Car noise has upset someone

Huomenna

Just about to leave for work so will reply to any posts later. Also not sure if this is the right place to post, but I don't know where else would be better.

Anyway a bit of background - my boyfriend owns a classic mini with a 1380 engine in it which is a bit on the loud side. He has a job that is shift work (starts at 6am one week and 2.30pm the next) and as such he leaves in the car about 5.30am. He tries to keep it as quiet as possible (doesn't rev it up) but inevitably there is some noise.

This morning there was an anonymous note through the front door saying 'Thank u 4 my wake up call each morning' Well I'm sorry but there isn't much we can do about it! I don't know who it is who wrote it or I would go and talk to them about it.

What would you do? Try and find out who it is? Post a generic apology letter outlining the situation on our front door?

I'm keeping the note incase the car gets vandalised so I can go to the police.

Strider590

1) Keep the note in a sealed plastic bag, don't handle it too much.

2) Start the car the next morning and make as much noise as possible, just to show that "normally" your not making a lot of noise.

Hopefully the anonymous note writer will come out and speak to you.

The problem with loud cars is that people automatically assume your doing it deliberately OR driving too fast!

I have a Westfield kitcar, it's f**king loud, it's coughs and pops from the carbs when it's cold and spits flames when really hot. I once got a load of verbal abuse from a guy walking his dog, I was doing 30 in a 30 zone and he's shouting "SLOW DOWN YOU IDIOT!!!!!".... So I stopped and pointed out I wasn't speeding and that noise does not equate to speed, he wouldn't listen (arrogant old tw4t), so I got back in my car I opened up the throttle at the road side and showed him how loud it really was.... He walked off looking rather red faced.

thescouselander

I would have a look at the car and see if anything can be done to reduce the noise. Is the exhaust in good condition? Another source of noise on those engines is the join between the exhaust manifold and down pipe - its a rubbish design and can leak causing excessive noise.

auroan

Classic mini's are not loud. I'd guess your boyfriend has a non oem exhaust on it. I've had a couple of classic mini's and my last was a cooper (same engine as (OP) mentions), and that is/was quieter than my A4 in the morning.

Other than that, find out who sent the note and give them a pair of ear plugs.

princeofpounds

I can understand how annoying this would be. Whilst you are probably trying to minimise the situation in a limited way, imagine how you would feel if someone bought a really noisy bike and started it up outside your window every day at 4am (which is roughly the equivalent of what your bloke is doing to them). Having sleep interrupted every weeknight can ruin somebody's health very easily, although they cannot except the place to be a monastery.

Question is, how to mitigate the stuation? I agree you should be getting the exhaust system looked at - if it is abnormally noisy there will be a reason for this. You may also wish to consider parking at different points along the road to at least give a couple of 'rest days' to your near neighbours. Beyond that, I agree it is tough.

dave82_2

Perhaps they are actually happy that you give them a wake up call and they don't sleep in. All joking aside I hate what the world has become where people feel they have to leave an anonoymous note rather than having a chat with their neighbours!

Limey

If you want to reduce the noise made by the mini you can purchase baffle inserts for the tail pipe, they're used a lot for track days to get the db down to the local limits.

eg: http://www.whitedogbikes.com/item--Universal-Removable-Exhaust-Baffle--Removeable_Exhaust_Baffle.html

I know it's for a bike but mini's have weeny tail pipes.

They can easily be removed whenever you go for an exhaust appreciation tunnel tour.

Gordon_Hose

Make loud, disruptive noise outside of the hours of 11pm and 7am and you could end up with a call from the council. And quite rightly too.

If someone was waking me up at 6am every morning with exhaust noise I'd be proper annoyed. Classic car or not. Either get an exhaust with a decent silencer or push it down the bottom of the road.

leosayer

If it was me, I'd find a way of making the car quieter if I had to leave early morning and I felt the car was unreasonably loud. I own a loud classic car myself, but would look for alternatives if I needed to use it at 6am every day.

Strider590

The other thing to do, is see which neighbour in the street is too tight to get decent double glazed windows.

My neighbour still has his original 1970's single glazing and there's a really old Subaru pickup in my street (assume someone bought it for the 4x4). It's really very loud. I can just about hear it from indoors, but outdoors it's LOUD. I can only imagine how loud it is to my neighbour!

bigjl

I would trade it in for a WRX with a jap import race exhaust, a loud dump valve, anti-lag and launch control.

Then when they moaned again say with a straight face, "but I got rid of the Mini".


Either that or suggest the spineless fool gets some double glazing.


I once had a halfwit come out of his house whilst I was treating a patient on scene, the engine on the V8 has to be run to prevent voltage issues when using the LP12 which also contains a Defib, and he reckoned it was making too much noise, this was at 21:00 hrs on a Saturday.

We ignored him and 20 minutes later when leaving the area, we obvioulsy had to use the siren to make sure there was no risk of an accident at the nearby busy road junction, which is entirelry legal as we are exempt from all noise regulations, which don't come into force till 23:00hrs anyway.

There is nothing worse than a winger or busybody, obviously nobody drove past this house with the sirens on too annoy him at any point.