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I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to infli

I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive. I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road, so I clicked the article looking for some empathetic understanding - and I really got it, UNTIL he told me about his "fire-breathing" exhaust and subwoofer. So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car.

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ColdStream 2mo ago
There is a saying "The smallest dog barks the loudest". Those that make the most noise to be seen are the most insecure in their position in the world.
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MikeNotThePope 2mo ago
I never appreciated a proper muffler until I didn't have one. I was driving a 27-year-old Honda Civic, and the rusty muffler fell off one day. On the way to go get it fixed, the typically quiet Honda made a ridiculous amount of noise. I had no idea my car could be that loud.
stasomatic 2mo ago
Let the kids be kids, they'll grow out of it, we all do, as opposed to grown men rolling coal in their dually Fs and RAMs. Give me a nice riced out Integra or a Sylvia any day, or a nice low rider instead. A Camry with a rally rear spoiler is sad sight indeed though. Harleys are my scorn locally, these "tough" patched up dudes with a day job. But what's even more annoying is that there are no helmet laws in my state, all that taking up ICU beds and all and none of them organ donors I'd assume.
stasomatic 2mo ago
I live in the state that's in the top 5 in the US for worst drivers. Yes, it's Florida. Constant racing on I95, Camaros racing Mustangs, Nissan drivers hallucinating they are in an M3/4, burning coal left and right. A Cyber Truck or a Denali tailgating me. Often, there are shootouts. It's nuts. My main peeve is the scooters, like Razer, Hiboy, Segway. I can't take my dog for a walk without being assaulted by one from behind without a warning bell or a slowdown on a sidewalk. I've begun simply taking up the whole width of the sidewalk, I'm wide and so is my fido. Let them eat asphalt if they like. Sometimes they argue, but I carry pepper spray. AirPods on full ANC. It's good that none wear helmets, attrition is a thing. Oh, and they also get on the highways. It's madness. Is it similar on the continent these days?
iamacyborg 2mo ago
Subwoofers are really fun though.
- vitally3643 2mo ago
  There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views. You should consider how your actions impact others.
  - garbagewoman 2mo ago
    Have you considered that your overly condescending tone is quite ironic given the content of your comment?
  - slopinthebag 2mo ago
    Hot tip: the other users you see online are often real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views. You should consider how your sarcastic and condescending comments online impact others.
  - chucksta 2mo ago
    Wild, there are also other people around you who might they're more fun too, they might want you to turn it up.
    - Guthwine 2mo ago
      Unfortunately for those other people, there are rules and social customs about not being an inane goober when you're in a shared public space.
      - redsocksfan45 2mo ago
        [dead]
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Spartan-S63 2mo ago
My 1/3 life crisis was buying a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter long bed last year. It’s been my dream to own a Tacoma for several years, so it was finally time to make it happen. Eventually, I’d love to modify the exhaust to make it slightly louder. The turbo noise from the raised air intake is awesome enough and I’m curious if other drivers on the road can hear the turbo noise when I drive by them.
- forgetfreeman 2mo ago
  Odds are excellent they cant hear it. If they can hear it they either absolutely do not care or find it mildly irritating and blame it on the nearest 1500 owner.
- etrautmann 2mo ago
  Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.
elritjl 2mo ago
Unfortunately yes. Many of the people driving tuner cars don't give a shit about cars and are merely mad that no one pays attention to them. There's an antisocial loser on my street, a ~50yo guy in a modded Infinity. The exhaust is so loud it shakes windows and I can't talk on the phone or hear my own music inside my house when it's nearby. And it's a shit car. He's destroyed it. It barely even drives. He gets tons of parking tickets because it's broken and he can't move it for months at a time, but he still goes outside and sits in it and revs the engine for sometimes 20-30 minutes at a time. When he "works on it", he lays on his back in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, for hours at a time. When he actually gets it working, he drives slowly around the block a few times, revving the engine again loud enough to annoy the entire neighborhood. All of my neighbors have reported him to the police, but they won't do anything. Whenever neighbors try to talk to him, he immediately starts screaming and waving his arms and approaching them until they back away. He's an antisocial loser.
- mlinhares 2mo ago
  Hard to meet a modder that isn't a loser like this.
  - tristor 2mo ago
    I promise you, there are many many many people who modify their cars and do not act like assholes. The thing is, you probably don't notice them because they aren't focused on getting attention.
    - deleted 2mo ago
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jgeada 2mo ago
No sure I see that any different than the typical American behemoth truck/SUV blocking all lines of sight to everything other than a 12 wheeler. And to top it off, they can't take a corner and so they all seem to slam their brakes and cause a traffic jam at any interesting corner. All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.
- FatherOfCurses 2mo ago
  They can't park for shit either, so you lose spots in a parking lot and have to wait forever while they block the aisle backing out.
- vladvasiliu 2mo ago
  Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider. I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bike. I know my dad's Corolla does.
  - brailsafe 2mo ago
    Sometimes I wonder whether going excessively slow around corners is a symptom of people pushing their steering wheel from the side opposite the direction of the curve instead of pulling it from the same side into the curve. Just a hunch, but doing the latter usually feels like I have more control.
    - vladvasiliu 2mo ago
      I don't know about that. But what I usually observe is that many people tend to veer off in the next lane in the direction of the turn (even if it's a lane for traffic going the opposite way!) if there is one. But if there isn't (right turn, they're in the rightmost lane), they'll tend to leave quite a lot of space between the car and the shoulder. So I'd say these people have a hard time figuring out the space on the road their car takes. I can only imagine this worsens with larger cars and less visibility.
Waterluvian 2mo ago
I just wish these people comprehended and cared that you can be 2km away on a country road with your stupid engine and it's still loud as !@#$ for thousands of people in the city. I live on the edge of a city and this is a nightly thing. It's louder than the air ambulance occasionally landing at the nearby helipad. It's louder than the 6-8 trains running through town.
FatherOfCurses 2mo ago
So much of American car/motorcycle culture seems to be about that nowadays. And it's not limited to the Japanese mod scene, either. Loud exhausts everywhere - pickups, domestic V6/V8's, motorcycles. Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night. Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them. All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are being sold a dream by the mod manufacturers that if they just install this $1500 catback or this $1000 sub they will finally get the respect they deserve. They get online forum/Facebook/Insta/TikTok validation but very few people around them are impressed with their choices. I mainly hate how people are being taken for a ride (pardon the pun) by marketers and putting money into things that aren't really going to improve their car-driving experience.
- vitally3643 2mo ago
  It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are. Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no attention at all.
  - com2kid 2mo ago
    Counter point - driving down the beach in a convertible with good tunes blasting and the sea breeze in your hair is fun. Like yeah it sucks for everyone listening, but if every other car is blasting tunes it isn't out of place. Some beach drives are known for this, right place at the right time. When I visited Floria Keys I sure as shit rented a convertible and played bass thumping EDM as I drove over the ocean. Hell I think I may have even been wearing Ray-Bans. Don't do that shit in a family neighborhood at 4am, but I never objected to people peeling out of the Microsoft parking garage in their lolwtf over priced garage princess sports cars. Bailing at 4pm with your coworkers to go hit up the bar is a perfect time to let loose.
    - 2mo ago
Tade0 2mo ago
I don't mind cosmetics, but noise is something some places fortunately started regulating and I hope it becomes more common: https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-detecting-cameras-crack-loud-driving https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-... I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise. The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modified exhaust and driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making. Considering the volume that had to have a negative effect on his hearing. I don't understand and I will not understand.
- mekdoonggi 2mo ago
  I hope that becomes more common so long as privacy is respected. Fortunately my neighborhood is fairly quiet. I don't understand either, but I don't have a problem with people doing what they want. If municipalities can regulate speed limits for safety and other reasons they should be able to. So if you want to be loud live out in the country where there is space.
  - AngryData 2mo ago
    Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay. Ive been pulled over multiple times with brand new stock exhaust on a stock vehicle cruising at 55 because the body looked old and rusted and the cops were looking for any plausable excuse. With a real excuse they could throw tickets at you when they get frusterated with lack of other possible charges.
    - cucumber3732842 2mo ago
      >Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay. Yes and no. Rich places that can trivially afford to over-staff their PD's compared to the amount of "real crime" to go around are some of the worst when it comes to baseless fishing.
spking 2mo ago
Unfortunately we’ve got one of these people across the street. He is training to be an electrician and starts his modded Toyota apparently with an amplified kazoo welded into the muffler at 4:15am every weekday. Shakes the entire house like a B-17 bomber.
jerlam 2mo ago
Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track. After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off. Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl and duck into a low car anymore. Stiff suspensions are hard on the back and joints.
- DennisP 2mo ago
  Some people actually do track their cars, though.
  - vjvjvjvjghv 2mo ago
    It’s a very small percentage of these vehicles though.
    - englishspot 2mo ago
      yeah, majority of people just want to have something that is capable of doing cool stuff, but can't really commit to actually doing it. it's like how so many buy and tune WRXs, but don't actually take it to gravel roads.
      - caconym_ 2mo ago
        TBH most of the mods that really make people point and laugh won't fare very well on a track or rally stage either.
      - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
        20-inch wheels aren't capable of cool stuff. It's all peacocking.
        englishspot 2mo ago
dieselgate 2mo ago
I say this with respect and part jokingly but this is basically just a "shakes fist at cloud". And I don't disagree with you! But if people use their signal and drive sane it's not much a problem for me. Very rarely do I see a modded car like this regardless of Make - and people make every Make/Model loud it's not just restricted to the aforementioned. Your mileage may vary and that's all good
- arijun 2mo ago
  Hard disagree. You might be ok with loud engines splitting your eardrums and interrupting your sleep (or worse, your baby's sleep!), but society as a whole should not. Live and let live is good and all, but GP said it was about "inflicting their taste on others," so I would read that comment to mean the inconsiderate things we should not let live. Loud pipes, unsafe driving, and loud subwoofers--I'll shake my fist at those clouds all day.
  - dieselgate 2mo ago
    Well as mentioned in the above comment I do not disagree with parent nor do I disagree with you. Vehicles of these extremes are rare, in my experience, as mentioned as well. In practicality, I care more about how people drive than the loudness of their engine.
  - slopinthebag 2mo ago
    No offense but this is kinda soft mate. A loud car doesn’t “split your eardrums”, it’s at worst a minor inconvenience, and as part of living in a diverse society we accept that we will be inconvenienced sometimes.
    - elabajaba 2mo ago
      Straight piped trucks can easily hit over 100dB (I've seen numbers as high as 118dB) which is well above the 85dB hearing damage level, and is at the level where hearing damage occurs in minutes or even seconds of exposure. Sorry I don't want to get tinnitus just because some asshole wanted to make his truck "sound better".
aaarrm 2mo ago
> So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car. Having not read the article yet, this is an assumption. He could himself enjoy the kick/boom of a subwoofer (I know I do, it makes music so much better) or the sound of his own exhaust (I never have personally cared about this)
- arijun 2mo ago
  Whether they are purposefully inflicting it on others or not, it takes a certain type of inconsiderate person to say "F*ck everyone else and their preferences for intact eardrums and uninterrupted sleep, I like the way it sounds."
- rootusrootus 2mo ago
  I'm skeptical. One thing I learned early on was that I could crank a car stereo up to levels that were uncomfortable, and rock the car with a pair of nice 12 inch subs ... and outside the car it was pretty weak. Audible, perhaps, but not for very far and nothing you'd really feel. Even with the windows down, it's surprising how loud it can be inside and still not be all that noteworthy on the outside. The guys that have radios loud enough to annoy bystanders are deep into hearing damage territory. The ones with subwoofers you can feel in the next lane over aren't running 12s, they have much bigger speakers than that, way, way past the point of where you are doing it for your own kick. It's very intentional, about the effect outside the vehicle, not the quality of the music inside.
ge96 2mo ago
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tristor 2mo ago
I promise you it is not limited to the Camry/Corolla/Civic community, it's just that those cars are very commonplace so its more obvious. I had a full track build BRZ that looked nearly stock from the outside other than the wheels and hood vents, and I loved that car and still miss it. Even in the Miata and BRZ/86 communities where these are designed as cheap, trackable sports cars, most of the community is more focused on cosmetics and adding cheap plastic and chinesium parts to their cars than doing anything that improves driving dynamics.
- salezred 2mo ago
  As a counterpoint for practical (i.e., performance) mods being the only mods that matter... I have a F82 which has a few carbon fiber parts to make it stand out a bit. I really don't think I need more performance than what it has to offer, so making it look nicer seems like e a good idea (at least it won't look identical to all other F82s). Now, would I do that to a Camry? No freakin way.
  - tristor 2mo ago
    I don't think there's anything wrong with doing purely cosmetic modifications if those modifications don't also make the car worse. The challenge is many folks in the community do cosmetic modifications that actually reduce performance.
englishspot 2mo ago
nah, I like cars, and I agree. I have some cosmetic mods on mine (it's none of those models in your list) and they're very subtle and inoffensive. very much iykyk. I also want a new exhaust, but mostly because I want a deeper tone, not louder.
pryelluw 2mo ago
Eh, applies to all brands. Few people care about driving faster. It’s all about being “cool”.
firmretention 2mo ago
I have loud subwoofers in my car, but they're for my enjoyment. The fact that others might hear them is an unfortunate reality of physics. I try to be considerate in not blasting it in residential areas, late at night, etc., but bass is bass - it travels.
matheusmoreira 2mo ago
Nothing judgemental or unhealthy about it. It's perfectly normal to be annoyed by such nuisances. The existence of these people is one of many factors that make driving literal hell on earth.
- frollogaston 2mo ago
  Driving isn't so bad, the bad part is being outside a car while these things buzz by. Like there are restaurants with outdoor patios I entirely avoid because I want to hear others at the table instead of farting Hondas.
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0x1d7 2mo ago
Civics are legos with extensive aftermarket support. Type-Rs are designed to be tracked (IIRC fastest FWD in NA). People often mod these to track better, and in JPN obviously mod them to drive them illegally on highways. Civics, or more specifically the older naturally aspirated engines from Honda as a whole (including the F20C1 found in the S2000 AP1) are high-RPM engines, often revving to 8500-9000 RPM, which is going to be loud no matter what you do. No, not all mods are designed to inflict something on someone else. Popular FL5 mods are designed around engine/oil cooling, brake capacity (prevent fading), and camber. Yes, you can get nuts with a racing-only, non-CARB DP or a non-valved exhaust, but that's a personal choice. Not every FL5 owner follows that ethos. But you can also go with a CARB-compliant DP, valved exhaust (OE is valved, many aftermarkets use valved exhausts), and even if you do a mid-pipe resonator delete, it's no louder than it's sister car, the Acura DE5, which doesn't even come with a mid-pipe resonator from the factory. And yes, a modded FL5 is a ton more fun to drive than a non-modded one due to a single, hidden mod - replacing the suspension controller with one from a DE5 or from DSC makes the ride much smoother. Honda doesn't get everything 'right' (but they do get engines down pat). Ofc, you do have fire-breathing 1000hp S2000s out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2tYyBbZ-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2tYyBbZ-Q
- throwway120385 2mo ago
  I don't think anyone objects to modding your street legal car to go 0-100 in 3 seconds as long as you're not interrupting every conversation for a quarter mile in any direction wherever you drive. But everywhere I go, no matter what I'm doing, someone's exhaust mod is there to make sure I can't finish my sentences or listen to my son, and I'm sick of it.
  - 0x1d7 2mo ago
    Some cars, usually older pre-regulation, are just naturally that loud. And some people are absolute assholes - https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/belltown-hellcat-driver-sentenced-reckless-driving/281-51aa5a0b-4b8d-49df-a8b4-ee6dd894d45f https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/belltown-he...
cmrdporcupine 2mo ago
I have been spending my mid-life days pondering getting a used Porsche 986.1 Boxter, cuz, y'know, mid-life. And so reading reviews and I constantly see this refrain: "car drives great, wonderful handling, good value... but not worth it because the engine sound/note is so dull." I just have to give my head a shake. It makes zero sense to me.
EvanAnderson 2mo ago
At one point my wife's 1995 Civic had a busted exhaust pipe ahead of the muffler and was loud as hell. She reported receiving compliments from a few different Civic enthusiasts, much to her confusion. She just wanted me to fix the broken pipe. In our family we use the expression "farting Honda" (or Toyota, Subaru, whatever) when we hear these kinds of cars on the road.
- ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
  The exhaust on my old Range Rover split between the catastrophic converters and the first silencer, leaving it completely open. The novelty of it sounding like the start of Jerry Was A Racecar Driver hadn't entirely worn off before I welded it up, I guess, but I'm not about to go around attracting attention to myself. Not when I could see it making plate glass shop windows vibrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkE4-zsqYwo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkE4-zsqYwo
  - swasheck 2mo ago
    catastrophic converter is such a hilarious autocorrect.
    - ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
      It's not an autocorrect. These things are terrible.
      - amanaplanacanal 2mo ago
        If you have a better way to get rid of all those pollutants, I'm sure we'd all love to hear about it.
        ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
        Well, if you insist on running them on petrol, just having a lambda sensor and closed-loop mixture control breaks the back of it. However, if you run them on propane instead of petrol - like they do for forklifts and Zambonis, where you have to run the engines indoors without people dying - you just get carbon dioxide and water vapour out. You don't need a catalytic converter and indeed if you have one it can make the pollution slightly worse by generating nitrogen oxides. Imagine how clean our cities could have been if we'd done this 20 years ago, instead of selling people debt to buy "Cleaner Greener Diesels". They're still emitting CO2, but a little less of it, and from fuel that would otherwise go up in smoke at the refinery flare stack - unless you want to stop making plastics and fertilisers.
dyauspitr 2mo ago
None of the other things except the sound bothers me. It’s just so goddamn loud, like unbelievably loud.
pipe2devnull 2mo ago
Some exhausts can sound cool but at someone that lives near a road I don’t think people should subject other people to loud exhausts. Just because someone installed a subwoofer (depending on how the audio was before) doesn’t necessarily mean they are blasting it so loud it is bothering other people. Some cars have pretty horrible stock sound
- ryandrake 2mo ago
  I wish the car modders would adopt things like Active Sound Design (ASD) that some car manufactures are using to pipe vroom-vroom noises through the car's speaker system. It seems like the perfect compromise. The driver wants to hear his car's loud vroomvroom, and everyone else -doesn't- have to hear it.
  - donkers 2mo ago
    As a car enthusiast, I hate that fake engine sound. It’s so inauthentic and is on the same level as someone painting racing stripes or flames on a Toyota Camry so that it “looks faster”
  - tartoran 2mo ago
    The drivers of such cars want to draw attention to themselves. But I wish your solution would psychologically trick some of them at least. I sometimes catch myself holding my breath when one of these passes by and it is still very distressing even if I temporarily plug my years with my fingers.
  - asciimov 2mo ago
    Hearing the vroomvroom isn’t the same as feeling the vroomvroom.
  - HDBaseT 2mo ago
    These "technologies" are unbelievably "cringe" (for a lack of a better word). Car enthusiasts want the sound to come from some mechanical aspect. They want the sound and smell of burning fuel, pushing pistons up and down at extreme speeds with hundreds of other rotating and spinning parts working in unison for a cool sound. A speaker diaphragm moving up and down 20 to 100 times a second doesn't quite scratch that itch. A speaker can nearly "replicate" any sound, which takes the fun out of it.
burningChrome 2mo ago
My buddy was a huge VW fan and loved taking a stock Jetta or Passat and modding the engine and transmission while making it look completely stock. He was one of the few people I knew who loved the idea of the "wolf in sheeps clothing". The guy who pulls up with a Mustang and then blowing off his doors and the Mustang guy wanted to see what he actually had under the hood. The low key stealth approach I always though was the best way to do this. You don't draw attention to yourself either from cops or LEO's. I still feel like its the right way to do this, but clearly in the digital age of social media and the constant need for attention and dopamine hits, its now the exception instead of the rule as you have correctly pointed out.
- lb1lf 2mo ago
  Oh yes. I used to have a VW van (a T4) which had had a V6 transplant and an aftermarket turbo retrofitted (not by me - I am a quite capable mechanic, but not THAT capable.) It was still a VW van, but it gave a few unsuspecting BMW drivers a surprise. Some 370bhp tends to get others' attention when unleashed.
fxtentacle 2mo ago
I read "midlife crisis" as "old guy trying to impress much younger girls" and then a cheap-ish car modded to be fast, furious, and obnoxiously loud seems like it might just work. Plus it's probably an amazing toy that can also be enjoyed solo. And as long as there's enough attractive women who are impressed by loud cars, there will be guys with loud cars. I also dislike loud cars. But I'm at a loss as to how one would fix the root cause. Pull requests welcome ;) And, yes, I share your impression. That car is about him trying to enforce attention by subjecting other people to his car.
- 0x1d7 2mo ago
  Is this the kind of pull request you were looking for? https://youtube.com/shorts/QiOGH6JtL5E https://youtube.com/shorts/QiOGH6JtL5E
lordfrito 2mo ago
> their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else Flies in the face of all the talk about consent. I did not consent to this...
Lwerewolf 2mo ago
All show no go is the trend these days - and not just with cars.
m463 2mo ago
I remember some friends talking about motorcycles, and one was wondering how much horsepower you could get out of a Harley Davidson motorcycle. And another friend quipped, "You don't tune a Harley for power, you tune it for noise!" Back to tuner cars, I've always thought the perfect invention would be a tuner-car-audio-experience-device. Basically, a device that you plug into the cigarette lighter and it uses some method of figuring out the engine RPM (and maybe throttle position). Then it would generate cool engine sounds and send them to bluetooth stream / fm broadcast / audio jack, for the car audio system. You could drive a quiet car, but inside it would feel like a formula one car, a 12-cylinder italian car, motorcycle, tugboat or jet fighter. I would say spaceship, but those days are gone since every EV nowadays sounds like an cheapo alien orchestra already.
- 0x1d7 2mo ago
  Many modern cars do this due to how quiet ICE are now. Oftentimes the fake interior noise is awful. I pull the modules that inject the fake noise, it makes the interior much quieter. YMMV.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  It exists! https://us.wrumersound.com/ https://us.wrumersound.com/ Plug this into your car's OBD II port and run their app on your phone, and it sounds like whatever you configure the app to. V8, F1, lawnmower, or fart noise!
- jerlam 2mo ago
  I think the Dodge Charger EV has a lot of the fake engine noises, both inside and out. Sounds like it was a very important feature. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63141971/dodge-charger-daytona-fratzonic-exhaust-sound/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63141971/dodge-charger-da...
kulahan 2mo ago
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user00005 2mo ago
I find the modded import scene was much bigger around 15 to 20 years ago. About 5 years ago it was loud Mustangs and Camaros. Now, down here in the deep south, pickup trucks are by far the most obnoxious. (source: I walk around my city everyday)
ericyd 2mo ago
I also dislike loud cars, but I've come to accept that the motivation of loud car owners is probably to gain kudos from other loud car lovers, rather than to inflict pain on us normies. One time I remember being on my bicycle and a kid car revved past me and another cyclist. In my head I though "what an asshole" but the cyclist next to me shouted "Sick!!!" I'm not really defending the loud noise, but I think it's useful to shift perspective a bit and understand it is probably not an act of intentional violence (though it may be unintentional violence).
- panative 2mo ago
  I don’t see how your “shift” makes it any better. Did you really think people did exhaust mods purely to torment everyone around them? The noise and the its effect on listeners is the entire point. The fact that it’s primarily to gain kudos from “other loud car lovers” and especially attention from vapid women doesn’t alter the fact that they know and more likely relish if not most charitably are completely indifferent to the effect on everyone else. Which is fundamentally bad character when you’re revving these around populated areas. After all any “loud car lover” is also either annoyed when their sleep is interrupted or they can’t hear themselves think for hours on end, or they have the IQ of a box of rocks. They want to hear loud revving only when it is convenient and enjoyable to them. So you can choose either complete self-centeredness and hypocrisy at that (likely) or being borderline too dumb to operate a vehicle.
  - ericyd 2mo ago
    > Did you really think people did exhaust mods purely to torment everyone around them? I didn't, but the OP wrote: > So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car So my comment was in response to that. I don't think people should ignore the suffering they cause for others, but to me it's different if the motivation is to cause pain vs bringing joy to like-minded people.
    - amanaplanacanal 2mo ago
      Right! They're not actively malicious, they just don't care about other people.
fouc 2mo ago
That's how you know you've got the COOLEST car on the block! (unfortunately)
Dezvous 2mo ago
Have you considered people can enjoy different things than you? I personally enjoy a nice exhaust tone and I like subwoofers as well. And I don't like them just because they might piss off somebody like yourself, it's for my own enjoyment. Not all exhausts and subwoofers are created equal. Most modern cars with 'premium' sound systems like Bose, JBL, etc. have subwoofers, but they're usually small and don't require a lot of power. The system they installed in this car might have been the OEM premium sound package as well - the one Toyota offers is JBL and comes with a subwoofer. Do you get mad when it's OEM or just DIY? The GR Corolla has a 'loud' exhaust from the factory as well. Loud enough that you'd probably rage at it judging by this comment. People buy aftermarket exhausts for a variety of reasons. They can produce a different tone, cut down on exhaust 'drone' (which the GR Corolla is notorious for with it's factory exhaust), offer alternative styling, provide weight savings, and reduce backpressure/improve flow. It's not just about volume. Certainly you could be an asshole who buys an exhaust just because it's loud, but that's not why the majority are doing it, it's for their own enjoyment and usually provides a performance improvement. If they really wanted to achieve max volume they could just do an open dump exhaust or a hood exit, it would be cheaper than buying a Borla and significantly louder.
- blargey 2mo ago
  Your nuanced hobby and aesthetics is reduced to “stupid loudness” in people’s minds because the primary interaction other people have with it is “I am being subjected to stupid loudness”, yes.
  - Dezvous 2mo ago
    If they're really bothered by temporary noise that much, they should just invest in some ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones.
    - blargey 2mo ago
      Spoken like someone that never even had to try. Neither of those can physically mitigate spikes of noise from engines, exhausts, or subs, and will only cause more harm if the noise floor is low. Why spend three paragraphs insisting on the innocence of your motives when you’re just going to fall back on “fuck you suck it up” when pressed on the consequences of your actions?
rapind 2mo ago
I’m always reminded of this classic: https://youtube.com/shorts/IzeTYJJXzIk https://youtube.com/shorts/IzeTYJJXzIk
- defrost 2mo ago
  It has an antipodean non identical twin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo2JcTk4nBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo2JcTk4nBE
sharadov 2mo ago
More noise than actual speed.

deleted 2mo ago

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ColdStream 2mo ago

There is a saying "The smallest dog barks the loudest". Those that make the most noise to be seen are the most insecure in their position in the world.

deleted 2mo ago

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MikeNotThePope 2mo ago

I never appreciated a proper muffler until I didn't have one. I was driving a 27-year-old Honda Civic, and the rusty muffler fell off one day. On the way to go get it fixed, the typically quiet Honda made a ridiculous amount of noise. I had no idea my car could be that loud.

stasomatic 2mo ago

Let the kids be kids, they'll grow out of it, we all do, as opposed to grown men rolling coal in their dually Fs and RAMs. Give me a nice riced out Integra or a Sylvia any day, or a nice low rider instead. A Camry with a rally rear spoiler is sad sight indeed though. Harleys are my scorn locally, these "tough" patched up dudes with a day job. But what's even more annoying is that there are no helmet laws in my state, all that taking up ICU beds and all and none of them organ donors I'd assume.

stasomatic 2mo ago

I live in the state that's in the top 5 in the US for worst drivers. Yes, it's Florida. Constant racing on I95, Camaros racing Mustangs, Nissan drivers hallucinating they are in an M3/4, burning coal left and right. A Cyber Truck or a Denali tailgating me. Often, there are shootouts. It's nuts. My main peeve is the scooters, like Razer, Hiboy, Segway. I can't take my dog for a walk without being assaulted by one from behind without a warning bell or a slowdown on a sidewalk. I've begun simply taking up the whole width of the sidewalk, I'm wide and so is my fido. Let them eat asphalt if they like. Sometimes they argue, but I carry pepper spray. AirPods on full ANC. It's good that none wear helmets, attrition is a thing. Oh, and they also get on the highways. It's madness. Is it similar on the continent these days?

iamacyborg 2mo ago

Subwoofers are really fun though.

vitally3643 2mo ago
There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views. You should consider how your actions impact others.
- garbagewoman 2mo ago
  Have you considered that your overly condescending tone is quite ironic given the content of your comment?
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  Hot tip: the other users you see online are often real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views. You should consider how your sarcastic and condescending comments online impact others.
- chucksta 2mo ago
  Wild, there are also other people around you who might they're more fun too, they might want you to turn it up.
  - Guthwine 2mo ago
    Unfortunately for those other people, there are rules and social customs about not being an inane goober when you're in a shared public space.
    - redsocksfan45 2mo ago
      [dead]
- 2mo ago

Spartan-S63 2mo ago

My 1/3 life crisis was buying a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter long bed last year. It’s been my dream to own a Tacoma for several years, so it was finally time to make it happen. Eventually, I’d love to modify the exhaust to make it slightly louder. The turbo noise from the raised air intake is awesome enough and I’m curious if other drivers on the road can hear the turbo noise when I drive by them.

forgetfreeman 2mo ago
Odds are excellent they cant hear it. If they can hear it they either absolutely do not care or find it mildly irritating and blame it on the nearest 1500 owner.
etrautmann 2mo ago
Please do not make your exhaust louder. I’m sure you will not listen to a rando on the internet but it will annoy the shit out of thousands of people for what? Some yuk yuks? I get it. It’s fun. I would enjoy it too, but not yours. please don’t.

elritjl 2mo ago

Unfortunately yes. Many of the people driving tuner cars don't give a shit about cars and are merely mad that no one pays attention to them. There's an antisocial loser on my street, a ~50yo guy in a modded Infinity. The exhaust is so loud it shakes windows and I can't talk on the phone or hear my own music inside my house when it's nearby. And it's a shit car. He's destroyed it. It barely even drives. He gets tons of parking tickets because it's broken and he can't move it for months at a time, but he still goes outside and sits in it and revs the engine for sometimes 20-30 minutes at a time. When he "works on it", he lays on his back in the middle of the street, blocking traffic, for hours at a time. When he actually gets it working, he drives slowly around the block a few times, revving the engine again loud enough to annoy the entire neighborhood. All of my neighbors have reported him to the police, but they won't do anything. Whenever neighbors try to talk to him, he immediately starts screaming and waving his arms and approaching them until they back away. He's an antisocial loser.

mlinhares 2mo ago
Hard to meet a modder that isn't a loser like this.
- tristor 2mo ago
  I promise you, there are many many many people who modify their cars and do not act like assholes. The thing is, you probably don't notice them because they aren't focused on getting attention.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]

jgeada 2mo ago

No sure I see that any different than the typical American behemoth truck/SUV blocking all lines of sight to everything other than a 12 wheeler. And to top it off, they can't take a corner and so they all seem to slam their brakes and cause a traffic jam at any interesting corner. All to transport one person by themselves from home to office and back.

FatherOfCurses 2mo ago
They can't park for shit either, so you lose spots in a parking lot and have to wait forever while they block the aisle backing out.
vladvasiliu 2mo ago
Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider. I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bike. I know my dad's Corolla does.
- brailsafe 2mo ago
  Sometimes I wonder whether going excessively slow around corners is a symptom of people pushing their steering wheel from the side opposite the direction of the curve instead of pulling it from the same side into the curve. Just a hunch, but doing the latter usually feels like I have more control.
  - vladvasiliu 2mo ago
    I don't know about that. But what I usually observe is that many people tend to veer off in the next lane in the direction of the turn (even if it's a lane for traffic going the opposite way!) if there is one. But if there isn't (right turn, they're in the rightmost lane), they'll tend to leave quite a lot of space between the car and the shoulder. So I'd say these people have a hard time figuring out the space on the road their car takes. I can only imagine this worsens with larger cars and less visibility.

Waterluvian 2mo ago

I just wish these people comprehended and cared that you can be 2km away on a country road with your stupid engine and it's still loud as !@#$ for thousands of people in the city. I live on the edge of a city and this is a nightly thing. It's louder than the air ambulance occasionally landing at the nearby helipad. It's louder than the 6-8 trains running through town.

FatherOfCurses 2mo ago

So much of American car/motorcycle culture seems to be about that nowadays. And it's not limited to the Japanese mod scene, either. Loud exhausts everywhere - pickups, domestic V6/V8's, motorcycles. Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night. Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them. All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are being sold a dream by the mod manufacturers that if they just install this $1500 catback or this $1000 sub they will finally get the respect they deserve. They get online forum/Facebook/Insta/TikTok validation but very few people around them are impressed with their choices. I mainly hate how people are being taken for a ride (pardon the pun) by marketers and putting money into things that aren't really going to improve their car-driving experience.

vitally3643 2mo ago
It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are. Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no attention at all.
- com2kid 2mo ago
  Counter point - driving down the beach in a convertible with good tunes blasting and the sea breeze in your hair is fun. Like yeah it sucks for everyone listening, but if every other car is blasting tunes it isn't out of place. Some beach drives are known for this, right place at the right time. When I visited Floria Keys I sure as shit rented a convertible and played bass thumping EDM as I drove over the ocean. Hell I think I may have even been wearing Ray-Bans. Don't do that shit in a family neighborhood at 4am, but I never objected to people peeling out of the Microsoft parking garage in their lolwtf over priced garage princess sports cars. Bailing at 4pm with your coworkers to go hit up the bar is a perfect time to let loose.
  - 2mo ago

Tade0 2mo ago

I don't mind cosmetics, but noise is something some places fortunately started regulating and I hope it becomes more common: https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-detecting-cameras-crack-loud-driving https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-... I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise. The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modified exhaust and driver side window rolled down - apparently so that he would better hear the noise he's making. Considering the volume that had to have a negative effect on his hearing. I don't understand and I will not understand.

mekdoonggi 2mo ago
I hope that becomes more common so long as privacy is respected. Fortunately my neighborhood is fairly quiet. I don't understand either, but I don't have a problem with people doing what they want. If municipalities can regulate speed limits for safety and other reasons they should be able to. So if you want to be loud live out in the country where there is space.
- AngryData 2mo ago
  Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay. Ive been pulled over multiple times with brand new stock exhaust on a stock vehicle cruising at 55 because the body looked old and rusted and the cops were looking for any plausable excuse. With a real excuse they could throw tickets at you when they get frusterated with lack of other possible charges.
  - cucumber3732842 2mo ago
    >Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay. Yes and no. Rich places that can trivially afford to over-staff their PD's compared to the amount of "real crime" to go around are some of the worst when it comes to baseless fishing.

spking 2mo ago

Unfortunately we’ve got one of these people across the street. He is training to be an electrician and starts his modded Toyota apparently with an amplified kazoo welded into the muffler at 4:15am every weekday. Shakes the entire house like a B-17 bomber.

jerlam 2mo ago

Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track. After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off. Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl and duck into a low car anymore. Stiff suspensions are hard on the back and joints.

DennisP 2mo ago
Some people actually do track their cars, though.
- vjvjvjvjghv 2mo ago
  It’s a very small percentage of these vehicles though.
  - englishspot 2mo ago
    yeah, majority of people just want to have something that is capable of doing cool stuff, but can't really commit to actually doing it. it's like how so many buy and tune WRXs, but don't actually take it to gravel roads.
    - caconym_ 2mo ago
      TBH most of the mods that really make people point and laugh won't fare very well on a track or rally stage either.
    - kevin_thibedeau 2mo ago
      20-inch wheels aren't capable of cool stuff. It's all peacocking.
      - englishspot 2mo ago

dieselgate 2mo ago

I say this with respect and part jokingly but this is basically just a "shakes fist at cloud". And I don't disagree with you! But if people use their signal and drive sane it's not much a problem for me. Very rarely do I see a modded car like this regardless of Make - and people make every Make/Model loud it's not just restricted to the aforementioned. Your mileage may vary and that's all good

arijun 2mo ago
Hard disagree. You might be ok with loud engines splitting your eardrums and interrupting your sleep (or worse, your baby's sleep!), but society as a whole should not. Live and let live is good and all, but GP said it was about "inflicting their taste on others," so I would read that comment to mean the inconsiderate things we should not let live. Loud pipes, unsafe driving, and loud subwoofers--I'll shake my fist at those clouds all day.
- dieselgate 2mo ago
  Well as mentioned in the above comment I do not disagree with parent nor do I disagree with you. Vehicles of these extremes are rare, in my experience, as mentioned as well. In practicality, I care more about how people drive than the loudness of their engine.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  No offense but this is kinda soft mate. A loud car doesn’t “split your eardrums”, it’s at worst a minor inconvenience, and as part of living in a diverse society we accept that we will be inconvenienced sometimes.
  - elabajaba 2mo ago
    Straight piped trucks can easily hit over 100dB (I've seen numbers as high as 118dB) which is well above the 85dB hearing damage level, and is at the level where hearing damage occurs in minutes or even seconds of exposure. Sorry I don't want to get tinnitus just because some asshole wanted to make his truck "sound better".

aaarrm 2mo ago

> So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car. Having not read the article yet, this is an assumption. He could himself enjoy the kick/boom of a subwoofer (I know I do, it makes music so much better) or the sound of his own exhaust (I never have personally cared about this)

arijun 2mo ago
Whether they are purposefully inflicting it on others or not, it takes a certain type of inconsiderate person to say "F*ck everyone else and their preferences for intact eardrums and uninterrupted sleep, I like the way it sounds."
rootusrootus 2mo ago
I'm skeptical. One thing I learned early on was that I could crank a car stereo up to levels that were uncomfortable, and rock the car with a pair of nice 12 inch subs ... and outside the car it was pretty weak. Audible, perhaps, but not for very far and nothing you'd really feel. Even with the windows down, it's surprising how loud it can be inside and still not be all that noteworthy on the outside. The guys that have radios loud enough to annoy bystanders are deep into hearing damage territory. The ones with subwoofers you can feel in the next lane over aren't running 12s, they have much bigger speakers than that, way, way past the point of where you are doing it for your own kick. It's very intentional, about the effect outside the vehicle, not the quality of the music inside.

ge96 2mo ago

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tristor 2mo ago

I promise you it is not limited to the Camry/Corolla/Civic community, it's just that those cars are very commonplace so its more obvious. I had a full track build BRZ that looked nearly stock from the outside other than the wheels and hood vents, and I loved that car and still miss it. Even in the Miata and BRZ/86 communities where these are designed as cheap, trackable sports cars, most of the community is more focused on cosmetics and adding cheap plastic and chinesium parts to their cars than doing anything that improves driving dynamics.

salezred 2mo ago
As a counterpoint for practical (i.e., performance) mods being the only mods that matter... I have a F82 which has a few carbon fiber parts to make it stand out a bit. I really don't think I need more performance than what it has to offer, so making it look nicer seems like e a good idea (at least it won't look identical to all other F82s). Now, would I do that to a Camry? No freakin way.
- tristor 2mo ago
  I don't think there's anything wrong with doing purely cosmetic modifications if those modifications don't also make the car worse. The challenge is many folks in the community do cosmetic modifications that actually reduce performance.

englishspot 2mo ago

nah, I like cars, and I agree. I have some cosmetic mods on mine (it's none of those models in your list) and they're very subtle and inoffensive. very much iykyk. I also want a new exhaust, but mostly because I want a deeper tone, not louder.

pryelluw 2mo ago

Eh, applies to all brands. Few people care about driving faster. It’s all about being “cool”.

firmretention 2mo ago

I have loud subwoofers in my car, but they're for my enjoyment. The fact that others might hear them is an unfortunate reality of physics. I try to be considerate in not blasting it in residential areas, late at night, etc., but bass is bass - it travels.

matheusmoreira 2mo ago

Nothing judgemental or unhealthy about it. It's perfectly normal to be annoyed by such nuisances. The existence of these people is one of many factors that make driving literal hell on earth.

frollogaston 2mo ago
Driving isn't so bad, the bad part is being outside a car while these things buzz by. Like there are restaurants with outdoor patios I entirely avoid because I want to hear others at the table instead of farting Hondas.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

0x1d7 2mo ago

Civics are legos with extensive aftermarket support. Type-Rs are designed to be tracked (IIRC fastest FWD in NA). People often mod these to track better, and in JPN obviously mod them to drive them illegally on highways. Civics, or more specifically the older naturally aspirated engines from Honda as a whole (including the F20C1 found in the S2000 AP1) are high-RPM engines, often revving to 8500-9000 RPM, which is going to be loud no matter what you do. No, not all mods are designed to inflict something on someone else. Popular FL5 mods are designed around engine/oil cooling, brake capacity (prevent fading), and camber. Yes, you can get nuts with a racing-only, non-CARB DP or a non-valved exhaust, but that's a personal choice. Not every FL5 owner follows that ethos. But you can also go with a CARB-compliant DP, valved exhaust (OE is valved, many aftermarkets use valved exhausts), and even if you do a mid-pipe resonator delete, it's no louder than it's sister car, the Acura DE5, which doesn't even come with a mid-pipe resonator from the factory. And yes, a modded FL5 is a ton more fun to drive than a non-modded one due to a single, hidden mod - replacing the suspension controller with one from a DE5 or from DSC makes the ride much smoother. Honda doesn't get everything 'right' (but they do get engines down pat). Ofc, you do have fire-breathing 1000hp S2000s out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2tYyBbZ-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2tYyBbZ-Q

throwway120385 2mo ago
I don't think anyone objects to modding your street legal car to go 0-100 in 3 seconds as long as you're not interrupting every conversation for a quarter mile in any direction wherever you drive. But everywhere I go, no matter what I'm doing, someone's exhaust mod is there to make sure I can't finish my sentences or listen to my son, and I'm sick of it.
- 0x1d7 2mo ago
  Some cars, usually older pre-regulation, are just naturally that loud. And some people are absolute assholes - https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/belltown-hellcat-driver-sentenced-reckless-driving/281-51aa5a0b-4b8d-49df-a8b4-ee6dd894d45f https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/belltown-he...

cmrdporcupine 2mo ago

I have been spending my mid-life days pondering getting a used Porsche 986.1 Boxter, cuz, y'know, mid-life. And so reading reviews and I constantly see this refrain: "car drives great, wonderful handling, good value... but not worth it because the engine sound/note is so dull." I just have to give my head a shake. It makes zero sense to me.

EvanAnderson 2mo ago

At one point my wife's 1995 Civic had a busted exhaust pipe ahead of the muffler and was loud as hell. She reported receiving compliments from a few different Civic enthusiasts, much to her confusion. She just wanted me to fix the broken pipe. In our family we use the expression "farting Honda" (or Toyota, Subaru, whatever) when we hear these kinds of cars on the road.

ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
The exhaust on my old Range Rover split between the catastrophic converters and the first silencer, leaving it completely open. The novelty of it sounding like the start of Jerry Was A Racecar Driver hadn't entirely worn off before I welded it up, I guess, but I'm not about to go around attracting attention to myself. Not when I could see it making plate glass shop windows vibrate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkE4-zsqYwo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkE4-zsqYwo
- swasheck 2mo ago
  catastrophic converter is such a hilarious autocorrect.
  - ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
    It's not an autocorrect. These things are terrible.
    - amanaplanacanal 2mo ago
      If you have a better way to get rid of all those pollutants, I'm sure we'd all love to hear about it.
      - ErroneousBosh 2mo ago
        Well, if you insist on running them on petrol, just having a lambda sensor and closed-loop mixture control breaks the back of it. However, if you run them on propane instead of petrol - like they do for forklifts and Zambonis, where you have to run the engines indoors without people dying - you just get carbon dioxide and water vapour out. You don't need a catalytic converter and indeed if you have one it can make the pollution slightly worse by generating nitrogen oxides. Imagine how clean our cities could have been if we'd done this 20 years ago, instead of selling people debt to buy "Cleaner Greener Diesels". They're still emitting CO2, but a little less of it, and from fuel that would otherwise go up in smoke at the refinery flare stack - unless you want to stop making plastics and fertilisers.

dyauspitr 2mo ago

None of the other things except the sound bothers me. It’s just so goddamn loud, like unbelievably loud.

pipe2devnull 2mo ago

Some exhausts can sound cool but at someone that lives near a road I don’t think people should subject other people to loud exhausts. Just because someone installed a subwoofer (depending on how the audio was before) doesn’t necessarily mean they are blasting it so loud it is bothering other people. Some cars have pretty horrible stock sound

ryandrake 2mo ago
I wish the car modders would adopt things like Active Sound Design (ASD) that some car manufactures are using to pipe vroom-vroom noises through the car's speaker system. It seems like the perfect compromise. The driver wants to hear his car's loud vroomvroom, and everyone else -doesn't- have to hear it.
- donkers 2mo ago
  As a car enthusiast, I hate that fake engine sound. It’s so inauthentic and is on the same level as someone painting racing stripes or flames on a Toyota Camry so that it “looks faster”
- tartoran 2mo ago
  The drivers of such cars want to draw attention to themselves. But I wish your solution would psychologically trick some of them at least. I sometimes catch myself holding my breath when one of these passes by and it is still very distressing even if I temporarily plug my years with my fingers.
- asciimov 2mo ago
  Hearing the vroomvroom isn’t the same as feeling the vroomvroom.
- HDBaseT 2mo ago
  These "technologies" are unbelievably "cringe" (for a lack of a better word). Car enthusiasts want the sound to come from some mechanical aspect. They want the sound and smell of burning fuel, pushing pistons up and down at extreme speeds with hundreds of other rotating and spinning parts working in unison for a cool sound. A speaker diaphragm moving up and down 20 to 100 times a second doesn't quite scratch that itch. A speaker can nearly "replicate" any sound, which takes the fun out of it.

burningChrome 2mo ago

My buddy was a huge VW fan and loved taking a stock Jetta or Passat and modding the engine and transmission while making it look completely stock. He was one of the few people I knew who loved the idea of the "wolf in sheeps clothing". The guy who pulls up with a Mustang and then blowing off his doors and the Mustang guy wanted to see what he actually had under the hood. The low key stealth approach I always though was the best way to do this. You don't draw attention to yourself either from cops or LEO's. I still feel like its the right way to do this, but clearly in the digital age of social media and the constant need for attention and dopamine hits, its now the exception instead of the rule as you have correctly pointed out.

lb1lf 2mo ago
Oh yes. I used to have a VW van (a T4) which had had a V6 transplant and an aftermarket turbo retrofitted (not by me - I am a quite capable mechanic, but not THAT capable.) It was still a VW van, but it gave a few unsuspecting BMW drivers a surprise. Some 370bhp tends to get others' attention when unleashed.

fxtentacle 2mo ago

I read "midlife crisis" as "old guy trying to impress much younger girls" and then a cheap-ish car modded to be fast, furious, and obnoxiously loud seems like it might just work. Plus it's probably an amazing toy that can also be enjoyed solo. And as long as there's enough attractive women who are impressed by loud cars, there will be guys with loud cars. I also dislike loud cars. But I'm at a loss as to how one would fix the root cause. Pull requests welcome ;) And, yes, I share your impression. That car is about him trying to enforce attention by subjecting other people to his car.

0x1d7 2mo ago
Is this the kind of pull request you were looking for? https://youtube.com/shorts/QiOGH6JtL5E https://youtube.com/shorts/QiOGH6JtL5E

lordfrito 2mo ago

> their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else Flies in the face of all the talk about consent. I did not consent to this...

Lwerewolf 2mo ago

All show no go is the trend these days - and not just with cars.

m463 2mo ago

I remember some friends talking about motorcycles, and one was wondering how much horsepower you could get out of a Harley Davidson motorcycle. And another friend quipped, "You don't tune a Harley for power, you tune it for noise!" Back to tuner cars, I've always thought the perfect invention would be a tuner-car-audio-experience-device. Basically, a device that you plug into the cigarette lighter and it uses some method of figuring out the engine RPM (and maybe throttle position). Then it would generate cool engine sounds and send them to bluetooth stream / fm broadcast / audio jack, for the car audio system. You could drive a quiet car, but inside it would feel like a formula one car, a 12-cylinder italian car, motorcycle, tugboat or jet fighter. I would say spaceship, but those days are gone since every EV nowadays sounds like an cheapo alien orchestra already.

0x1d7 2mo ago
Many modern cars do this due to how quiet ICE are now. Oftentimes the fake interior noise is awful. I pull the modules that inject the fake noise, it makes the interior much quieter. YMMV.
fragmede 2mo ago
It exists! https://us.wrumersound.com/ https://us.wrumersound.com/ Plug this into your car's OBD II port and run their app on your phone, and it sounds like whatever you configure the app to. V8, F1, lawnmower, or fart noise!
jerlam 2mo ago
I think the Dodge Charger EV has a lot of the fake engine noises, both inside and out. Sounds like it was a very important feature. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63141971/dodge-charger-daytona-fratzonic-exhaust-sound/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a63141971/dodge-charger-da...

kulahan 2mo ago

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user00005 2mo ago

I find the modded import scene was much bigger around 15 to 20 years ago. About 5 years ago it was loud Mustangs and Camaros. Now, down here in the deep south, pickup trucks are by far the most obnoxious. (source: I walk around my city everyday)

ericyd 2mo ago

I also dislike loud cars, but I've come to accept that the motivation of loud car owners is probably to gain kudos from other loud car lovers, rather than to inflict pain on us normies. One time I remember being on my bicycle and a kid car revved past me and another cyclist. In my head I though "what an asshole" but the cyclist next to me shouted "Sick!!!" I'm not really defending the loud noise, but I think it's useful to shift perspective a bit and understand it is probably not an act of intentional violence (though it may be unintentional violence).

panative 2mo ago
I don’t see how your “shift” makes it any better. Did you really think people did exhaust mods purely to torment everyone around them? The noise and the its effect on listeners is the entire point. The fact that it’s primarily to gain kudos from “other loud car lovers” and especially attention from vapid women doesn’t alter the fact that they know and more likely relish if not most charitably are completely indifferent to the effect on everyone else. Which is fundamentally bad character when you’re revving these around populated areas. After all any “loud car lover” is also either annoyed when their sleep is interrupted or they can’t hear themselves think for hours on end, or they have the IQ of a box of rocks. They want to hear loud revving only when it is convenient and enjoyable to them. So you can choose either complete self-centeredness and hypocrisy at that (likely) or being borderline too dumb to operate a vehicle.
- ericyd 2mo ago
  > Did you really think people did exhaust mods purely to torment everyone around them? I didn't, but the OP wrote: > So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car So my comment was in response to that. I don't think people should ignore the suffering they cause for others, but to me it's different if the motivation is to cause pain vs bringing joy to like-minded people.
  - amanaplanacanal 2mo ago
    Right! They're not actively malicious, they just don't care about other people.

fouc 2mo ago

That's how you know you've got the COOLEST car on the block! (unfortunately)

Dezvous 2mo ago

Have you considered people can enjoy different things than you? I personally enjoy a nice exhaust tone and I like subwoofers as well. And I don't like them just because they might piss off somebody like yourself, it's for my own enjoyment. Not all exhausts and subwoofers are created equal. Most modern cars with 'premium' sound systems like Bose, JBL, etc. have subwoofers, but they're usually small and don't require a lot of power. The system they installed in this car might have been the OEM premium sound package as well - the one Toyota offers is JBL and comes with a subwoofer. Do you get mad when it's OEM or just DIY? The GR Corolla has a 'loud' exhaust from the factory as well. Loud enough that you'd probably rage at it judging by this comment. People buy aftermarket exhausts for a variety of reasons. They can produce a different tone, cut down on exhaust 'drone' (which the GR Corolla is notorious for with it's factory exhaust), offer alternative styling, provide weight savings, and reduce backpressure/improve flow. It's not just about volume. Certainly you could be an asshole who buys an exhaust just because it's loud, but that's not why the majority are doing it, it's for their own enjoyment and usually provides a performance improvement. If they really wanted to achieve max volume they could just do an open dump exhaust or a hood exit, it would be cheaper than buying a Borla and significantly louder.

blargey 2mo ago
Your nuanced hobby and aesthetics is reduced to “stupid loudness” in people’s minds because the primary interaction other people have with it is “I am being subjected to stupid loudness”, yes.
- Dezvous 2mo ago
  If they're really bothered by temporary noise that much, they should just invest in some ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones.
  - blargey 2mo ago
    Spoken like someone that never even had to try. Neither of those can physically mitigate spikes of noise from engines, exhausts, or subs, and will only cause more harm if the noise floor is low. Why spend three paragraphs insisting on the innocence of your motives when you’re just going to fall back on “fuck you suck it up” when pressed on the consequences of your actions?

rapind 2mo ago

I’m always reminded of this classic: https://youtube.com/shorts/IzeTYJJXzIk https://youtube.com/shorts/IzeTYJJXzIk

defrost 2mo ago
It has an antipodean non identical twin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo2JcTk4nBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo2JcTk4nBE

sharadov 2mo ago

More noise than actual speed.