Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it's fun to mod the car and you get to drive around in an art project. My dad did basically the same thing during the 1950's and 60's hot rod culture. This is more or less what his car looked like: https://www.hotrod.com/features/1932-ford-roadster-the-golde... He never had a lot of money to spend on it but he did have access to car parts and was a gifted mechanic. One of my favorite memories was going out for a…
The author here didn’t even recount doing any work on his car or demonstrate any real knowledge of basic mechanics. Just talks about the high-end shops that did the work. He did a great job painting himself as completely self-absorbed and lacking in personality that he’s making up with consooming. Down to the whining and performative identitarian victimization. Like if you just enjoy cars and love your Vietnamese-Ame…
My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
211–220 of 456 posts
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Subwoofers are really fun though.
There are other people around you who probably don't think they're fun. Hot tip: the other people you see out and about are real, thinking humans just like you who have their own thoughts and emotions and world views. You should consider how your actions impact others.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#213I 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 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…
Motorcycles on the other hand, especially cruisers, are a simple straight-pipe mod away from "totally obnoxious." And the average motorcycle is going to be louder than the average car.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your "unexotic stock electric" is boring as shit to drive and corners like a boat. Stomping on the throttle and going very fast in a straight line is a big marketing point for modern EVs with an excess of power (and usually weight), but there's a reason the concept of a "driver's car" exists, and if you think it's just about making noise then you really, really, really don't understand why people buy them.
I also have an EV, probably the same one as the grandparent...a Tesla Model Y Dual Motor Long Range. It's rated at 0-60 in 4.8s. It also has good handling, with very little body lean through curves, and a lateral G force of around .85 G. If I switched to the same tires as the Performance version, that would increase to .95 G. That is better than many legacy sports cars. Those who love engine noise are the modern equi…
And people who brag about the performance specs of a car whose main selling point is that it requires no skill or attention to drive are missing the point entirely.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of the mods make the car worse in everyday environments, outside of a pristine track. After I got into my friend's modded-out car, we had to slow to walking speeds to exit the parking lot because it would bottom out on the curb cut. The same happens with speed bumps. Large rims get damaged on potholes that a normal tire and rim combo would just shrug off. Add a few years to your life and you don't want to crawl…
Similar with lifted trucks. Lifts are bad for driveshafts, suspension, tires, etc
Probably the primary reason why vehicles like Jeeps get a bad reputation - they're incredibly commonly modded, and incredibly horribly/improperly modded, and the vehicle gets the blame when the mods fail, rather than the horrible things the owner did to them.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope that becomes more common so long as privacy is respected. Fortunately my neighborhood is fairly quiet. I don't understand either, but I don't have a problem with people doing what they want. If municipalities can regulate speed limits for safety and other reasons they should be able to. So if you want to be loud live out in the country where there is space.
Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay. Ive been pulled over multiple times with brand new stock exhaust on a stock vehicle cruising at 55 because the body looked old and rusted and the cops were looking for any plausable excuse. With a real excuse they could throw tickets at you when they get frusterated with lack of other possible…
Yes and no. Rich places that can trivially afford to over-staff their PD's compared to the amount of "real crime" to go around are some of the worst when it comes to baseless fishing.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some exhausts can sound cool but at someone that lives near a road I don’t think people should subject other people to loud exhausts. Just because someone installed a subwoofer (depending on how the audio was before) doesn’t necessarily mean they are blasting it so loud it is bothering other people. Some cars have pretty horrible stock sound
I wish the car modders would adopt things like Active Sound Design (ASD) that some car manufactures are using to pipe vroom-vroom noises through the car's speaker system. It seems like the perfect compromise. The driver wants to hear his car's loud vroomvroom, and everyone else -doesn't- have to hear it.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#218Earlier 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"
The USA population in general has swung really, REALLY far into the "I'm going to grief others, and you can't tell me what to do!" attitude. It's much worse now than probably any time in my life. So many people out there just wake up every day looking for ways to inflict themselves on the public, act loud, aggressive and tough, and in general be "antisocial and proud of it."
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#219I 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 don't mind cosmetics, but noise is something some places fortunately started regulating and I hope it becomes more common: https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/rotterdam-deploys-first-noise-... I'm hearing someone gunning it through a neighboring road as I type this comment and I will be hearing such noise all night, because some people just can't help but make noise. The other day I even saw a guy in a car with a modifie…
Smoking is the atmospheric equivalent of peeing in the pool; noise pollution is something between that and opting everyone into your dumb M80 party. It’s antisocial, it causes health problems on top of discomfort, and it should stop.
Re: My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is also, believe it or not, possible to own a moderately loud car (even with a modded exhaust) Not legally in many places. California limits exhaust levels to 95 dbA or less, and I'm betting that OP's mods violate that given that "ATAK exhaust systems produce the highest dB (decibel) levels in the Borla line" [0]. Washington state prohibits modifying exhaust "in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise…
If people want to roast this guy for installing annoying aftermarket noisemakers then I will not try to stop them. I mean to address the (plenty of) more generic comments like this one: --- 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 co…