Reasoning
I'm really sensitive to noise and the Gladiator with mud terrain tires and diesel engine is certainly not a quiet ride once you get past 40 or 50 mph. Also, putting the hand up when the roof is in direct sunlight showed some serious heat radiation coming down to our heads, so something had to be done about both of these.
The research into this was quick and dirty, I settled fairly quickly on the Hot Heads product and ordered this a day after bringing the Jeep home.
Initial Quality Impression
Pretty good. They stink, though. When new they have a rather offending smell to them, it really goes well along with the "new car smell" that now creates something close to cow dung smell in the car when it is sitting for a bit. I know this will go away over time, right now, it takes some time getting used to whenever we get in the car.
Other than that the roofliner comes with everything I wanted or needed, even some blue painters tape to mark the position of the sticky tape on the visible side to know where to press down. A very thoughtfully compiled package.
We got ours with the Sound Assassion strips and the small rear side panels. In black of course, to go with the rest of the interior trim and not the saddle leather seat trim.
The package even comes with a hard cardboard piece to distribute pressure and a small roller to appy the Sound Assassin butyl strips.
That's how it's done and the RokBlokz folks REALLY should take a closer look at matching the quality of the parts, the instructions, and the completeness of the package.
Installation
We took the long way, removing the front roof panels as well as the complete rear from the car to be able sand the parts properly without completely covering the whole insight with plastic dust. It worked rather well this way, applying everything was as simple as laying out the Sound Assassin (SA)stips on the roof parts, cutting them to size in preparation, then sanding the roof interior, cleaning it with Acetone, sticking on the SA strips, rolling them down, then sticking on the actual roofliner pieces and pressing the tape on properly. Much easier when the panels are off the car.
One note: I accidentally touched a black plastic trim with the Acetone soaked rag and of course it ruined the black color. It's in rear, upper, passenger side corner, not too bad, so I'll be able to ignore. Might have been a good idea to but a big warning marker in the instruction, especially since they recommend using Acetone. I was aware of the potential, just not aware enough to avoid clumsiness. My mistake.
Putting the roof back on was also not hard. I did all this with my wife, she's 5'7" and slender, but was able to handle her part of the rear roof reasonably well. Might still be a good idea to have a buddy help with this if your partner is smaller or not a rock climber (my wife is a hobby rock climber).
Removing and re-installing the roof was also easy. Nice touch on this.
In Use
We did not measure the decibel levels before installing the roofliner, but for my ears, it seems to be about 30% less noise (I used to have a sound and light company back in the day, out of school, so have a little bit of a feel for this). My guess is that the 4 to 6dB(A) that can be found on their website as well as in various reviews is pretty much spot on. Also, less echo-y. Think room without to room with large carpet. Similar effect.
Conclusion
I'm happy to have done that, it's relatively expensive at around $500, but for me it was well worth it. There is very little heat "bleading" through the roof line now, and that is in California sun. Not yet really warm, but there is a MASSIVE difference to before. The decreased noise level and slightly less hollow sound is a nice bonus.
Might actually take a look behind the door trim and see whether we can use up the rest of the Sound Assassin strips there to damping the rather cheesy door closing sound.
Rating: 4.5/5 – half point taken off for the relatively hefty price
No photo taken of this one, there are enough out there and there will be more from this car when I get to more interior work.
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