheels off it would be best if you purchased a socket that fits the wheel nuts, a breaker bar, and a torque wrench. Much safer for you and the wheel nuts than the wrench that came with the car.

Your dedication to this cause is unmatched... However I feel you may have devalued your car in the process and would suggest anyone else considering this route just buy a Lexus 😅 Lots of love!

MOT guy will definitely give You a weird look :)

Careful that it doesn't trap rust! I want to get some thicker tyres on my 14'' rims, prefer the chunkier look but not sure if I can get them.

Get a hollow closet clothing rod extension and use it as a cheater bar on the tire wrench for more leverage when loosening. You can stick some twigs in the space in between to prevent too much pressure on any one point of the tire wrench. Just don't use the cheater bar for tightening.

I wonder, does soundproofing the inside wheel arch had the same effect? And also, how does it performs when it comes to rainy weather?

Doing this today to my mk2 clio. Gonna take the liners out and do it in the channel bit on the wing. Its already got some foam in there as standard so guess its showing me where it needs to be. Shall see what difference it makes before doing the doors and the rear ones.

I highly recommend keeping your stock tire size. Maybe buy quieter tires yes, but do not mess with changing tire size. Also new tires should be quieter. I'm not sure you should stuff rags anywhere in your car either.

When sound proofing wheel arches you need to remove the arch liner and sound proof the liner as well as inner arch

At 2:30 I was yelling to the screen: "Are you nuts? ...DON'T remove ALL the nuts while the car's resting on the wheel!" LOL

Did you really wonder if it was safe to put sound proofing in the wheel wells? I mean, it might be unsafe if you put the stuff on all of windows but in the wheel wells?

I accidentally completely removed all vehicle noise by fibreglassing the undercarriage and chassis to prevent rust I have to park outside so I did this for just that purpose the cancelling all the noise was a bonus but the handling and steering also noticeable improved it was like driving a prairie wagon around corners before compared to now I can't really explain why that is except the little tack welds that hold it together are now not needed because it now has much stronger joinery and doesn't sway when going into corners.

Hello. The observation that sound from the engine becomes prevalent as you sound deaden the one from the road made me think twice about doing this on my Polo. Thank you for your thoughts.

Will there not be an issue with the moisture trapped in? I’ve done that with all my doors but I realised that most sound is coming from underneath

Should have chucked a T style lug wrench in the online shopping cart. I hate those simple ones cars come with. So hard to get decent, balanced leverage.

Those axle stands aren't the best. Project farm did a recent round up.

C'mon - you can't leave us hanging without having covered the bits under the liners! Just buy some trim fork and they should be easy to remove.

From this video the wheel arch is partly or about 50% covered. So the drumming effect of road noises, onto the the uncovered part of plastic wheel arch cover, is still unmuted. Applied sound block so far is about 1.8 to 2lb. I am copying what you did but starting from outer part of the of the wheel arch plastic cover!. Tapping the plastic cover with finger tips, before vs after applying sound block, indicate it the sound is only muted slightly. 😂😂😂 Perhaps it is still a good enough ROI. Regards. I am taking it slow. I am limiting covering each wheel arch plastic with 3.3lb of similar sound block.

Get some good tyres instead of thoes cheep muck.👍 great vid

Would've bought a bit better jack than that for 35£ :P

Scotty Kilmer would be really irritated that you don't have a breaker bar nor a torque wrench.

ProjectFarm has a jackstand video and the one you bought is the worst one you could have gotten

Why didnt you just put it in gear and you wouldve been able to loosen and tighten the wheel bolts, +even more safe lifting the car up. Oh and by the look of it, tyre guy overtightened them like crazy, you should get a torque wrench

Interesting attempt. BTW, I would NOT continue using that jack stand. Some tests of several jack stands including the design you're using. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hXzusz_eUy8.html

Sound dampening is not the same as sound insulation.

that is the cheapest jack and stands i have seen in my life, i wouldnt even trust putting my hand under the car with that equipment

why not do this from the interior of the car ?

That sound deadening material... You need to use sound proofing materials...

Soundproofing can get obsessive

Kind of pointless. You have to soundproof the wheel arch lining and wheel arch.

Ai ai ai you only did half the work