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Hot Floor in Landcruiser
A hot floor is a common complaint from LandCruiser, Patrol, Hilux and other 4WD and ute owners. You feel it through your boots on the passenger side or across the transmission tunnel. On a long summer run the floor heats the whole cabin.
The fix is rarely one product. Find where the heat is coming from, sort out any faults, then add shielding in the right order. The shields themselves are in the Kool Wrap heat shield range.
Why 4WD floors get hot
- The exhaust and catalytic converter run directly under the floor pan, often with little clearance.
- Crawling in low range, sitting in traffic or idling at camp moves very little air under the vehicle to carry heat away.
- Towing a caravan or heavy trailer loads the engine and keeps exhaust temperatures high for hours.
- On diesels with a particulate filter, the filter runs extra hot while it burns off soot.
- Aftermarket exhausts, bigger pipes or relocated mufflers can sit closer to the floor than the factory system did.
- Missing or damaged factory heat shields let radiant heat hit the floor directly.
Check these before you buy anything
Shielding a fault just hides it. Work through this list first.
- Look for missing or damaged factory shields. Get underneath with a torch and check every shield above the exhaust run. A shield hanging by one corner is doing nothing. Refit or replace it before you add anything new.
- Check for an exhaust leak. A cracked pipe or a blown gasket puts hot gas straight onto the floor pan. Listen for a ticking on cold start and look for soot marks around joints.
- Check clearance. If an aftermarket exhaust sits closer to the floor than the original, moving the hanger or the pipe may fix more than any shield will.
- Check the tunnel and floor for old, failed insulation. Factory pads soak up water and fall apart. Strip what is left before you stick anything down.
The order to fix it in
Work from the heat source outwards. Each step does less than the one before it, so do them in order rather than picking one.
| Step | What to do | Why it comes here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Refit or replace missing factory shields | Free, and it is the shielding the manufacturer already designed in |
| 2 | Wrap the accessible exhaust sections | Contains heat at the source, which lowers everything downstream |
| 3 | Shield the floor pan from underneath | Reflects what is left away from the cabin |
| 4 | Insulate inside the cabin, under the carpet | Slows the heat that still gets through |
Wrap the exhaust where you can reach it
Wrapping the sections of pipe that run under the cabin keeps heat inside the pipe instead of radiating it at the floor. Use exhaust heat wrap and secure it with stainless steel ties.
Two warnings for a 4WD specifically. Wrap absorbs water, and a vehicle that crosses creeks will hold that water against the pipe, which speeds up rust on bare mild steel. Paint mild steel pipe with high-temperature exhaust paint first, and after a wet trip drive long enough to dry the wrap out. Leave O2 sensors and flex joints bare.
Our step-by-step exhaust wrap install guide covers how much you need and how to fit it.
Shield the floor pan
This is the step that does the most for a hot floor. Kool Wrap recommends the 5mm heavy duty heat shield for under-car jobs where the exhaust heats the floor. It uses a 0.25mm embossed aluminium face on a 5mm fibreglass and polyester core, reflects up to 95% of radiant heat, and passed a 30-hour oven test at 246°C with no failure. Sheets come in 60 x 50cm and 100 x 58cm.
Fit it to the underside of the floor pan, facing the exhaust. The surface has to be clean, dry and free of oil and wax, which on the underside of a 4WD usually means a proper degrease rather than a wipe. Cut it with heavy duty scissors, press it on from the centre out, roll the edges, and seal every cut edge and join with aluminium foil tape so water cannot creep underneath.
Where the pipe runs very close to the floor, an embossed semi-rigid panel mounted on brackets works better than an adhesive sheet, because it stands off the heat instead of sitting against the panel.
Our adhesive heat shield installation guide covers the full method.
Insulate inside the cabin
With the floor shielded from below, the last step is inside. Lift the carpet and lay sound deadener on the metal, then a foil-faced layer over it. This is the same approach used in a van build, deadener first and a foil-faced layer over it, and it cuts road noise at the same time.
What not to do
- Do not remove a factory heat shield because it rattles. Refit it. Our guide to car heat shields covers the fix.
- Do not stick an adhesive shield onto the exhaust pipe itself. Kool Wrap does not publish an adhesive temperature rating, so the sheets go on the floor pan, not the pipe.
- Do not lay carpet underlay straight onto a hot floor and expect it to help. Without a reflective layer it just holds the heat closer to your feet.
Need help choosing?
Send Kool Wrap a photo of the underside of your vehicle and we will tell you what will fit and in what order. Call 1300 44 33 34, or compare sheets and panels in the heat shield range.
