Is It Just My Imagination, But Are New Cars Getting LOUDER not Quieter?

savatage1973

Addicted Member
I own one of the loudest and most obnoxious sounding cars in recent history--a new Challenger HellCat--and it gets frickin LOUD. But my buddy was just over today with his all-stock, mint '67 Camaro--totally stock with a 327 and automatic, and you could barely hear it running--he's getting ready to put it away for the winter, so this was kind of a "final cruise" for the season.

We were talking about this trend--any new "performance" or "sport" model from pretty much any manufacture are getting louder and louder--in stock configuration--not just Vettes, my HellCat, Camaros, Mustangs--but even the "rice rods" and marques like BMW and Benz. Has "exhaust note" become that much of a selling point?

Just wonderin'
 
I think the Mfg's have found that sound helps sell.

I've always liked how quiet my Honda's have been. My V-6 coupe sounds like it has a small V-8 under the hood when you step on it, but it's all engine sound, not exhaust noise.
 
Anything with performance advertising is loud nowadays. Check out the new Camry ads on TV. My 2010 Camry SE V-6 is loud in the cabin under full throttle, sounds like a giant performance bike, but not so loud outside the cabin.
 
My '91 Honda CRX-Si was the quietest car I owned, still did 135 and got 36mpg out of a 1.6L 4 cyl.
I live in a tourist town now and shake my fist at every meathead who feels the need to drive something you can hear coming and going 3 miles in any direction.
Thank you very much Mr. Look at me and my especially loud car.
More attracive to me would be like BMW motorcycles. Can;t hardly hear they're running but oh the power and toqrue is there when you need it, not wasted out the tailpipe.
No snowflake ever believes they are responsible for the avalanche.
 
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Look, when they started using the car's audio system to 'enhance' the exhaust note inside the cabin, I knew things were getting utterly stupid.

There's a bunch of them doing that now, BMW, Lexus, Volkswagen (yep, faking it again with a speaker on the firewall for GTI drivers) etc.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...ndaktor-is-and-how-to-disable-it-104944.html#

Are you kidding me this is what they've gotten to nowadays?
Every day more and more reasons I wish I had a shop to start a retrofit HHO Hydrogen kit install that actually DOES something.
I swear the human race has to be de-evolving, yes?
 
...More attractive to me would be like BMW motorcycles. Can;t hardly hear they're running but oh the power and toqrue is there when you need it, not wasted out the tailpipe..
I have a 2003 GoldWing. Pulled into a parking spot beside a woman getting out of her car. She said all she heard was my radio on low. But boy does that thing do, 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds.
 
I think the Mfg's have found that sound helps sell.

I've always liked how quiet my Honda's have been. My V-6 coupe sounds like it has a small V-8 under the hood when you step on it, but it's all engine sound, not exhaust noise.

In some ways similar to the 65 Chevelle I reworked a couple decades back. Exhaust note was fairly quiet via the use of Corvair "turbo" mufflers. The quiet exhaust allowed you to hear the actual engine noise and it's lope compliments of a slightly hotter cam. Kinda' the automotive equivalent of "speak softly but carry a big stick".

Anything with performance advertising is loud nowadays. Check out the new Camry ads on TV. My 2010 Camry SE V-6 is loud in the cabin under full throttle, sounds like a giant performance bike, but not so loud outside the cabin.

Those new Camry ads are absolutely annoying ......

Look, when they started using the car's audio system to 'enhance' the exhaust note inside the cabin, I knew things were getting utterly stupid.

There's a bunch of them doing that now, BMW, Lexus, Volkswagen (yep, faking it again with a speaker on the firewall for GTI drivers) etc.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...ndaktor-is-and-how-to-disable-it-104944.html#

WTF !!??? Oh man, that's lame. Lame, lame LAME !!
 
I have a 2003 GoldWing. Pulled into a parking spot beside a woman getting out of her car. She said all she heard was my radio on low. But boy does that thing do, 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds.
Yep. I work in a busy hotel with lots of traffic and they're like a whisper.
Like an EU2000 generator at 50db.
As quiet as the electric cars really...
Great engines they have now tho still the 1880's Otto 4 stroke design.
Always thought a Mazda rotary engine would be great in a bike frame too...
Heck, in ANY frame with wheels, or propellers as well..
A great reciprocating design with far less moving mass.
Almost like a turbine engine though those will NEVER be allowed on the ground as the world would go mad with Turbine Whine Sickness.
They banned them on the lake I live on back in the 80's as the sound carried 20 miles across the water.
The world could do things with wrankle rotary engines and turbines, even if scaled down to a very small size....
Run by HHO biodiesel mix even!!
Why none of this has EVER been deleoped in the Land of the Free and Enterprising has made me suspicious &rcurmudgeony over the decades by now..
We got overcomplicated ciscuit boards, their inherent planned obsolescence and non-own owner-servicable overcomplication 30 years later.
Why bother reading Pop Mechanics, Pop Science and Omni (etc) all those years on the crapper and in the bath?
None of it came to pass.
Where's my Hoverboard?
(shakes fist at the air. Come around here on Halloween you wippersnappers!)

Thank God something that still exists are 30 year old sound gear, records and speakers to make the modern loud world sound just a lot better!!
 
My dad's Porsche Macan had a button to turn the sport exhaust note on /off.

My son's Hyundai Veloster turbo has it built in I believe too.
 
Look, when they started using the car's audio system to 'enhance' the exhaust note inside the cabin, I knew things were getting utterly stupid.

There's a bunch of them doing that now, BMW, Lexus, Volkswagen (yep, faking it again with a speaker on the firewall for GTI drivers) etc.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...ndaktor-is-and-how-to-disable-it-104944.html#

I have head of and read about this technology, but have yet to experience it--and don't know if I want to. Auto makers spent decades trying to quiet exterior drivetrain noise and isolate the interior from drivetrain and road noise--now we are artificially generating it and amplifying it for the passenger cabin :confused:
 
Yeah, VW uses a noise pipe in its turbo offerings, most enthusiasts plug it. The noise ramp- I don't like it.

A parallel development is vehicle size. I swear to God, I just don't understand truck or gigantosaurus SUV guys or the culture surrounding modern same.

F150 1970's: Utility!
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F150 2017: Luxury, status, douchiness, he-manliness (I guess :thumbsdown:). Add in turbodiesel annoyance and there is the sound ramp up as well.
19932026_329030730863787_5046123781483921408_n.jpg


We are in Thunderdome on the freeways now.:mad:

Ever compare an original Rav4 to the new ones.:thumbsdown:
 
Low restriction exhausts sound great in the driveway when idling but on the road, it will get tiring. My 2005 Pontiac GTO was loud in stock form. My neighbors two doors away could hear it when I started it. I now have a Crown Victoria with stock mufflers. It is as quiet as a Town Car, which shares the same setup. One more thing to note, while less restrictive exhaust produces more power, the torque curve is pushed higher up the rev range which is not so good for around town driving.
 
Newer cars are definitely getting louder in the sense that exhaust tuning has finally trickled up to manufacturers. Manufacturers also recognized that intake noise is sometimes a good thing when it sounds a particular way. For example, the new Camaro with I-4 turbo motor has an "acoustic pipe" which brings sound into the cabin to shape what the driver hears. Sound-cancelling and sound-modifying devices have been around a few years, too. My car has a valve in the exhaust which smooths out the sound (and performance) when the motor goes from V6 to V4 mode. I think my V6 is just a little too loud at idle, less so at cruising speed, but it makes quite the snarl when leadfooting it. It sells more units, so some cars will get louder, I reckon.
 
Are you talking about loud inside the car, or outside? Many of the newer performance cars purposely pipe more intake noise into the interior.
 
I've always liked how quiet my Honda's have been. My V-6 coupe sounds like it has a small V-8 under the hood when you step on it, but it's all engine sound, not exhaust noise.
They have also worked on quieting down the cabin. When I rented a new Civic EX-T back in August, it was the first car I'd driven with a pushbutton start. I didn't know what was going on, but that was so quiet and smooth that I couldn't tell the engine was even running until I looked at the tach. When I nailed it on the freeway, yeah, it had a little growl to it (once that turbo kicks in and the CVT hits a matching sweet spot, it pulls hard). But otherwise, it was miles away from my old '92 Civic where you heard everything. Even that "ping" sound from the tires as they went over bumps in the road. But even there, the road noise drowned out the engine. :D Our CR-Vs here are quiet, even standing next to them. And our Acura that the flood ate was also similarly quiet.

I live in a tourist town now and shake my fist at every meathead who feels the need to drive something you can hear coming and going 3 miles in any direction.
I have a 2003 GoldWing. Pulled into a parking spot beside a woman getting out of her car. She said all she heard was my radio on low. But boy does that thing do, 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds.
That reminds me of a major annoyance on our highways. This summer on my first road trip, there were many groups of riders on "that brand with the noisy exhaust pipes." I was already doing 80-85 through places like South Dakota, Wyoming, etc., so I couldn't exactly pass the bikes up. There were times when we were behind bikes like these for 20, 30, even 40 minutes, and it got f***ing annoying listening to that cracking, droning exhaust, especially when the roads got hilly and they struggled to climb them. In some cases, we'd pass them, then a few miles they would speed up just to pass us again. Or on 2-lane roads, they rode in formations that never allowed anyone to pass, and refused to pull aside to let a dozen cars behind them pass. Assholes. Continuous noise droning makes a trip even more tiring and tedious. If they want to hear that nonsense, fine. Just keep it the hell away from me.

Even in our quiet subdivision here, some asshat owns one of "that brand with the noisy exhaust pipes" and feels the need to crack the throttle several times down the street in the dead of night. And mentioning tourist towns, they apparently feel the need to sit at the red lights or stop signs and constantly crack that f***ing throttle.

A friend of my ex's owned a smaller Honda bike. That thing was idling in the driveway while we were talking and we could barely hear it running. And there were plenty of other bikes on the road we heard...or rather, didn't hear, on our trip. GoldWings are quiet for sure--just a faint drone and a "whoosh." A couple of weeks ago, we passed five riders on Suzuki bikes and all you could hear was a bit of engine drone. BMWs and Ducatis? Similarly quiet. I also noticed that riders that were not on "that brand with the noisy pipes" were all properly suited for riding--full riding gear, helmets, road cases, etc., even in 90+ degree heat. I guess I don't get that whole "tuff guy" thing where you ride in a tank top with no helmet. We even saw one riding in flip-flops! My daughter calls them "organ donors."

P.S. Get off my lawn! :D

Low restriction exhausts sound great in the driveway when idling but on the road, it will get tiring.
It used to annoy me when my exhaust was leaking. Especially when I would hit a speed where things would resonate and all I could hear was that drone in the background.

I don't know what it is though, but why do those old glasspack mufflers sound so cool? Sure they can be loud at times, but that is one distinctive sound that I actually like to hear. Reminds me of the cars I grew up around in our neighborhood in the 70s, I guess. It beats the "ricer" cars with the fart-can mufflers!

F150 2017: Luxury, status, douchiness, he-manliness (I guess :thumbsdown:).
In my part of town, it's the status symbol of the ADD-afflicted urban redneck, making up for gross deficiencies in manhood I guess. The intimidators. Tailgating their way through traffic, inches from the cars in front of them, blowing through red lights and stop signs because traffic laws apparently do not apply to them.
 
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