Cold Start Daftness

[W124]

Quick question,

Does anybody know if the cold start theatrics from modern fast cars (M3/R type Jags/AMG/RS Audis etc) actually have any technical benefit in terms of warming the engine or Turbos/emissions gubbins. I know modern performance engines are wildly complex so maybe all the noise has some purpose. Surely it can't be just noise for the sake of it?

Neighbour has an M4. Lovely car but it's incredibly loud first thing in the morning. I've driven various performance Jags and Audis recently and they seem insanely loud on start up.

Just wondered if all the noise has a purpose other than theatrics.

[W124]

I don't really mind it. It just seems a bit sad. It's bit David Brent, if you know what I mean.

[W124]

I guess the question is how much of it is for show. Can the cats be got up to temperature without the racket? I delivered a F-Type R the other day - start up, especially cold, was just over the top. My neighbour's M4 is insanely loud when he starts it in the morning. He always looks pretty embarrassed about it. His choice of course, can have whatever car he likes - but there is no doubt that it does wake everybody up in the near vicinity.

[W124]

It's funny isn't it, how ones views on things change? I never really thought about it before. I've had some silly cars over the years. I can't help but think on a lot of the more modern stuff it's engineered in - to make it as loud as possible on cold start. It sounds like somebody playing a very loud, heavily compresed MP3 of 'fast car starting up' when this M4 kicks into life. On reflection, it's pretty sociopathic.

[W124]

It's really odd now that I think about it. Really odd.

[W124]

Tedious update.

Bloody M4 at 6.20am. That's the whole fking street awake then. I wouldn't mind if it was actually a decent sounding thing. It's horrid. I must be getting old.

[W124]

That's a good point. I actually spoke to my neighbour today - started a 'nice car' conversation with him (it is a nice car - for me, one of the few cars that actually suit recession white) and he confessed he hates the cold start theatrics and just hadn't thought of it when he took the car on. It would stop me considering an M4. But I think all that car's competitors would be just as bad.

That's what I like about Pistonheads - it's a broad church. Some love loud cars in the morning - others less so. Each, totally, to their own. I've had a bit of a strange change in my views about cars since I started delivering them. Because I might drive a Seat Mii in the morning and an RS6 in the afternoon, via a Jag and a Volvo, I've started to really enjoy cheaper, simpler cars. I have to be honest, I really think the current range of M's, RS's, AMG's Various R's are just not that much fun to drive. I recently drove up the A7 into Edinburgh in a Poverty spec Seat Toledo diesel and realised that I was getting a massive kick from driving it about as fast as it would go. The same journey back in an RS7 was just boring. And scary.

[W124]

It's too much for me. I had, not long ago, to drive a F-Type R from my old house in the middle of nowhere near Great Missensden, to Coventry. I knew that upon starting it (at 5.00am), it would wake up everybody within about a 300 yard radius. It did as well. And then the same for every small Hamlet on the Wendover road. Each to their own, but for me that's just too tttish.

[W124]

I reckon it's designed in to a large extent. Of course a car will idle high for a bit when cold - but this is just cock waving stuff I reckon. It's a bit sad.