fierostetz

i was rear ended and the frame needed to be stretched, exhaust replaced, rear bumper cover replaced - the car now has INSANE road noise. the body shop refuses to acknowledge anything about it, is there anything for me to look for? also, the front windows don't seem to seal quite so well anymore, i get a teensy bit of noise from them on the freeway. one of the reasons i liked my 96GLE was how quiet it was on the freeway, a dream, and now it eternally pulls to the left, after 5 alignments and 2 tire rotations, and has this insane road noise problem. any ideas? my dad said there may be rubber dampeners or something that might not be seated properly, but i don't have the slightest idea how to look into this. any input would be totally awesome thanks much - s

PoePoe2797

Theres a special spray that goes on the inside of the wheel wells....like a rubberized coarting specifically made to reduce road noise. forgot what its called but hit up pep boys for it

fierostetz

well, there was no road noise before the repair, why would it start afterwards? i want to locate the source of the new noise, prior to going aftermarket to take care of the other stuff

kingrukus

iTrader: (41)

The frame had to be pulled? This was major. A car will never be the same after such a serious hit. Sorry that I can only provide the obvious and no real help.

fierostetz

that was my argument, but they only spent ~1800 fixing the car, when i still owed 7000 on it - the car runs fine, and should run even better when it gets 6 healthy new coils tomorrow morning (yay! thanks mossy nissan!) but its just loud... i was *going* to pull up the carpet and put in dynamat, but i shouldnt HAVE to

chris j vurnis

Bending pieces of framework back and forth tend to weaken the joints if the movement is excessive.

Rigidity of the unibody frame is a major factor in how much road noise is transmitted to the interior. A less rigid unibody will resonate more and transmit more noise. Even if the unibody frame is pulled back in spec after an accident, it will likely be weaker and therefore noisier.

There are two typical types of construction. They are "unibody" and "body on frame".

Typically, modern high-end luxury and performance cars are more of a "body on frame" design. Essentially, the suspension is bolted to a rigid frame and the body panels are attached with significant mounting isolation. This allows the designers to significantly reduce interior noise.

Oddly enough, many older type cars were a body-on-frame design until designers went the route of unibody for cost reasons.

In a unibody car, the entire floor (where most road noise comes in) is essentially part of the "framework" of the car along with some of the body panels and even things like windshield glass serving as additional structural support for the overall frame of the car. So as you might guess, noise isolation becomes more of a challenge if the unibody design is not as rigid.