I just can’t wrap my head around why people want to make the sort of noise these people make. This goes for tire squeelers too. I don’t get it.
Read Freud. Look up “compensation.”
I’m with you. My only real preferences in the sounds my car makes are “as quiet as possible, but still loud enough for pedestrians to hear me.”
(I drove a plug in hybrid for a while, and it was problematic that pedestrians couldn’t hear the car.)
But you can’t register it in California without a smog check - which it would fail in your scenario
But that is the problem. The State of California isn’t just asking him to never use track mode again. It appears they won’t allow him to register the car unless he “fixes” it by completely removing track mode altogether. Which is something beyond the capabilities of both him and his local Hyundai dealer.
A judge can decide if that’s unreasonable for someone who has proven they can’t be trusted to use those modes within the law.
I know right? But I have trouble accepting that they all are ahemm, compensating. I feel like some of just like to be obnoxious and piss people off.
We used to live on a busy corner by this town’s standards. We had trouble keeping our windows open in the summer because, trucks, bikes, and muscle cars, would gun through the light so loudly that we couldn’t talk to each other without shouting. Sometimes that wasn’t loud enough.
I think compensation is probably part of the answer, but there’s more to it. I mean, they can’t all have tiny dicks can they? 
California got rid of the tailpipe test for 2000+ MY vehicles a while ago. “49-state” legal cars can be registered provided they pass the ECU check (no check engine lights) and a visual inspection, and if it can be shown that they were previously registered in another state.
I have been to automobile “sideshows” with hundreds of people in the audience. Granted, I do not personally know anything about the organisers or their safety record, but it was a community entertainment event and police interference was widely regarded (rightly or wrongly) as racially motivated oppression.
Something to think about before complaining about “these people”. Not that there is much excuse for the guy who starts his ultra-loud motorcycle early in the morning right where it wakes up everybody in the building, or similar jerks.
I didn’t know that. What happens when they go to get it smogged for renewal?
Once its in the state it’s good to go.
I’m not sure exactly what sort of event you’re referring to. I’m pretty sure by limited context such events don’t happen around here.
The “people” I’m talking about drive intentionally loud vehicles on public streets at all hours of the night and day. This town is very small and not very diverse. I would guess that 99.9 % of the people that drive these vehicles are white and male.
There’s a Reddit thread on the event:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ElantraN/comments/xedav2/update_loud_exhaust_and_smog_citation/
From the driver:
Update on the citation I got awhile ago, I took the car in for the state ref inspection and it passed smog but failed exhaust.
It was reading at a max of 102 db and an average of 98 db. The state ref inspector really tried to make it pass knowing that the car is stock and tried several readings from different angles but the pop from the exhaust would spike the db reading by ~3 db and exceed the 95 db passing limit.
After the inspection, I took the car to the dealer and they wrote up the confirmation letter that the car is stock. Aside from providing me the letter, they weren’t able to help in any way. They suggested that I could get a muffler silencer temporarily to pass the inspection. Seems that I’ll be having to take this to court, I’ll update everyone when that happens.
In case you haven’t seen the video already: https://youtu.be/_45rMWR4bcE
Edit: The inspection was done in sport mode. At least for the DCT model, there are still very slight pops and this is what caused me to fail the test. I never mentioned N mode to him and when he asked what the loudest mode is, I said sport. He put the car in sport after I showed him how, and he revved the car himself and wouldn’t let me touch it during inspection.
As of now I’m waiting for Hyundai corporate to get back to me. Until then, I can’t even get the car inspected again because I need to show proof that work was done to the car and that it is now “fixed”.
Sounds like he’s screwed, unless he can get Hyundai corporate to come through. And that’s even though the driver lied to the inspector about the loudest mode. The funny part is that he’d have been fine had he just not used the mode on public streets–the police would have been none the wiser. But I guess the whole point is to be a piece of shit in public.
I definitely have a lower opinion of Hyundai now for providing this “feature.”
I meant the outdoor automobile exhibitions that became popular in California, among other places, and often feature stunt driving:
But it is true that there are the odd cars just driving around normal streets that seem to be intentionally loud, apparently not just in cities according to what you report. The sad part is when you suspect that the car in question is obviously not really a high-performance hot rod and the driver literally just wants to make noise for some reason (am I supposed to be impressed?)
ETA there are also music-blasting cars!
Every car in California eventually needs to pass smog inspection before its registration can be renewed. What then? Take it out of state and sell it?
Goddamn, I hate that term ‘Sideshow’.
I think some people actually like noise. Makes no sense to me; but there are a lot of things that some people like that don’t make sense to me. And I strongly suspect that I don’t make sense to a number of people.
However: the problem with liking noise is if you insist on inflicting it on others. Just like the problem with liking to get drunk occasionally is if you insist on driving, or if being drunk makes you want to beat people up who don’t volunteer.
That would come, for me, under my exemption for racetracks with permits for the noise level produced. – I was thinking of one about five miles from me which is loud enough at that distance that visitors not used to it who are here on summer weekends ask me, if I don’t warn them, ‘what on earth is that noise?’ The racetrack was here before I was, though; it’s only on weekend evenings; and I doubt it’s doing actual damage to the hearing of anyone who isn’t at the racetrack or in the handful of houses closest to it. I just hope the people in those houses like car racing. It must predate at least most of them, though; it’s been a car racetrack for over sixty years now. I don’t think anybody’s being a jerk for racing there; or for taking part in the non-racing things such as demolition derbies. (There’s another thing that some people like that makes no sense to me – )
I know a track like that, just north of Burlington, WA. But that isn’t the exhibitions he’s talking about. These assholes will block on-ramps, close lanes and just take over a section of public road.
Ah. I thought he meant exhibitions at a racetrack-type facility, or on private land with the owner and probably neighbors in favor.
Thanks for info.
You get iffy law enforcement response to them because 1) they scatter like cockroaches, 2) high-speed chases are against local policy, and 3) they tend to be rather mono-racial. Cracking down on them hard would raise civil rights activists from their beds in Righteous Fury.