Modifying my future Plug-In

i would say get a EBH

 

Luscious Garage is the best. They work on all the Prius city taxis. They replace inverters, batteries, transaxles, bearings, engines... Pulling a door panel and running some wire is a walk in the park to them. I trust them totally.

 

Tracksdale, can you tell me more about sound deading the doors? That's probably my only gripe ... car too loud at high speed to talk on bluetooth phone (over 70mph)

blake

 

and what wheels are we suppose to get without screwing up the PIP? 16's or 17's?

MANY THANKS,

Blake

 

I read a lot of threads here on PC about sound deadening. One person I PMed was very helpful and told me what he thought I should order. He had just done his car and said that he thought it was comparable or quieter than his Range Rover (I have never been in a RR, but I imagine it must be pretty quiet).

He did his doors (about 90% coverage), his rear hatch area, and the front kick panel area. He also suggested using the thin stuff (a thin, dense foam like material with a thin aluminum backing) on the metal surfaces and then "blanketing" whatever areas you can with a thicker, not-as-dense, foam material.

What I ended up doing is just the doors, so far. And each subsequent door I did, I did much better than the last. I did the outer door skin (relatively heavy coverage) and the "inner" door skin (immediately behind the door panel).

With the inner door skin, I've seen pictures where people have removed all the wires and tried to cover the whole area with the material. But I didnt go that far. I didnt want to remove all the wires and the plastic clips. And the moisture barrier uses like a black tar like adhesive which I didnt want to deal with. So I just put it on any exposed metal. In the beginning, I was trying to do larger areas of exposed metal. But after the first door, I started to use smaller pieces to just cover much more area. One day, I'll go back and redo the first door (the driver door).

As for the foam blanket, I didn't use that much of it. I would like to go back and add more of that material to each door, after I do the kick panels and the rear hatch area.

The results so far have been (1) the doors dont sound like they are exploding when they are closed.. they have a definite "thud" to them now, (2) the stereo sounds much better.. definitely increased the mid-low range, and (3) I THINK its quieter.

The reason I only THINK its quieter is because I've only been on the freeway twice (once picking up the car and a round-trip to the airport). My daily commute is a pretty quiet drive already. I did try to measure the interior road noise using an iPhone app. I dont know how accurate the app is, but thats all I had. I measured the same section of road twice before I applied the sound deadening material. And then I measured it twice after. The numbers for the "before" were similar and the numbers for "after" were similar too. But it was something like a 2dB drop in interior road noise (the number jumps around a lot, but I would be confident in saying it was a difference about about 2dB). The section of road is pretty smooth asphalt and the speed limit is 40MPH.

When I was driving in the rain, I did notice there seemed to be more road noise coming from that kick panel area. So its very possible, as I was told, that area will make the biggest difference. There are some areas in the rear (like the wheel wells) that I would like to do. But the rear cargo area is pretty much all battery, so I dont think that would make as much of a difference.

I've also read that people used the foam blanket material to put UNDER their all-weather mats (front and back) and they said that made a noticeable difference as well.

So, take my experience for what its worth.. I do plan to do more.. and like I said, I think my first couple of doors could use some more material. To give you an idea, I bought something like 37 sq feet of the thin stuff.. and I only used about 15 sq feet so far.

The thin stuff I'm referring to is the RAAMAudio BXT II and the thicker foam blanket is the Ensolite IUO self-sticking one (Mat and Foam Products - RAAMaudio Inc.).