I absolutely hate it when engine and road noises get in the way when I’m trying to listen to my favourite tunes in the car.
The finer details and nuances that I enjoy in a piece of music gets drowned out by rattling and annoying ambiance.
Even with high-quality speakers and a boosted midrange dialed through my equalizer, I’ve found that it’s still not quite enough to cut through it all.
This year, I decided to finally do something about it. Hence, I started looking for the best automotive sound deadening material on the market. I started collecting and testing around 15 different materials and managed to pick out a top five. You can read my review of each below.
Before getting to the reviews, I want to actually talk about sound-deadening materials in general, particularly the things you need to consider before getting one for your car.
These materials come in different types and weights, with different insulation capabilities, thickness…etc. and it can get a bit confusing if you’re not familiar with this technical stuff.
Not to worry though, because I’m going to be explaining how all of these different factors affect the final product, starting with…
Let’s look at the characteristics of four of the most common types of automotive sound deadening material you can buy:
Typically, sound deadening mats will have foil on the top surface and sticky material on the base. The base material determines how effective the mat is at deafening the sound and also how well it will counter extreme temperatures.
The two most common materials you’ll find on car mats are butyl and asphalt. These days a lot of manufacturers seem to prefer butyl over asphalt and I can certainly see why. First of all butyl products are more heat tolerant than asphalt ones, which I gather is due to the stronger chemical bonds between its molecules. In addition, asphalt tends to give off a rubbery odor while butyl mats don’t carry a particular scent. One cause of this could be the relatively low melting point of asphalt.
Lastly, butyl is the lighter material of the two which makes for an easier installation process.
There are two ways in which a material could reduce the amount of noise inside your car: sound blocking and sound absorption. Despite what a lot of people think, these terms aren’t interchangeable. Sound blockers prevent sound from entering and/or leaving a space. What they do is create an airtight barrier around them so that sound waves cannot penetrate through it. On the other hand, sound-absorbing materials like foam ‘catch’ sound waves and reduce them as they travel into the soft surface.
How do you determine which is right for you: sound blocking or sound-absorbing? The key is to figure out whether most of the noise is coming from within the car (for example, engine rattling) or outside it. If it’s the former, then sound absorption is more appropriate. Otherwise, if its road noise or wind that’s giving you the most trouble, then best go with a sound blocker.
The thicker the material, the more effective it is going to be at deadening sound. This is simply because the intruding sound waves have a bigger barrier to cross and any few that get through will have lost most of their energy by the end of it. Hence, if you deal with quite a lot of noise on a regular basis, then I recommend only looking at thick material.
You can buy sound deadeners in a variety of sizes but the dimensions should depend on the area you wish to cover. You can either buy deadeners as large rolled mats and cut out the size you want or simply buy smaller pre-cut sheets.
The weight itself doesn’t necessarily affect the quality of dampening but lightweight ones are most certainly easier to install than heavier ones. If you’re the kind that tends to get frustrated when doing DIY work, then I’d highly recommend going with a lighter material.
Flexibility impacts ease of installation too. The more flexible the material is, the easier it is to bend over the irregular surface on the inside of your car.
You can’t avoid oily surfaces when it comes to cars; it’s just something you have to live with. Oily surfaces are harder to coat because they don’t adhere to things that well. Fortunately, there are sound deadeners that are specifically made to stick to oily surfaces.
Now that you’re well-informed on what sound deadeners are and what factors to consider before you get one, let’s take a look at my top five picks for this year:
6,028 Reviews
Noico 80 mil (2 mm) 36 sqft (3.4 sqm) car Sound deadening mat, Butyl Automotive Sound Deadener,...Very Thick
This popular car mat from Noico is 80 mils thick which is about 2 millimeters. While this may not sound all that impressive, this is actually quite thick in the context of automotive sound deadeners. To compare, the average car mat is only about 1.3 mm thick. Hence, the Noico 80 mil certainly gives you above-average performance.
Needless to say, things got really quiet inside the car once I managed to install the Noico mats. The previously troublesome engine and exhaust piped noises settled down and as a result, I could have my music playing at a moderate level and still hear everything.
Butyl Base
The Noice 80 mil sports a butyl base which means that it’ll fare well in hot weather or if your car naturally tends to generate a lot of heat like most sports cars do. While butyl doesn’t carry a particular odor you’ll still get a whiff of a rubbery scent when it starts to get really hot inside the car. This is because the Noice 80 mil supposedly has some asphalt mixed in.
Lightweight
Before I actually got my hands on the Noico car mat, I had a strong suspicion that the added thickness would cause it to become a bit heavy. It actually turned out to be the case, to my pleasant surprise. The Noico 80 mil hardly weight anything more than the average 50 mil car mat at just 0.7 pounds per square feet and so I didn’t have any difficulty setting it up inside my car.
In addition, each order includes a stack of 9 pre-cut 29.5×19.5 which means that you most likely won’t need to do any cutting yourself.
Installation Indicator
The Noico mat has a very easy way of indicating whether you’ve installed it properly on the floor of your car. It comes with special embossing on the foil surface which has to be rolled out with a roller until it turns smooth. And that’s pretty much it! Once the foil looks plain, you’ll know it’s properly set up.
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On Sale
12,912 Reviews
KILMAT 80 mil 36 sqft Car Sound Deadening Mat, Butyl Automotive Sound Deadener, Audio Noise...Very Effective Dampener
Similar to the Noico car mat, the KILMAT 80 mil features a thicker-than-average body which makes for improved performance over typical mats. As soon as I had the KILMAT installed, the cabin sounds grew extremely faint and I found that I didn’t need to crank up the stereo volume anymore in order to hear all the details in the low-end of my music.
Butyl-Base
By now you’re well aware of the benefits that a butyl base brings to the table. In addition to being good at audio dampening and having high heat-resistance, the KILMAT 80 mil is also odorless. This indicates that the car mat is a purer butyl product than the Noico 80 mil.
Easy Installation
There are four main factors that make the KILMAT quite easy to install. First of all, it sports the exact same installation indicator as the Noico 80 mil, where you have to roll out the embossed foil. Secondly, the package comes included with a very powerful adhesive which meant that I didn’t have to order one separately. Thirdly, the KILMAT weighs practically nothing at about 0.5 pounds per square foot. Lastly, each order includes 34 9.8×15.7 pre-cut sheets which are much smaller than what I got with the Noico package. This made things a bit more convenient as I didn’t have to do any cutting at all.
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1,086 Reviews
Car Insulation - 4' x 10' Roll (40 Sqft) Sound Deadener & Heat Barrier Mat - Automotive Lightweight...Extremely Thick
This car mat from Car Insulation features a thickness of 1/4″ which is one of the highest I’ve encountered. As you might expect, the performance is quite excellent, muffling any and all rattles coming from within the car.
Foam Base
Unlike the Noico and the KILMAT, the Car Insulation mat features foam instead of butyl. While foam doesn’t appear to be any better at deafening sounds than butyl, it’s certainly more effective at removing reverberations. Hence, if you’re experiencing excessive rattling coming from your engine, then this might be the sound deadener for you.
Crush Resistant
The Car Insulation mat doesn’t feature pure foam but a variant that’s reinforced by a polyethylene exterior. What this does is make the mat crush resistant. So you could have someone stamping their feet hard on the floors or place a heavy object on it and not cause any damage to the mat.
Very Lightweight
Since it’s made out of foam, the Car Insulation mat weighs practically nothing at all, despite being a quarter of an inch thick. By the company’s own estimate, it would take 25 square feet to get this thing to weight one pound! This makes for a very no-hassle installation process, especially considering that foam is a very flexible material too.
Heat-Resistant
The car Insulation mat makes sure that your car interior doesn’t get to warm by reflecting most of the heat coming from the engine and header. Conversely, during the winter, it’ll reflect any heat back towards you instead of absorbing it.
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Decent Thickness
The Dynamat 10455 is around 1.7 mm thick which means it’s the least thick mat on the list. However, that’s not to say that it’s a poor sound deadener. In fact, its performance was still comparable to that of the Noico 80 mil mat.
Butyl Base
A butyl base means that the Dynamat 10455 is going to be durable, heat-resistant and lack any form of odor. In addition, the butyl base is actually coated with aluminium, making it even more capable of deflecting heat. As a result, the Dynamat 10455 is one of the best sound deadening car mats in terms of insulation.
Easy Installation
Each order includes nine 18″ x 32″ sheets which meant that I didn’t really need to do much cutting during set up. Additionally, each sheet comes with a high tack permanent adhesive that’ll make absolutely sure that the mat won’t shift around after you’ve installed it. Trust me, I tried.
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On Sale
1,466 Reviews
FatMat Self-Adhesive Rattletrap Sound Deadener Pack with Install Kit - 25 Sq Ft x 80 mil ThickVery Thick
This sound deadener from FatMat boasts a thickness of 2mm, which puts it in the same league as the Noico and KILMAT. As a result of the extra thickness, this car mat is quite excellent at muffling out chamber noises and as the name clearly implies, getting rid of those pesky engine rattles.
Aluminium-Coating
Similar to the Car Insulation mat, this FatMat features aluminium coating that’s able to deflect the heat arising from the engine and other components away from the interior. Likewise, this deflection ability helps to retain heat inside the car when you’re trying to stay warm during the winter.
Super-Stick Adhesive
FatMat comes with a proprietary ‘Super-Stick’ adhesion which I found to be quite effective. After an hour of letting it dry, I tried and failed to slide the mat with my feet.
Comes With A Roller
I feel that all car mats should come with rollers considering its a vital tool for the installation process. However, as you’ve likely noticed, that’s just not the case. Fortunately, the FatMat was a welcome exception to this norm and not only that, the included roller was quite easy to use as well.
Installation
The biggest drawback with the FatMat is that it doesn’t come in pre-cut sheets. Instead, you get a roll that can vary in length from 25 square feet all the way to 200 square feet. Because of this, I had to spend some time cutting out small sections.
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Here’s the part of the review where I reveal my overall favourite sound deadener from the top five. Before I do that, I want to clarify that any of the above five could serve you well, seeing as they are similarly excellent in a lot of aspects. In my experience, I never felt that any of these were sub-par at cutting out noise or dampening out excessive vibrations.
As a result, it all came down to personal preference and considering this, the winner was the Dynamat 10455. First of all, it did its primary job rather well, which was to make the inside of my car the quietest possible so that I could enjoy my music at a moderate volume. The 10455 was also an excellent insulator, and is going to be quite handy since winter is here already. The heat loss through the floor is going to be significantly reduced.
I also liked the fact that the Dynamat didn’t emit any sort of odor. Considering that I’m very sensitive to smells, this saved me from literal headaches. Lastly, I liked that I didn’t have to spend any time cutting up a roll since it came as pre-cut sheets.
Over the years, I’ve had a ton of people ask me questions about automotive sound-deadening materials so I thought it would be appropriate to answer the most common ones here:
There are mainly four factors that determine whether a material is great for soundproofing or not:
If a material meets all of these requirements, then it can be used to effectively soundproof your home, office or car. The best materials include mass-loaded vinyl, soundproof drywall, acoustic caulk, acoustic foam, weather-stripping tape and more.
It depends. If you’ve got a noisy car like I do, with a really loud engine and lots of rattling components, then it’s certainly worth it. This is especially true if you tend to listen to a lot of music and would like to hear all the details in a song.
Some manufacturers of sound deadening material might claim that their products help to improve the bass response in the sound. However, I believe this is an exaggerated claim. What sound deadeners essentially do is drown out ambiance so that the sound from your speakers can take the spotlight. Hence, essentially, if the bass response sounded weak before it’ll certainly sound much better afterward.
There are three main types of sound absorbers:
There are many excellent sound dampening materials including:
The products featured on this page were last updated on 2024-01-10 at 08:09 /. Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API.
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