How to Make Your Car Quieter Inside

by Jennifer Porterfield | Last Updated: July 19, 2021

For many of us, our vehicle is more than just mere transportation to work, school, shopping, and other destinations. In fact, it often serves as a mobile office, a dressing room or lounge on wheels, or as a sanctuary where we can relax and get away from the rest of the world. But to make sure our cars are relaxing, the interior needs to be as quiet as possible.

While some noise may be inevitable, there are actually many innovative and easy ways to make your car quiet on the inside. If you want to be able to hear a pin drop while behind the wheel of your vehicle, here are some of the best ways you can go about making your car quieter inside.

Table of Contents

• Why Does My Car Sound So Loud Inside?
• How Can I Make My Car Quieter?
  • Installing Sound Deadening Mats
  • How Can I Reduce the Sound of My Car Interior?
  • Do Soundproofing Sprays Really Work?
  • Upgrade Your Tires
  • The Free Flow Muffler
  • Exterior Damage Can Mean Interior Noise
  • Regular Maintenance
• More Holes Than You Can Imagine

Why Does My Car Sound So Loud Inside?

If your car seems particularly loud on the inside, it could be for many different reasons. One of the most common involves your engine, where worn-out parts or dirty oil could be making things a bit noisier than usual inside your car.

In addition, you may also want to examine your vehicle’s suspension and exhaust system, since both of these can also be culprits in your car’s interior becoming much louder than you prefer. For example, when ball joints and shocker bolts are not properly lubricated, the friction they produce can be noisy.

Also, when your muffler or exhaust pipe has holes resulting from rust, the sound produced will guarantee you’ll barely be able to hear yourself think when driving down the road.

As for other reasons why your car may sound so loud inside, it could be the type of car you are driving. Since cars cost so much in today’s world, you may have opted for an economy car. While you may be getting great gas mileage, it probably has poor sealing around the doors and windows.

If so, you can remedy this by adding some weatherstripping to the door frames. Should you drive an SUV, you may experience similar problems, due to their less-than-ideal aerodynamics.

How Can I Make My Car Quieter?

If you’re tired of road noise, engine noise, wind noise, and also exhaust and suspension noise, the good news is that there are many easy, affordable, and effective methods aimed at reducing noise inside your car.

Once done, you’ll not only find yourself able to hear yourself think but also find you are once again able to enjoy the great sound quality on your car’s stereo. In fact, once you use some of the various methods for deadening the sound inside your car, you’ll be able to sing along to your favorite tunes without any problems whatsoever.

Installing Sound Deadening Mats

When you decide to get serious about reducing the noise inside your car, installing sound deadening mats will make a noticeable and immediate difference. A very easy DIY project you could do on a weekend, it simply involves tossing aside your current floor mats and installing your new ones.

But along with putting these mats on your car’s floorboard, you can also cut them into various shapes and sizes so that you can install them anywhere noise is leaking into your car. Whether it’s your car’s trunk, hood, doors, or other areas, these mats come with their own adhesive and have proven to work quite well on all types of vehicles.

How Can I Reduce the Sound of My Car Interior?

Along with your sound deadening mats that have been installed here and there on your car, you will still have many other ways to keep noise from intruding on your car’s interior. One method you may not have heard much about involves using reflective insulation, which has as its primary duty reducing heat from your floorboard.

However, the insulation is also excellent at minimizing noise inside your car, especially if your main noise problem originates from your exhaust system or general road noise. Once this insulation is placed underneath your sound deadening mats, the reduction of interior noise should be dramatic.

Do Soundproofing Sprays Really Work?

If you’ve heard of soundproofing sprays for your car but have had your doubts in the past, be prepared for a pleasant surprise. Contrary to what you may have thought, soundproofing sprays are easy to apply, very affordable, and can be used in many hard-to-reach areas of your car. Once the spray is applied and dries, it works by absorbing sound waves inside your vehicle.

Best applied when using a spray gun, you can apply one layer, wait about 20 minutes for it to dry, and then apply another coat. To get maximum noise reduction, it is recommended you apply three coats of spray to your car.

Whether you use it alone or choose to combine it with other soundproofing products you can purchase, soundproofing spray will be one of the best investments you can make in creating a quiet car.

Upgrade Your Tires

When you think of your car’s tires, you are usually only concerned with how well they grip the road and whether or not they have sufficient pressure while you are driving to and from various places. However, if you choose to upgrade your tires to ones that are also made to reduce road noise, wind noise, and other types of noise inside your car, it can make a significant difference.

To begin with, try switching out your car’s current tires for ones that are made of softer material and have a higher profile. By doing so, road noise may become almost nonexistent. Also, you can opt to coat your tires with rubberized undercoating.

But when doing so, make sure the undercoating you purchase comes from an authorized dealer you know and trust. Otherwise, you could wind up ruining your tires, leading to a high and unexpected expense.

The Free Flow Muffler

As more and more things on your car become highly technical and specialized, mufflers are no exception. Thus, if exhaust noise is your primary pet peeve regarding noise inside your car, the free-flow muffler may be the reason you are hearing so much unwanted noise. Instead, you can switch over to stock exhaust, which produces little if any noise you will notice.

Due to the probability that one day your car’s exhaust pipes will get damaged due to rust or corrosion, always take a look at this should you start noticing interior noise you suspect is coming from your exhaust system. In some cases, you may be able to make the repairs yourself. But even if you need to take your car to a mechanic, most exhaust system repairs are very affordable.

Exterior Damage Can Mean Interior Noise

If you were involved in a recent accident with your car and are now noticing an increased level of interior noise, there is a good chance your car suffered more exterior damage than you realized.

Since this can lead to annoying road, wind, and other noise entering your car’s interior, it could be putting other parts of your car at risk of failure, meaning you could be increasing the chances your car will break down unexpectedly at some point.

Rather than let this happen or find yourself involved in another accident, take your car to a mechanic who can thoroughly inspect your car and determine the problem.

Regular Maintenance

Like anything else of a mechanical nature, your car needs various types of regular maintenance in order to stay quiet. As an example, failing to change your car’s oil on a regular basis will lead to increased wear and tear on your engine, resulting in pistons and other engine parts producing more and more friction due to a lack of adequate lubrication.

Also, giving your car a regular wash now and then can also cut down on interior noise, since tar and other road debris can stick to the underside of your car and start rattling around when you are on the road. To prevent this, you can choose to have a thick layer of underbody coating applied to your car.

But just as it was with the coating for your tires, be wary of scams. If you get taken by a scam artist, your car will be in worse shape than ever.

More Holes Than You Can Imagine

Once you start looking around at your car’s interior in an effort to determine where noise could be entering, you will quickly discover your car’s interior has more holes than you could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, many of these holes are incredibly small, yet can allow for large amounts of noise to still get inside your car.

As stated earlier, soundproofing sprays can be your best bet in eliminating this problem. Though it will take some time to plug any and all holes you suspect may be making your car much louder than it has to be, you will be rewarded for your efforts when you get behind the wheel, start your engine, and find yourself lost in an oasis of quiet as you hit the road.

From the sound produced by wind as your car moves down the road to the various sounds of your tires as they pound the pavement, noise while driving may feel like something you are stuck with day after day.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Whether you get new tires to eliminate road noise, add weatherstripping to your door frames, or do something as simple as changing your oil regularly or install mats that deaden sound, your car’s interior will become a quiet place you can enjoy once again.

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