Rubber sound deadening coating - any difference?

[ogcsmith]

So on my old VW we had the dealer installed rubber spray-on sound deadening material. I'm not sure how much it did but I didn't hear the sound of stones pinging into the undercarriage.

I didn't get it installed on our new Mazda 5 at the dealers but I have noticed the noise of stones pinging around underneath.

Has anyone had it done and noticed the difference? What about the smell afterwards? I'm looking at having it done at the local Ziebarts.

On the side, I'm not worried about water getting trapped. Here in Alberta, Canada it is super dry so rust isn't much of a problem.

 

[DougNuts]

I plan on coating my inner fenders this summer. I just use a few cans of 3M undercoating and do it myself.

I am not sure if I can say that previous times I've used it resulted in any sound attenuation.

 

[Secondtyme]

^^What he said. I don't know that I would invest in any kind of professionally applied undercoating solely as a sound deadener. You can easily source something like Lizardskin from the internet and apply it yourself, save the money you would have paid the Ziebart folks for something more worthwhile. As to reducing noise you will see a far more tangible result from something like Dynamat or TP Tools TPMat, just my 2 cents on the matter...

 

[ogcsmith]

I like the idea of doing it myself but I don;t have any tools for a real spray job e.g. no pit or compressor hence looking at Ziebart. Similar with the Dynamt route. I'm all for a good product but I'm not sure my wife would be happy with me taking the new car apart!

 

[Secondtyme]

The sort of over the counter stuff mentioned above applies like spray paint, and you really don't need any sort of special equipment, just an afternoon and some elbow grease. I have sprayed on truck bedliner under past cars while i had them up on ramps to perform an oil change. I do see your point about tearing into a new vehicle though. What i would suggest there is removing all the under cargo floor foam that surrounds your spare tire, those pieces are designed to come out and are held in with plastic clips that don't break easily. Once you have done this you will see the bare floor of your spare tire well exposed. Any of the readily available sound killing mat type products can be used to completely cover this area in about two to three hours. My experience with this process is that it does a remarkable job of quieting the cabin of road and tire noise and is well worth the time and effort. TPMat in particular can be cut with scissors and is self adhesive (so easy a caveman could do it!) LOL HTH

 

[DougNuts]

I also have installed interior sound deadening on previous vehicles. I bought a few large rolls of Fat Mat off of Amazon and intend to use some in my 5 this weekend. I usually just knock on the metal and anyplace that doesn't sound 'dead', I add some to that location.