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My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

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Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#151

I drove an i3 (Tiny sporty electric BMW) for a while, and it really changed how I see this kind of thing. The noise your car makes .. is wasted energy. You are blaring and bragging about your inefficiencies. That tiny i3 will out-accelerate you at every light, and you will be making a ton of noise, while it is nearly silent. Car people seem to have got 'louder' and 'stronger' correlated in their heads, but they are N…

I have an i3 and a 2020 M2 Competition with a 6 speed manual. I assure you the i3 is not faster, and attempting to describe either one as a "better car" is ridiculous because the overlap in their goals and design ethos is two completely separate circles on a Venn diagram, with a little overlap that says "has four wheels". Both excellent cars, neither a substitute for the other whatsoever.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#152

I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive . I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road,…

I have loud subwoofers in my car, but they're for my enjoyment. The fact that others might hear them is an unfortunate reality of physics. I try to be considerate in not blasting it in residential areas, late at night, etc., but bass is bass - it travels.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#153
post #90

I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive . I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road,…

> So it is about subjecting OTHER people to his car. Having not read the article yet, this is an assumption. He could himself enjoy the kick/boom of a subwoofer (I know I do, it makes music so much better) or the sound of his own exhaust (I never have personally cared about this)

I'm skeptical.

One thing I learned early on was that I could crank a car stereo up to levels that were uncomfortable, and rock the car with a pair of nice 12 inch subs ... and outside the car it was pretty weak. Audible, perhaps, but not for very far and nothing you'd really feel. Even with the windows down, it's surprising how loud it can be inside and still not be all that noteworthy on the outside.

The guys that have radios loud enough to annoy bystanders are deep into hearing damage territory. The ones with subwoofers you can feel in the next lane over aren't running 12s, they have much bigger speakers than that, way, way past the point of where you are doing it for your own kick.

It's very intentional, about the effect outside the vehicle, not the quality of the music inside.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#154
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only socially appropriate ways to inconvenience other people are to build dark patterns into your app to juice subscriptions, dump VC-funded detritus on the street and call it a startup, or take their life’s work and create an algorithm to regurgitate it back to them without paying them for it. Making your car louder? That’s just rude and inconsiderate.

Someone putting performance exhaust on their cool car isn't likely to disturb me in my home. You know what is? The doings of obnoxious adtech people.

> Someone putting performance exhaust on their cool car isn't likely to disturb me in my home.

We are not all so lucky. I live one door down from an avenue that does sometimes get these kinds of vehicles and it 100% disturbs me in my home.

I understand that living in a society means that sometimes people will do things that inconvenience me. I am much more understanding of that when the inconvenience provides some clear benefit to the other person in return.

But in this case, annoying strangers is the point. When you're in the car, you aren't hearing the 100+dB exhaust. It's not a necessary path to optimizing the car's performance. It's just being an asshole to demonstrate to the world that they are powerless to stop you from being an asshole.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A GR Corolla goes 0-60 in 4.9 - 5.4sec. My unexotic stock electric does 0-60 in around 4.8sec, +/-. So the same performance that requires a stupid amount of wasted energy as heat and noise can be had from stock electric, with a couple hundred ms leftover. Do you care about performance, or do you just want to just fart out a bunch of noise? I get traditional car culture, but electrics embody the "money talks, wealth w…

this car is about handling in the twisties, not on straigh line. if you care about performance, you should know that its not only momentary performance what matters, but sustaining it and on repeated occasions. this car is made to be driven hard in a circuit or mountain roads. a electric car overheats its battery and its brakes due to their weight. the thing most close to electric sport car must be the ionic 5n. the…

This is very funny when talking about the GR Corolla specifically because it is notorious for overheating its AWD system after more than a handful of laps of a racetrack.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article literally brags about how loud the car is (and makes it sound likr it was modified to be louder?) so it seems like a reasonable point to take issue with. Fortunately or unfortunately, driving a car is a public activity and even as a hobby, other people are going to be exposed to it in a way that you just don't get from, say, building model boats out of toothpicks. I'm a big fan of people having hobbies an…

The comments I've replied to in this subthread have nothing to do with the aftermarket exhaust issue. It's just people who've never driven a real sports car (at any price point) posting numbers from the Tesla spec sheets.

You're absolutely wrong on both points in my case.

I've driven many "real sports cars", and I'm not not just "posting numbers from the Tesla spec sheets", my Model Y is my daily driver.

Ironically, you're the one "projecting".

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even automobiles. The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. The more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are. Or maybe it's an attention thing. Like a dog chewing your new shoes for attention, these people feel insecure when they aren't the center of attention, and making everyone around you mad and annoyed is still better than no atten…

> The entire concept of American masculinity is about inflicting yourself on as many other people as you can. Haha, what? You're describing a mindset and behavior that is indeed more prevalent than it should be or used to be, but it's got nothing to do with the "concept of American masculinity"

Maybe I'm just oversensitized today, but this is the third thread I've seen in the past hour where someone brings up gender in a conversation for no good reason. As if there aren't women who are inconsiderate assholes, nor men who are kind and compassionate.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, the stock Corolla GR can pull right around .95 G, just like the Model Y Performance...

Who cares? Static skidpad performance has very little to do with how engaging a car is to drive, and engagement is what somebody buying a GRC (or a GR86, or a Miata, etc.) is looking for.

One is an objective measurement, the other is a completely subjective judgement.

As they say, there's no accounting for taste...

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of American car/motorcycle culture seems to be about that nowadays. And it's not limited to the Japanese mod scene, either. Loud exhausts everywhere - pickups, domestic V6/V8's, motorcycles. Super-bright headlights/aux lights improperly mounted or operated, blinding you at night. Stereos you can almost feel before you hear them. All these guys (and let's face it, it's 90% guys doing the irritating stuff) are…

Don't forget the pickups "rolling coal".

Anecdotally, this seems to be going out of style, I have not seen anyone legitimately roll coal in several years. Could just be my area, of course, but we did have some coal rollers in the past.

Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded

#160

I love cars and driving them. But the modded Corolla/Civic/Accord/Camry (why) people have always driven me crazy because their mods often seem directed to inflicting their cars on everyone else, with loud exhaust, subwoofers, and (subjectively) garish cosmetics, rather than things that make it actually good to drive . I recognize this is judgmental and it's unhealthy to always be annoyed at these people on the road,…

Nothing judgemental or unhealthy about it. It's perfectly normal to be annoyed by such nuisances. The existence of these people is one of many factors that make driving literal hell on earth.
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