I've got a lot of experience testing and evaluating both liquid and mat deadeners (probably 30 aftermarket and 80 OEM deadeners) as well as formulated 4 OEM liquid deadeners myself (one of which is in the Chrysler Pacifica right now, and another in the Saturn Ion).
I was sent a sample of the V3 and Im pretty blown away by it. I haven’t gotten to apply it in a car or do any scientific testing on it, but after dealing with a 20 deadener product line daily, as well as doing extensive testing on automotive deadeners, I’m pretty good at evaluating a material in just a few minutes. Here are a couple key points I noted:
Consistency: Very thick and pasty. This would be TERRIBLE if it was to be used for OEM production spraying due to the huge pressures that would be required… however, this is PERFECT for the aftermarket applier. It is much less messy to apply with a brush or trowel than a traditional lower viscosity material. It is pretty darn thixotropic as well (meaning it thins a bit when stirred, and then thickens when let to sit), which is very good news for sag resistance. In other words, now you can put more on in one coat… YAY!
Flexibility: In general, this could be a good thing or bad thing. Traditionally, for low frequency damping you want your material to be hard as a rock, but this tends to cause highly brittle materials that will crack over time and when drying (causing it to be more flexible anyways). This material is quite hard when dried, however it retains a strong flexibility that allows you to bent the material it is on up to (and even over) 90 degrees without significant damage to the integrity of the damper. This is fantastic news two fold; You will not end up with cracked material with little chunks falling off and causing little vibrations, and you will have less problems with the cured material delaminating. At the same time, very little stiffness was sacrificed, leaving a material that I believe will perform fantastically in damping.
Quality: Thicker material and more flexibility… what does this mean from a quality standpoint? In general, these would be a product of two things… higher solids content (i.e. less water), and higher polymer content. So what is it you are paying for in a sound deadener anyways? A typical liquid sound deadener can have as much as 50% water by weight (generally closer to 30%), and another large percentage of bulk filler (limestone)… so you are paying quite a lot for water (which is very cheap), which is just evaporated when it cures, and limestone (which is very cheap) which does very little for the deadener other than add weight. The hard workers in the material are the polymer (very expensive) and some specialty fillers (expensive). So now in this material (V3) the formula is much thicker, meaning less water, and more flexible, meaning more polymer and less limestone. For once you might be getting what YOU PAID FOR! Would you rather buy a gold plated zinc coin or a solid gold coin? Or better yet, would you rather buy a bag of chips that comes half empty from the factory and is made with cheap potatoes, or a bag of chips that is full to the top and made with top quality Idaho potatoes?
What does all of this mean? You can put on thicker coats, with less mess, while you are getting more for your money AND you don’t need as thick of a coat as many other materials out there to get the SAME results! Add in that it has fantastic adhesion on a variety of metal and other surfaces (never get your hopes up for a water-based deadener to stick very well to plastic) and I think we have a winner.
