We did a road trip from Jax, FL to DC, Philly and Newark, NJ this past week.

I have to say I was finally impressed with my maxima.

I had done a road trip this past december to Louisville, KY and I came back home really unimpressed by the car. The biggest complaints being sloppy handling... vibration in the steering... road noise... wind noise... bad gas mileage of 24MPG.

The car itself is a 2001 GLE - auto with 142K miles.

Between Jan and May, I went ahead and did a lot of work on the car...
- New brakes and rotors
- New inner and outer tie rods
- New Lower Control Arms
- Stinger Road Kill on all 4 doors and B Pillars.
- Did the non fouler fix for the P0430 I had since I bought it.

The biggest difference I noticed was the ride and handling... with almost all front end components changed, the car was awesome... frequent visits into the upper 80's was easy and I often had to see the speedo to make sure I was within limits. The easy way was to keep her at 75 cruise control most of the time.

Road noise went down drastically with the roadkill. I am so impressed by the deadener that I am now going ahead and ordering the more value centric Raammat for $99 for 65 sqft. and will do the trunk and wheel wells and maybe a second layer on the doors.

The highlight of the trip was my MPG... man.. I was expecting the same gas mileage as the KY trip since I have not done anything to the car in terms of under the hood mods and the car is bone stock. With the non fouler in place I had already driven the car for about 300 miles and no CEL/P0430. The light did not come on at all during the trip and has been off for the last 1400+ miles now. The MPG during this trip was a high of 31.2 and a low of 28.9. Overall the average MPG is about 30.5. I have to say I was impressed with a 6 year old max with 142K to be doing so well.

Thanks to a lot of folks on the ORG I have been able to keep this car running in good shape... more write up coming soon... there's a trip to CLT, NC in the next 2 weeks and I'm planning a road trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in August.

 

Glad to know you're happier with your Max now.
Can you tell me a little bit more about Stinger Road Kill, please?
How hard is it to put it on? Is there a how-to?

Thanks a lot!

 

Damn, you got 30 MPG....? I hate you! j/k I only get 25-26 max doing 75 constantly (using cruise control). The most I got was 29... Once. Roundrip 140 miles to the airport, straight down I40. I should try to sound-proof the doors... I've got some extra RaaMMat I bought a few years ago.

 

I just did a trip up to PSU and back, 480 miles each way. On the way up I decided to see what kind of gas mileage I would get doing the speed limit (around 60 - 65 mph). I ended up with 32.5 mpg, by far the best I've ever gotten. On the way back I did my usual 10 - 15 mph over (between 75 - 80 mph) and still got 30.3 mpg...even with DC rush hour traffic. I don't think I can take going the speed limit again, it really sucks getting passed by every car on the road. I'll just have to take that 2 mpg hit. Either way, the minima is capable of a lot more than what the EPA says.

 

True... I was a little disheartened after my trip to KY when I got just 26...

I then double checked the EPA to see it was 19/26. Then I thought to myself how could a Nissan have lower gas mileage than a chevy malibu...

I'm just happy with the summer gas prices I got away with a few bucks to spare LOL...

 

Stinger Roadkill is equivalent to say the dynamat extreme.

Around Jax, we have a lot of car install shops that carry it. Best buy or the other name brand stores do not have Stinger, they have dynamat.

After little more research, I found Stinger is actually based out of FL.

As for putting it on, if you can take the door panel off, your job is 30% done. The next step after that is to carefully take off the vapor barrier, a plastic sheet that prevents water from getting into the door panel. You have to reuse this plastic. A another way is to use a sound isolating sheet like the Second Skin Overkill or the Raam audio ensolite foam. These foams are used for further sound deadening.

Anyways, so once you take the door panel off, you need to clean the inside skin of door, not the panel where the speakers are mounted but the one facing the outside of the car. To make things even more quiet people deaden even the inside panel.

You simply use a box cutter knife or a good blade and get to work. You wont be applying the roadkill mat all over the door since you have some areas that are plain hard to get and others where you have components as your side crash beam. You just size and cut the mat, then you peel the backing and stick the mat to the door panel. The older mats needed a roller to make sure they bonded well but with the new butyl based mats they stick very quickly and are more flexible than the older mats so they easily conform to the curves etc. If you do need to press it down like I did at a few spots, I simply used the closed end of a 22mm wrench as a roller.

In terms of difficulty i'd say its a 3/10... its time consuming and you will get some cuts on your fingers from the foil. But in the end it will pay off with the lower noise levels in the car.

As for the mat itself. I used roadkill as I was just trying something out. If you plan to do the same, I'd suggest saving money and getting Second Skin Damplifier or Damplifier pro or Raam Audio Raammat. They are more cost effective and are an equivalent if not better product.

Let me know if you have more questions.

 

Which Raammat do u have? The reason I ask is, sometime in the last few years they changed Raammat to a butyl rubber based mat rather than asphalt. From some research it appears butyl is the way to go.

 

I actually have no idea.... I've had the stuff for years (probably 2-3), put some on the trunk lid of my last car (Camry) and had 1/2 of it fall off due to heat...

Has anybody tried Tsunami, the brand that Circuit City carriers? They used to carry Dynamat heavily in-store, now rarely see it there.