A general procedure for the design sensitivity analysis of structural dynamic problems has been presented in frame of the FRF-based substructuring formulation. For a system response function, the proposed method gives a parametric design sensitivity formula in terms of the partial derivatives of the connection element properties and the transfer matrix of the subsystems. The derived design sensitivity formula is applied to an engine mount system. An interior noise problem in the passenger car is analyzed using the FRF-based substructuring method and the proposed formulation is adopted to study the response variations with respect to the dynamic characteristics of the engine mounts and the bushes. To obtain the FRFs, a finite element model is built for the engine mount structures, and test data is used for the trimmed body including cabin cavity. The comparison of sensitivities derived by the proposed method and the finite difference method shows that the proposed method is efficient and accurate. The proposed sensitivity analysis method indicates effectively the most sensitive location to the interior noise among the engine mounts and the bushes.