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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

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Europe, fat American-style SUVs are still somewhat rare, especially outside cities (!). People still can't corner worth shit in their "regular" sedans. And I say this as a pretty chill motorbike rider. I've lost count of the number of Golf GTIs and similar behind which I have to wait around when riding on roads that aren't perfectly straight. And these cars should have better cornering ability than my fat bik…

Sometimes I wonder whether going excessively slow around corners is a symptom of people pushing their steering wheel from the side opposite the direction of the curve instead of pulling it from the same side into the curve. Just a hunch, but doing the latter usually feels like I have more control.

I don't know about that. But what I usually observe is that many people tend to veer off in the next lane in the direction of the turn (even if it's a lane for traffic going the opposite way!) if there is one. But if there isn't (right turn, they're in the rightmost lane), they'll tend to leave quite a lot of space between the car and the shoulder.

So I'd say these people have a hard time figuring out the space on the road their car takes. I can only imagine this worsens with larger cars and less visibility.

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

#402

Earlier 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…

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

#403

Modding a car to be louder is antisocial behavior and should be illegal.

It already is illegal in some places, but there's a lot of legal antisocial behavior that we let go but that doesn't get talked about as much - like watching videos in public transport on the loudspeaker, or advertising in general.

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

#404
post #14

Love my Model Y. Looks boring, tons of stuff can be packed and still comparable acceleration to not that old BMW M3. And no smell and no noise. Fantastic car.

Performance is not the issue, electric cars are like driving a fridge, it doesn’t matter how fast it goes.

"Comparable acceleration" is basically irrelevant to me, that's a number, numbers don't matter, I want quality of experience not arbitrary quantities.

If you’re not a proper petrolhead you won’t get it and that’s fine, most people aren’t and a car is just a tool for them.

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

#405
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's meant for spirited driving. If it wasn't so expensive it'd be an amazing car for tooling around on gravel roads with some skidplates. Electric won't take you out to the boonies, you can't bring more juice with you and ultimately an electric package that will consistently produce 300hp while weighing 3200lbs does not exist. As far as Land Cruisers's I feel that the externalities of those and other neo-vintage box…

Have you driven a Land Cruiser? They’re substantial better than the average pickup truck on most of the issues you listed. For example, the current F-150 crew cab which is the most popular vehicle in the US is 3 ft longer and has a taller hood. So it’s a little weird to single out a niche SUV as the worst thing on the road. Modern Land Cruisers handle pretty well, while the old ones with live front axle are harder to…

If you're talking about the US Landcruiser it's actually what we know as a Prado over here in Australia. My dream midlife crisis vehicle is a 2025 Landcruiser 79. Mostly for towing capacity and being able to access more offroad areas of Australia, but admittedly a lot of the appeal is just how awesome they look when decked out for "adventuring".

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

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not "just noise" when its preventing people from actually sleeping. I don't think you'd like it if people played deafeningly loud noises outside your bedroom window at all hours of the night every night forever.

I live just uphill of a state highway junction so I get to hear everything accelerating leaving that intersection. It's really not bad. You don't even notice it after awhile unless it's something that sounds funny like a semi trailer with an out of round tire or like a cluster of motorcyles or a mazda rotary or a nat-gas powered heavy truck.

What you mean is "it's really not bad for me".

Noise pollution is horrible. It is jarring and causes stress (health issues), and poor sleep (health issues).

This isn't just a vague immaterial thing, this is a genuine negative impact on people's health and by extension life expectation. If people could "just ignore it", obviously they would, right? Some of us can't. Luckily I moved away from most noise and live in a quiet area now, but nothing is stopping some arsehole with a modified exhaust driving down my road every night. It could start happening at any point. At which point, I'd want laws to stop it happening.

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

#408

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,…

Have you considered people can enjoy different things than you? I personally enjoy a nice exhaust tone and I like subwoofers as well. And I don't like them just because they might piss off somebody like yourself, it's for my own enjoyment. Not all exhausts and subwoofers are created equal. Most modern cars with 'premium' sound systems like Bose, JBL, etc. have subwoofers, but they're usually small and don't require a…

> Have you considered people can enjoy different things than you?

Midnight to 3 am driving around and around in circles in a residential area with a modified exhaust. Stopping occasionally to restart the car to play the programmed "startup growl".

Who wouldn't enjoy such a thing?

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

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Probably more likely to get harassed in the country for it because the cops gotta fish harder for their extortion money/pay. 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.

There is certainly not a rich place, it is dirt poor. Which is why the people make easy targets, they don't have money to throw around for lawyers.

Unfortunately certain choices make you fit a certain profile.

Case in point: police in my region started cracking down on street racing. Original intention was to deal the obvious danger and noise pollution, but it so happened that after each round of checks they would find at least one DUI, suspended license or even a case of drug possession. Naturally they continued, as street racing is somewhat difficult to prove, but the other mentioned offences are much less ambiguous.

Unsurprisingly people who disregard the law don't just settle on a narrow range of offences.

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

#410
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: I know my car can brake and turn much harder than I do (it's not a sports car by any mean, but that's beyond the point). I'd rather not change my tires and brake pads all the time though, and keep some margin for whatever unexpected stuff is hiding behind the corner. Also I don't like having to stop because everyone in the car got motion sickness.

Every car can brake, turn and accelerate much harder than any of us will even think to do especially turning and braking. But you pinpointed why we must not attempt to reach for the limit, not for us but for the others. And anyway a normal car won't lay long if driven like a racing car. Every single component is not designed for that. The usual computer analogy /s You don't run a LLM on a Core Duo 2, but of course ht…

Race cars component are designed for higher loads, but they aren't designed to last either. Running cost per mileage of race cars is super high actually because of all the consumables to be replaced and stuff that needs to be serviced on a regular basis.
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