Having fitted better speakers in the doors, shown in a previous post here. I felt the complete lack of any sound deadening in the doors was not getting the best out of them.

After a bit of research I placed an order with Sound Deadening Shop for some Silent Coat 2mm Damping Mat and 10mm Isolator Foam.

Door card and speaker out to start with. How to remove the Forester door card is shown in the speaker fitting post here.

I’m no expert at this but from what I read the areas to start with are the panels behind and around the speaker, adding mass to them so the speaker cone will be driven more effectively and the sound wave will cause less vibration in the panels.

Looking through the speaker hole.

I used some white spirit to clean the panel first. I used this as it’s probably a bit better at cleaning down the grime that can build up inside doors than the water and IPA mix I would usually reach for.

Standard pair of scissors cuts this stuff easy.

Clean, cut, stick, clean, cut, stick…

Not exactly pretty but it doesn’t need to be.

A heat gun helps soften this stuff and get the adhesive a bit more sticky.

Time for some foam. I used this to both sort of close the larger holes in the doors and push up against the door card to make it a nice tight fit and prevent rattles.

Same again the other side.

The resulting mess of backing paper.

There were a couple of bits of damage on the drivers door card…

…and a chip in the passenger side door handle, when I bought the car. They bothered me so I bought a pair of door cards with handles to swap them.

The handles were nicer in general so I swapped them both.

All back together and another improvement in sound making the car feel and sound a bit more modern and less 2004 Subaru.

Speaker fitting and some sound deadening in the rear doors here.