i'm probably the biggest car fan i know in my personal circle, but a certain 370Z Nismo right outside my apartment does get annoying, after hearing that massively loud idle drone morning by morning.

can imagine non car people getting at least as mad, at louder cars.

I used to have the v8 C63 - a great car which sounded lovely, but I have to admit, on the rare occasion I started it in the morning I used to do so through gritted teeth.

I've still got one of these (w204), it's loud - imho kinda pointlessly - for a second or so, then is pretty quiet - one of the reasons I love it.

But a lot more people find loud engines simply horrible and inconsiderate.

I try to avoid these discussions on HN as I'm a petrohead and find myself often on the wrong side of the greater audience here.

That said, no car is really loud sub ~3000 rpm, at least not in the way I imagine you're implying. That is all this (or most any) car would need to muster for driving down the streets of London or any city.

The problem is that some owners get really aggressive with the throttle in places they really shouldn't. I'm with you, that is annoying, but that is by no means an isolated "super fancy car" problem. Motorbikes, modified scooters, tuner cars, trucks tuned for show instead of work.

This whole thing is about how some folks can't help but flaunt their opulence/excess. Talking it out on the car is like talking down to Tesla for including autopilot knowing that some drunk drivers will simply use the feature to take themselves home.

You can be a petrolhead -- among other like-minded petrolheads, in designated areas where you don't bother other people who simply have no choice whether or not they are subjected to your "taste". It's similar to smokers being inconsiderate and blowing smoke onto non-smoking persons. If I'm a "metalhead", that doesn't give me the right to blast music at 1 in the morning in my apartment, or during my morning commute.

> That said, no car is really loud sub ~3000 rpm, at least not in the way I imagine you're implying.

As someone who loves cars, I wildly disagree. There are modded cars that idle across the street that wake me up through my double-paned windows. A very popular mod is to add a downpipe to some cars, which is illegal in California (for emissions reasons), but people still do it and holy fuck it is just so god damn loud. It's great at the race track, not so great when you want to sleep. Sometimes cars are just loud and obnoxious.

Modified cars is the keyword there. There are already regulations in every region that control for excessive noise and pollution from vehicles.

I think by downpipe you mean cutout. Every car has a downpipe. Yes, if you open exhaust cutouts at 5am you're an asshole.

how do you know? I live in a major city and I find loud exhausts to be only a fleeting annoyance. I'll admit I hate when people put straight pipes on motorcycles and inline fours, but I love listening to porsches and amgs go by. you might not guess it, since I drive a pretty quiet car myself.

outside of hn, I've never really encountered anyone who was more than mildly annoyed by loud exhausts.

Sure, just as when I lived in a big crowded city I never really encountered anyone who was more than mildly annoyed by graffitti, trash in the street, minor vandalism (broken street lights, etc), and even petty theft.

There's a massive difference between an ephemeral accelerating (unmodified and within regulations) sports car and actual crime.

It just adds up, you know? I own a Porsche and I purposely left the sports exhaust option out (even though you can turn it off, I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t still louder then). Because if using my fun car means annoying everyone else in a radius like they are annoying me when they pass my house, it wouldn’t be that much fun. Can’t imagine what it must be for parents of young children, when some exhausts are loud enough to wake me up in the middle of the night (and the surrounding car alarms).

Is it the sound of the engine, or of the exhaust?