My midlife crisis Corolla is fast, furious, and modded • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by caconym_ » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

mukbangpervert wrote: post #214

ElectronCharge wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

BEVs are great for non-enthusiasts whose goal is to be transported, but in their current incarnation they are _abysmal_ for people whose goal is _to drive_. 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.

100%. And to be clear I have no problem with BEVs or boring cars (there is some overlap). I own an extremely boring car, a CR-V hybrid, and it's a fantastic family hauler.

Thinking about it now, I suppose I didn't feel any need for my family hauler to have a hot 0-60 time. It will apparently do mid eighties on the skidpad, which really underlines how useless that metric is for describing real world cornering performance---it's unapologetically a boat.

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

#242

Post by yourapostasy » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:46 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #178

vitally3643 wrote: post #74

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 more insufferable you are, the more "manly" you are. That's just the usual compensation. Real heavy hitters are actually eerily quiet. They don't have anything to prove. It's the insecure who constantly engage in overt displays.

> Real heavy hitters are actually eerily quiet. They don't have anything to prove.

I've had the rare privilege to meet former SOF soldiers from a couple different nations, and working US cowboys, ranchers and farmers. While I know there are exceptions, in my personal anecdotal experience, to a man they were all quiet in the stoic sense. Nothing to prove, indeed.

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

#243

Post by tartoran » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:47 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #208

pipe2devnull wrote: post #202

Earlier 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.

The drivers of such cars want to draw attention to themselves. But I wish your solution would psychologically trick some of them at least. I sometimes catch myself holding my breath when one of these passes by and it is still very distressing even if I temporarily plug my years with my fingers.

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

#244

Post by throwway120385 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

slopinthebag wrote: post #147

arijun wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. You might be ok with loud engines splitting your eardrums and interrupting your sleep (or worse, your baby's sleep!), but society as a whole should not. Live and let live is good and all, but GP said it was about "inflicting their taste on others," so I would read that comment to mean the inconsiderate things we should not let live. Loud pipes, unsafe driving, and loud subwoofers--I'll shake my fist at…

No offense but this is kinda soft mate. A loud car doesn’t “split your eardrums”, it’s at worst a minor inconvenience, and as part of living in a diverse society we accept that we will be inconvenienced sometimes.

I wouldn't tolerate being "inconvenienced" by someone's broken sewer pipe I'd ask them to fix it.

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

#245

Post by cucumber3732842 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:49 PM UTC

arijun wrote: post #117

GenerWork wrote: post #33

You'd think that on a website that has the word "hacker" in its title, more people would be supportive of someone "hacking" their car, but I guess there's not a lot of car people here.

I am a car person. I have a fun-to-drive car that I have modified. This guy is getting all the hate he deserves. You don't get to be an assh*le and subject everyone to loud exhaust (I looked up his exhaust, it's 105 dB!), and be upset if people call you an assh*le. Anyone who defends him is essentially saying "it's ok to be an assh*le to everyone around you, as long as you get yours."

>This guy is getting all the hate he deserves.

Most of these comments are like the car equivalent of Karen the 3x Brady Campaign donor and some Fox News Fudd complaining about someone's gun. The broken clocks might be right this minute but they're still broken.

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

#246

Post by nradov » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:50 PM UTC

thegrim33 wrote: post #215

Esophagus4 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar with lifted trucks. Lifts are bad for driveshafts, suspension, tires, etc

Well there's right ways to do them, where you replace all the weak components with properly strengthened components, and geometry fixing components, and then there's the wrong way to do them, which is what 99% of people do, where they just do a cheap lift, without upgrading the other components, and eventually it fails. Probably the primary reason why vehicles like Jeeps get a bad reputation - they're incredibly comm…

Average quality and reliability ratings even on new, unmodified Jeeps are abysmal. I understand why some consumers like them for style and off-road capability but overall it's a trash brand.

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

#247

Post by dzonga » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

everyone specially male should get into either fast motorcycles, fast cars or fast boats.

fast motorcycles are kind a speed run about life - you learn that life is fragile quick. you become deliberate in making your decisions. better to ride when you're 23-25.

the other thing you learn quick - is life is never about fairness - but events.

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

#248

Post by ryan42 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:51 PM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #199

brokenodo wrote: post #11

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,…

At one point my wife's 1995 Civic had a busted exhaust pipe ahead of the muffler and was loud as hell. She reported receiving compliments from a few different Civic enthusiasts, much to her confusion. She just wanted me to fix the broken pipe. In our family we use the expression "farting Honda" (or Toyota, Subaru, whatever) when we hear these kinds of cars on the road.

fart cannons galore where I live, all hours of night and day. only option is to learn to live with em

my subaru is obnoxious in looks only, I want the exhaust to be normal, lol

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

#249

Post by missinglugnut » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:52 PM UTC

ourmandave wrote: post #89

4d4m wrote: post #77

I wish everyone complaining about other people’s choices here were forced to also post the make/model of the very boring cars the commenter drives. People complaining about others mods are doing it out of insecurity… do you point out loud clothes and styling choices of your coworkers too?

Loud clothes don't roll up in front of my house around midnight with a giant bass thumping for 10 minutes while they pick up or drop off whoever. Or sit next to me at a redlight drowning out my radio and vibrating my lungs.

The author doesn't do that either.

A 50 year old got excited about a Toyota Corolla and everyone is blaming him for the decline of fucking society.

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

#250

Post by unregistereddev » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

cgyvbunji wrote: post #64

unregistereddev wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wanted a Porsche my entire life. Doesn't have to be a track monster - actually, I'd prefer a lower-powered one. I want the handling of a Boxster, but a truly fast car is only fun on the track. When I was young, I couldn't justify the cost. Now that I'm a bit older I could afford it, but I can't spare the time for a hobby. With kids still in child seats, I had to stick with a practical car. When I'm 50? The kids…

I guess what I don't get is the part where you broadcast that it's a midlife crisis. If I bought a super expensive computer or house or vacation I wouldn't walk into the office and announce I've had a midlife crisis. Maybe I'm being too literal, lol

Right or wrong, there are a lot of people who treat guys differently based on what they drive. In a corporate office there is social pressure to drive something that fits your role. Can you ignore that pressure? Of course. Do what you want and own it. But that pressure is still there.

When you have a 2-seat sports car you can't be the one who drives when the team goes out to lunch. If your car looks more expensive than your coworkers' cars, they start to gossip about how you can afford it.

Declaring it a midlife crisis is an attempt to get ahead of that. They're saying that they didn't buy it to avoid driving the team to lunch. They're saying that it's a rare treat, not something they could easily afford. They're saying that this car isn't their personality, it's something they wanted to enjoy.

Is any of this necessary? No. But it might cut down on rumors, and that put their mind at ease.