Classis Mini - annoyingly loud..,

[4rephill]

DoubleSix said:

Any of the following would have been better than the somewhat apathetic response I got..


- "oh really? Sorry about that, force of habit, I'll back off a bit"
- "sorry, yes it's a bit temperamental on start up but I should be getting it looked at in the next week or two if you can stick it out till then"
- "sorry, I had no idea"
- "sorry, it's causing a nuisance but I'm skint so can't sort it right now"
- "sorry"

Not sure if you picked up on a running theme in the above but it seems to be something that comes easier to some than others.

DoubleSix said:

...His response was to shrug and say "yeah, dodgy choke" no mention of getting it sorted and knowing how most people will just drive their cars until they stop working I didn't get the impression it was high on his 'to do' list....

"Not sure if you picked up on a running theme" but the guy doesn't really appear to give st about what you want!

DoubleSix said:

...A few more weeks of tolerance and then I'll review the situation.

And then what?

Talk to him again? - If his previous response was one of indifference, why would it suddenly change with a second approach?

Get the Police involved? - That might possibly help your current situation as they might slap a section 59 on the car and possibly even seize it.

Of course, as far as the owner is concerned you'd then be marked out as being a complete wker who deserves to have his car damaged at every opportunity!

You could try the PH favourite of hammering frozen sausages into his lawn but I suspect he's just not going to get the message!

DoubleSix said:

If I'm being totally honest with myself I think it's partly that I think the exhaust note itself is st.

I love the woofle of a high capacity engine, even run a performance exhaust on my own 6 cyl BMW, I'm not some bore who doesn't appreciate the sound of a good engine. Then again I'n considerate of others and keep the revs low in resi areas.

This noise just does nothing for me and vibrates our windows and letterbox etc in a way nothing else around here does.

I've got a friend who's married to guy who works at Jaguar (somewhere fairly high up in their hierarchy), and they had a top of the range F-type V8 convertible to run for a few weeks, and she said it was loud! - Embarrassingly loud! (Cue loads of:"It's the best noise on the road!" replies).

One day one of her neighbours came round to complain that the noise from the car passing by everyday was rattling her windows in the frames and causing her dogs to bark almost non-stop, and was there no way they could quieten it down a bit (Hubby probably had the sport button pressed from start up I suspect but My friend wasn't sure).

My friend apologised and was happy to tell her neighbour that the car was going back the next day and that the next car would be much quieter.

What this shows is that one persons "Great noise" (according to My friends husband and many others), can easily be another persons "annoying sound".

It's a tricky situation, especially as it involves a neighbour, I just hope for your sake that you can get it sorted without it escalating into something that turns nasty!

[DanSaff]

This sounds familiar.

I've had noisy cars in the past and will do again soon. My 2 immediate neighbors have given me loads of grief in the past with council etc and if I dared to start my car they would make comments over fence. Once was after a 6 week engine rebuild I started it for the first time and they started.

A kid moved in across the road with a skyline and the neighbours harassed him into getting rid of it.

The day I moved into the house me prick gave me a performance of how loud his stereo was whilst I was moving my stuff in. He must have felt quite confident until I started bringing the cossies to their new home I've owned a house for years at this point never had any problems with previous neighbours cue all the council letters and visits which never come to anything and always end well.

Fast forward a few years of anti social noise (music,dogs barking) drunk people and failed relationships

All of a sudden, Mr prick next door gets out his cafe' racer out of his shed and for the last year acts the cock in the garden with it warming it up outside the house and nobody says a word. Not to mention his other bike which the fking dhead can't work out how to work the alarm so if he does mange to turn it off it only beeps 5 times if he does set it off and have 1min of sirens going off.

Me, I don't care about the noise more about the double standards and the agro I've had.

And you sound like 1 off them. (Your probably not but I'm on a rant and this is pistonheads;) )

You have a noisy exhaust and probably somebody doesn't like it but you think it's ok. You probably start it up to go to work every morning and wake somebody up, but your moaning about somebody else.

If you object to his noise and complain what if he does the same about you?

[RobinOakapple]

I've never understood why some people think cars with loud exhausts sound so good, even on basically st engines like the BMC A series.

[Allan L]

RobinOakapple said:

I've never understood why some people think cars with loud exhausts sound so good, even on basically st engines like the BMC A series.

Quite so.
We were brought up on the idea that a quiet car was worth quite a few m.p.h. in a 30 limit, and treasure the memory of Stirling Moss being able to listen to the race commentry on the radio whilst winning the TT in Rob Walker's nicely quiet Ferrari - that's when he wasn't too near the very noisy Aston Martins!

[4rephill]

Allan L said:

RobinOakapple said:

I've never understood why some people think cars with loud exhausts sound so good, even on basically st engines like the BMC A series.

Quite so.
We were brought up on the idea that a quiet car was worth quite a few m.p.h. in a 30 limit, and treasure the memory of Stirling Moss being able to listen to the race commentry on the radio whilst winning the TT in Rob Walker's nicely quiet Ferrari - that's when he wasn't too near the very noisy Aston Martins!

On the whole, racing cars are loud, therefore loud cars are seen as being more "sporty" than their quiet counterparts, and the cheapest way to make a car sound "sporty" is to modify the exhaust system.

And before someone starts posting about the difference between a car just being loud, and a car making a good noise - That's all down to individual taste.

As for comparing Rob Walker's 250 SWB to the surrounding "noisy" Aston Martin's: I bet loads of people thought the Aston Martin's sounded glorious as they thundered round!

[iSore]

At my previous house, one of the local kids had some Seat stbox with a stupid exhaust that made the windows rattle. Do I confront the youth? No, there was a better solution, and it involved a clandestine 3am mission with a can of expanding foam and a potato. Basically you feed the extension nozzle as far down the pipe as you can and let fly. When it really starts to expand, whip the nozzle out and shove the potato into the tailpipe. Before you know it the foam is going into the other direction. That wkspeed exhaust box is now toast.

I had to laugh as the little st was trying to start it the following morning.


At the end of the day, a loud exhaust is anti social and os no different to some tt blowing a car horn unnecessarily.

[Mercky]

That was big of you. Why didn't you have a quite word first?

iSore said:

At my previous house, one of the local kids had some Seat stbox with a stupid exhaust that made the windows rattle. Do I confront the youth? No, there was a better solution, and it involved a clandestine 3am mission with a can of expanding foam and a potato. Basically you feed the extension nozzle as far down the pipe as you can and let fly. When it really starts to expand, whip the nozzle out and shove the potato into the tailpipe. Before you know it the foam is going into the other direction. That wkspeed exhaust box is now toast.

I had to laugh as the little st was trying to start it the following morning.


At the end of the day, a loud exhaust is anti social and os no different to some tt blowing a car horn unnecessarily.

[Desiato]

iSore said:

At my previous house, one of the local kids had some Seat stbox with a stupid exhaust that made the windows rattle. Do I confront the youth? No, there was a better solution, and it involved a clandestine 3am mission with a can of expanding foam and a potato. Basically you feed the extension nozzle as far down the pipe as you can and let fly. When it really starts to expand, whip the nozzle out and shove the potato into the tailpipe. Before you know it the foam is going into the other direction. That wkspeed exhaust box is now toast.

I had to laugh as the little st was trying to start it the following morning.


At the end of the day, a loud exhaust is anti social and os no different to some tt blowing a car horn unnecessarily.

So a noisy exhaust, which may or may not be completely road legal is not acceptable, but causing criminal damage to what was probably his pride and joy is?

No wonder this country is going to the dogs.

[RobinOakapple]

Desiato said:

iSore said:

At my previous house, one of the local kids had some Seat stbox with a stupid exhaust that made the windows rattle. Do I confront the youth? No, there was a better solution, and it involved a clandestine 3am mission with a can of expanding foam and a potato. Basically you feed the extension nozzle as far down the pipe as you can and let fly. When it really starts to expand, whip the nozzle out and shove the potato into the tailpipe. Before you know it the foam is going into the other direction. That wkspeed exhaust box is now toast.

I had to laugh as the little st was trying to start it the following morning.


At the end of the day, a loud exhaust is anti social and os no different to some tt blowing a car horn unnecessarily.

So a noisy exhaust, which may or may not be completely road legal is not acceptable, but causing criminal damage to what was probably his pride and joy is?

No wonder this country is going to the dogs.

When people are being anti-social it may not matter too much if what they are doing is legal or not. I approve of iSore's action in this case, especially as there was almost certainly no viable alternative.

[4rephill]

RobinOakapple said:

When people are being anti-social it may not matter too much if what they are doing is legal or not. I approve of iSore's action in this case.....

So you can see nothing wrong with committing criminal damage to someone else's car because there's something about it that they take offence to?

I take it then if someone didn't particularity like your pride and joy for any reason whatsoever, then you'd have no issue with them running their keys down your paintwork, smashing your windows, kicking the lights in, stabbing the tyres, gluing up the locks, setting fire to it, etc., etc.? - Or is it one rule for your car and another rule for everyone else's? (Bet I can guess the answer to that one!)

BTW: Just how is damaging other peoples property also not anti-social behaviour? - A classic case of double standards if ever there was one!

RobinOakapple said:

....especially as there was almost certainly no viable alternative

The (legal) viable alternative is to report the car to the Police and if they agree that the car is being used in an anti social manner then chances are it will get a section 59 slapped on it!

But of course, that's not in keeping with the PH-Heroes creed: "Two wrongs don't make a right? - Bks! I'm a hard-man PH Hero and I'm right every time, legal or not!"

[RobinOakapple]

4rephill said:

RobinOakapple said:

When people are being anti-social it may not matter too much if what they are doing is legal or not. I approve of iSore's action in this case.....

So you can see nothing wrong with committing criminal damage to someone else's car because there's something about it that they take offence to?

I take it then if someone didn't particularity like your pride and joy for any reason whatsoever, then you'd have no issue with them running their keys down your paintwork, smashing your windows, kicking the lights in, stabbing the tyres, gluing up the locks, setting fire to it, etc., etc.? - Or is it one rule for your car and another rule for everyone else's? (Bet I can guess the answer to that one!)

BTW: Just how is damaging other peoples property also not anti-social behaviour? - A classic case of double standards if ever there was one!

RobinOakapple said:

....especially as there was almost certainly no viable alternative

The (legal) viable alternative is to report the car to the Police and if they agree that the car is being used in an anti social manner then chances are it will get a section 59 slapped on it!

But of course, that's not in keeping with the PH-Heroes creed: "Two wrongs don't make a right? - Bks! I'm a hard-man PH Hero and I'm right every time, legal or not!"

What is it that makes me think you have a noisy car?

Anyway, no, you've taken what you think is my meaning and run off into some special place in your own mind. iSore's action was a carefully measured response to a specific situation. It's not about 'not liking' the car, it's about having his quiet enjoyment of his own home ruined by a selfish person who doesn't care how his actions are affecting the people around him. His action was targetted, very much a silver bullet, and was effective. It went straight to the root of the problem and cured it.

Any other course of action would have been a waste of time, and a lot of time at that, while all that time suffering the unreasonable and anti-social noise. See how even your own fanciful post has allowed for the ineffectiveness of your suggested action- "if they agree" and "chances are". So you already know what a waste of time it is.

[exitwound]

DoubleSix said:

If I'm being totally honest with myself I think it's partly that I think the exhaust note itself is st.

I love the woofle of a high capacity engine, even run a performance exhaust on my own 6 cyl BMW, I'm not some bore who doesn't appreciate the sound of a good engine. Then again I'n considerate of others and keep the revs low in resi areas.

This noise just does nothing for me and vibrates our windows and letterbox etc in a way nothing else around here does.

Easily fixed with a can of expanding foam, but not too much that its obviously coming back out the end of the pipe!

My neighbour did this to the some of local yobs when they were flying up and down the street. Those big shiny boxes aren't cheap, but it worked..

[Allan L]

For me the main point of having out of date cars to play with is their authenticity - and the Mini, even in its Cooper "S" manifestation, was properly silenced.

I think it may be typical of some of the folk hereabouts that they side with the anti-social noise-makers. The reaction to my post (above) which set out the case for a quiet car was to be expected, so why did I bother?

Racing cars were noisy, but noise was not of itself beneficial. When its designer put the V16 BRM on stub exhausts he took advantage of the fact that it was allowed to be noisy, but he didn't do it just to be noisy.

[exitwound]

Actually, this reminds me of my Dad who, after trying to fabricate his own silencer for his Morris Minor out of an old box and steel wool, was breathalysed on the main road near the house.

The Minor had stopped and my Dad knew that the silencer's steel wool had probably collapsed and was blocking the pipe. Solution? Stick the starting handle up the pipe and wind it around to catch the steel wool and pull it out.

Only problem was, two coppers in a Panda car pulled up as he did so, and it was a case of.. "..excuse me sir? Could you breath into this bag please?"

[iSore]

Desiato said:

So a noisy exhaust, which may or may not be completely road legal is not acceptable, but causing criminal damage to what was probably his pride and joy is?

No wonder this country is going to the dogs.

The reason I posted that was to get exactly that kind of reaction.


WE'RE AAAAALL DOOMED I TELL YE!

[iSore]

Mercky said:

That was big of you. Why didn't you have a quite word first?

Because this was far more amusing?

Quiet. I mean quite.

[Mercky]

exitwound said:

Actually, this reminds me of my Dad who, after trying to fabricate his own silencer for his Morris Minor out of an old box and steel wool, was breathalysed on the main road near the house.

The Minor had stopped and my Dad knew that the silencer's steel wool had probably collapsed and was blocking the pipe. Solution? Stick the starting handle up the pipe and wind it around to catch the steel wool and pull it out.

Only problem was, two coppers in a Panda car pulled up as he did so, and it was a case of.. "..excuse me sir? Could you breath into this bag please?"

Ha ha, I like that. I had the opposite experience when I was a young lad, I had had quite (not quiet)a few too many and was being followed by a police car for a mile or two when I stalled at a road end and started to panic when the car wouldn't restart due to a failing battery. The situation looked to get worse when the two coppers got out of their car and approached me, only to ask if I needed a push start which I gladly accepted

[exitwound]

There was five of us in a mates car one time also with a weak battery, when he stalled a traffic light, we all flung open the doors to get out and push, but in the same instant, the guy behind beeped his horn as he obviously though the driver in front was slow to react to the green light.

The look on the poor guy's face was priceless as he watched the four of us jump out and approach the back of the car!