Loud car exhausts (and a general rant about boy racers).

[screenman]

Driving a Passat as I do the headlights are about as much use as two candles for the roads around here, perfect for town work though.

 

[Drago]

That'll be a film of soot from the exhaust dimming the lights.

 

[MontyVeda]

Whatever happened to the good old days... fluffy dice, personalised sunstrip, far too many fog lights, a white square painted on the doors and a Castrol sticker on the boot and maybe, maybe a full harness seatbelt and bucket seat for the driver ...proper boy racers!

 

[gbb]

Trouble is, I was that nobber with the loud exhaust back in 1976
You soon grow out of it . I sometimes look at lads and think...nobber, then i remember

 

[screenman]

As a 17 year old my first and second car legally on the road were Mk11 Jags, both had broken flexi pipes about 3 foot from the manifold. I did ride a bike as well so that cancels it out. That was in 1973, I got married at 18 and spent a year without a car, take not all you woung single guys.

 

[subaqua]

Don't get me started on lights!
You see all combinations - from no lights to Christmas trees. My pet hate is the sidelights with front fogs combo.. WTF? If it's dark use dipped headlights you nobber.
As for daytime running lights as required on newer cars, why didn't they hardwire BACK lights to come on as well? Now you get a lot of cars running about at night with front lights on, but drivers oblivious to the fact that they have no lights to the rear.

Apply your brains before turning the key you thick motons!

should have bought a decent car then. Her Volvo V40 has the rears on at same time as the DRL , and when the light level changes to dark enough the DRLs switch off and the dipped beams come on. same time as the dash changes colour too.

just leave it in Auto and let it do its own thing

 

[Brandane]

should have bought a decent car then.

I did! Mine is a 2006 Toyota, well before all this DRL stuff came in. I have a switch that I need to turn when lighting conditions require, and another switch I have to operate if my windscreen wipers are needed; such a hassle . The good thing about DRL's is that it stops people driving around in the dark/limited visibility with pointless sidelights on .

 

[vernon]

Trouble is, with dipped headlights coming towards you, you can't see anything else. And in the rain the dipped headlights reflect off the tarmac and blind you. Perhaps if those using dipped headlights were to turn them off they might drive a little slower and actually look where they are going.

Drivers are perfectly entitled to use dipped headlights. The problem might be yours, some vision defects create glare, and not their headlights.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

As for daytime running lights as required on newer cars, why didn't they hardwire BACK lights to come on as well? Now you get a lot of cars running about at night with front lights on, but drivers oblivious to the fact that they have no lights to the rear.

it's the same around here, plus there's the other problem

Cars which have (presumably) permanently illuminated instrumentation, so for some reason, they presume that if they're on, all lights are on, but they're going around with no vehicular lights on at all

Last week, I saw 2, they passed me, & got caught up in traffic, so in both cases I knocked on drivers window, & pointed it out
"I didn't know" was the answer in both cases
My responding thoughts (but unspoken) were;
How come you didn't realise that the car in front of you didn't have its backend lit up by your headlights??, aren't you paying any attention to the road, or your surroundings??



As for the initial noise issues, that opened the thread, we have an issue at times, as do other areas countrywide, with motorbikes (I'll use the description loosely, as they're powered 2-wheelers, even if they look like they've escaped from a skip) that have bugger all exhaust, doubtless with unlicenced/uninsured riders
There was a regular, who loved to goad the Police, & would often ride like an idiot down the main road, which around here has a large industrial estate & a motorway junctions, so lots of trucks '24/7'
I saw this kid a few months ago, trying to use one of his regular routes, through the gates into a local Cemetary
Rather fortunately, he misjudged it, or maybe the gate had swung slightly closed, & he clipped the gate, smacked into the stone gate-pillar & went down
The screams were even louder than his heap of scraps non-existant exhaust pipe......................................


Conversely, there was a Vauxhall VXR8 locally too (now sold & gone elsewhere), that had the 6.0litre (Corvette) engine in it
Now that was an exhaust note, that sounded g-o-o-d

 

[mybike]

Drivers are perfectly entitled to use dipped headlights. The problem might be yours, some vision defects create glare, and not theirs.

Actually I also like seeing what is behind the car coming toward me.

 

[ufkacbln]

We had a boy racer who lived across form us and used to spend lots of time revving his engine

One Sunday afternoon he was with half a dozen friends including a couple of young ladies

Grabbed toolkit and went across

Introduced myself and asked if he wanted me to look at his timing.....

Blank look in return

Then explained that if he was having to rev all the time to keep the engine running then the idling must be badly out of tune, and it was only a two minute job to fix it, I could aslo give him advice on his brakes which seemed to be an issue from the fact they seemed to be locking all the time

He tried explaining that there was no problem, but the two girls were giggling away... making him look silly

After 10 minutes, I left him, but he stopped revving and started braking properly in the street



Funniest thing was on the commute home a week later he lost the back of the car on a simple roundabout as he tried to accelerate off, ending up sideways on the roundabout, with the following car inches away... straight in front of me and on the GoPro

Dropped the video into the Police who had words then went over his car with a fine tooth comb issuing a defect rectification order removing the tints, the number plates, and a few other adaptations.

 

[mustang1]

That would be impossible on my car. There is no key to turn!

Haha that's dumb. How do you start the car!??

Actually one of my cars have a two factor authentication. They will only start if they are hooked up to Bluetooth on my phone and I have to enter a code to start the car (in case the phone is still in the house you see).

Itd be cool when finger or palm print windows become the norm...

Typo, forgot the smiley

 

[mustang1]

Whatever happened to the good old days... fluffy dice, personalised sunstrip, far too many fog lights, a white square painted on the doors and a Castrol sticker on the boot and maybe, maybe a full harness seatbelt and bucket seat for the driver ...proper boy racers!

Remember those "ON A MISSION" signs at the top of the windscreen? Ugh.

 

[vernon]

Actually I also like seeing what is behind the car coming toward me.

Still a vision defect problem and not a dipped headlight problem unless the headlights are out of adjustment.

If it's every car then it's your vision that needs to be checked. If it's just the odd car then it's their lights that need to be checked.

 

[gavroche]

Haha that's dumb. How do you start the car!??


Typo, forgot the smiley

Just press the clutch and a button. Ignition keys are becoming a thing of the past now.