Technical road noise
- Thread starter katmaiden
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Technical road noise
Mine is lovely and quiet on very smooth newly laid tarmac
Otherwise, it is very loud.I'm thinking about insulation, but wouldn't know hwere to begin, or how much of a difference it would make.
crabman
Yes
road noise varies with tyres and will also be louder in colder conditions, right up to the point when there is ice on the road and the noise stops
the 500 along with all small cars that are not weighed down with lots of sound deadening will suffer from road noise, thoughtfully Fiat supplies all their cars with a radio/cd/mp3 player
the 500 along with all small cars that are not weighed down with lots of sound deadening will suffer from road noise, thoughtfully Fiat supplies all their cars with a radio/cd/mp3 player
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Yup its normal - although wheel size and tyres make a huge difference - did you spec bigger wheels than the garage car? - cos if you did the tyres will be lower profile and run at a higher pressure.
There's a guide on here that goes through the whole process of stripping out the entire contents of the car and sound proofing it. Worth a read if its still there, and then you can decide not to bother and just turn the stereo up.
Crank the tunes!
Sorted!
Sorted!
Yes i was shocked when i first got my car about the amount of road noise i thought it was because i ordered the 16" alloys but then i noticed on certain road surfaces it was ok and after nearly a month with the car i have gotten used to it and just crank up the interscope and enjoy...
There is a stretch on the A50 that is concrete, driving on this is horrible, it pitches and wobbles and the noise is atrocious. If I had taken the car along that on a test drive i may not have bought it. However, there is a newly laid tarmac road near my house, the car glides along it and it is really noticeable just how unsmooth most roads actually are.
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Concrete can be particularly trying. Tyres obvioulsy can make a huge difference - I've just changed my Citroen C4P tyres for Goodyear Eagle NCT5 and a nasty concrete section on the M20 towards Ashford is just as quiet as the tarmac before it, so rather pleased with those
Re guides - indeed, my handiwork I'm afraid, they're all up in the 500 guides section:
https://www.fiatforum.com/500-guides/
HTH
Re guides - indeed, my handiwork I'm afraid, they're all up in the 500 guides section:
https://www.fiatforum.com/500-guides/
HTH
Concrete can be particularly trying. Tyres obvioulsy can make a huge difference - I've just changed my Citroen C4P tyres for Goodyear Eagle NCT5 and a nasty concrete section on the M20 towards Ashford is just as quiet as the tarmac before it, so rather pleased with those
Re guides - indeed, my handiwork I'm afraid, they're all up in the 500 guides section:
https://www.fiatforum.com/500-guides/
HTH
Incidentally pearce... did you ever measure the dB effect of all your hard work?
crabman
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Not remeasured after the doors actually, but here's what I wrote after the floor-pan and rear were done,
"On a particular section of road prior to any additional insulation, a measurement of 74dB(A) was attained at 60 mph in top gear. After the procedures in this article and the rear-section article were followed, this reduced to around 67dB(A), a big and very noticable improvement. Some surfaces are now around 64dB(A) whilst old, course grained tarmac is still nudging over 70dB(A) but with a very different tone. In particular, the higher pitched components are massively reduced resulting in much lower volume levels being required on the stereo"
TBH it's not a quiet car even still. Cause tarmac is quite horrid. There are two issues,
1. I should have layed a mass-loaded damper over the felt, especially in the front footwell, and
2. The door cars and rear quarter panels can't be sealed because they have unenclosed speakers mounted in them, i.e. a 6" hole in each one.
If I were doing it again I would definitely use mass-loaded vynl on the floor pan instead of dynamat type damper, and probably a second layer over the top of felt as well, but TBH it is a great deal better than standard and I can't be bothered to take it all apart again!
The road noise "SSSSSSSHHHHHHH" type of sound is gone, but there is plenty of tyre "roar" left unfortunately. I'm also going to give some different tyres a whirl since mine happen to be worn down.
Cheers!
"On a particular section of road prior to any additional insulation, a measurement of 74dB(A) was attained at 60 mph in top gear. After the procedures in this article and the rear-section article were followed, this reduced to around 67dB(A), a big and very noticable improvement. Some surfaces are now around 64dB(A) whilst old, course grained tarmac is still nudging over 70dB(A) but with a very different tone. In particular, the higher pitched components are massively reduced resulting in much lower volume levels being required on the stereo"
TBH it's not a quiet car even still. Cause tarmac is quite horrid. There are two issues,
1. I should have layed a mass-loaded damper over the felt, especially in the front footwell, and
2. The door cars and rear quarter panels can't be sealed because they have unenclosed speakers mounted in them, i.e. a 6" hole in each one.
If I were doing it again I would definitely use mass-loaded vynl on the floor pan instead of dynamat type damper, and probably a second layer over the top of felt as well, but TBH it is a great deal better than standard and I can't be bothered to take it all apart again!
The road noise "SSSSSSSHHHHHHH" type of sound is gone, but there is plenty of tyre "roar" left unfortunately. I'm also going to give some different tyres a whirl since mine happen to be worn down.
Cheers!
There's a road on the way to Swindon that, when driven along at 70mph, causes road noise that sounds exactly like a person screaming over the stereo. It freaked the hell out of me the first time I heard it!
Lloyd, that's a coincidence, I read that a person in Swindon was left screaming in agony after a white 500 ran her over.
Yeah, that road has a 30 mph speed limit...
Check the underside of your car for body parts, you may be able to help the police with their enquiries...
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Right, got an update for anyone interested since it actually wasn't raining this morning.
That same section of road today, 9*C, 65dB(A), a 9dB(A) improvement over the standard.
This is with doors, floor, and rear section coated. Clearly the front doors have had an effect
As said, some surfaces are still very much worse and I'm looking towards tyres now as it's more of a roaring type of noise that's coming through.
We noticed that too, but we had 16inch wheels added at the last minute, instead of the 15's, as they forgot to the order the right 15's!
We did notice that it was more noisy, but I think we've gotten used to it now.
