Fake Engine Noise: The Socks In The Bra Of The Auto Industry
Drew Harwell writes in the WaPo:
Stomp on the gas in a new Ford Mustang or F-150 and you'll hear a meaty, throaty rumble -- the same style of roar that Americans have associated with auto power and performance for decades.It's a sham. The engine growl in some of America's best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing, boosted through special pipes or digitally faked altogether. And it's driving car enthusiasts insane.
Fake engine noise has become one of the auto industry's dirty little secrets, with automakers from BMW to Volkswagen turning to a sound-boosting bag of tricks. Without them, today's more fuel-efficient engines would sound far quieter and, automakers worry, seemingly less powerful, potentially pushing buyers away.
Softer-sounding engines are actually a positive symbol of just how far engines and gas economy have progressed. But automakers say they resort to artifice because they understand a key car-buyer paradox: Drivers want all the force and fuel savings of a newer, better engine -- but the classic sound of an old gas-guzzler.
Later in the piece, Harwell asks a question:
Does it matter if the sound is fake? A driver who didn't know the difference might enjoy the thrum and thunder of it nonetheless. Is taking the best part of an eight-cylinder rev and cloaking a better engine with it really, for carmakers, so wrong?
Well?
via Jay J. Hector
All this article did was make me want a BMW.
By the way I thought people knew this? It's a discussion I had with my salesman when I bought my (modified) mustang.
I kind of appreciate the noise. Prii are eerily quiet and the teenage boys living on my street don't hear it until I roll down my window and tell them to fucking move (in more polite terms).
Ppen at January 26, 2015 2:53 AM
Fucking right it matters. Real men ride motorcycles, where they get up close 'n personal with reality.
Lastango at January 26, 2015 3:18 AM
bah, this article too, is an utter crock of horse hockey....
Explosions are LOUD... and they have been figuring out how to make that sound go away for as long as there have been cars...
But it isn't efficiency that makes it go away... in the quest for quiet, it's easier/cheaper to add back fake sound, than to have a special exhaust system/sound pack JUST for people who want loud, and another one for everyone who wants quiet.
So the other problem is something that many people haven't messed with much, but when you put a turbo four or 6 that replaces the V-8, it sounds different even when loud. Different numbers of cylinders have a different beat to them, and personally I've never cared for the v-6 no matter what it's in. Add a turbo whine? Hoss, your truck sounds like it wasn't made for doing truck stuff.
Never mind that you freak out with every scratch on it. And woe betide he who gets mud on the carpet.
Real gearheads prolly won't sweat it, 'cuz they are the ones who will stick a magna-flow exhaust on it anyway, to get some of the sound back... but a turbo-6 will never sound like a v-8.
meh :dismissive:
SwissArmyD at January 26, 2015 6:24 AM
My penis performs quite adequately. I really don't need a
substitute or compensation. For those who do, fake engine noise is
truly pathetic. Why not go the more traditional route and install a
loud, booming audio system in your car?
The best car I've ridden in was way back: a convertible muscle car
with an engine that sounded like a sewing machine. It quietly,
without fuss, left most other cars behind in its dust.
Ron at January 26, 2015 6:31 AM
I don't think they bother for the cars I buy (Honda Civics and not the rice rocket model.)
MarkD at January 26, 2015 6:59 AM
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-manly-things-that-are-going-away-forever/
It's an interesting read, even if you disagree with some of 'em. I think the first one, #5, is a strong possibility. The others? Maybe #3, #2...
flbeachmom at January 26, 2015 7:00 AM
oops.... above link ^^^^^^^^^^ is NSFW!
flbeachmom at January 26, 2015 7:06 AM
The most impressive car I've seen at the dragstrip was a '66 Caddy convertible - that ran a 13.0-something at about 110. Quietly.
And if you've ever seen THIS car race, I promise you'll be amazed. It's silent. A turbodiesel. Silent. As in, "I can only hear the wind when it goes by, just thirty feet away" silent. You can hear its tires "graunch" when it leaves Turn 9 at Road Atlanta, silent.
Because noise is wasted energy. Physics should tell you that - as it should inform you that if there is a sound at all from a reciprocating engine, the most efficient exhaust note is a tone, with no sibilance.
Radwaste at January 26, 2015 7:15 AM
When I hear a 17-year-old rev a suped up engine around here, I actually say, "There goes 3 gallons right there." Now, my ex drove a muscle car in his youth and loved the sound of it. However, he was notoriously picky about the inside of the car being quiet as a mouse. I'm not sure what all that means except he was very hard to live with. I don't give a crap what it sounds like as long as it gets more than 30 per gallon.
gooseegg at January 26, 2015 8:55 AM
I read a study a while back that concluded loud beefy sounding cars turned women on, compared to quieter cars that did not.
Matt at January 26, 2015 9:16 AM
I posted to the women at answerology, asking what they think of guys with loud boom-box cars. I was surprised how many enjoy the thumping.
jefe at January 26, 2015 10:26 AM
The worst thing about fake engine noise: it isn't just noise from the actual engine, amplified. It's usually from a different kind of engine altogether. Hearing exhaust noise inside the car is one thing -- as Ron pointed out above, most well-built internal combustion engines sound rather like a sewing machine once you eliminate the exhaust noise. The real problem is that the noise is often from a different engine altogether. You're hearing V-8 rumble inside of a car with an inline-4 or an odd-fire V-6. It's the fake boobs of the auto industry. When the porn stars got started with fake boobs, the goal was for them to look like real boobs, only bigger. Not anymore. Now they look like nothing ever found on the chest of a real woman, anytime, anywhere. It's something that is very specific to the medium, and for reasons infathomable to me, it resonates with a certain segment of the audience. Why, I haven't the slightest.
But there's no doubt that the engine exhaust note is strongly associated with the automobile, and with performance cars in particular. I'm convinced to this day that one main reason that USAC banned the Lotus turbine cars from the Indy 500 was the fan complaints about how quiet they were.
Cousin Dave at January 26, 2015 11:48 AM
My penis performs quite adequately
I'm more than twice the national average, I could score riding Pee Wee Herman's bike.
lujlp at January 26, 2015 12:20 PM
Well if it's fake or not... love the roar my Tacoma makes when it fires up, and it has a great sound system. However, been really curious about the fully-electric Tesla, hoping I can test-drive one in the next decade.
Jess at January 26, 2015 12:48 PM
I used to shift whenever the engine hit e-flat.
Now, when one of these new quieter engines hits e-flat, it's about to explode.
Conan the Grammarian at January 26, 2015 12:52 PM
I like the roar of a big beefy engine. I go to NHRA races because I love top-fuel drag races and thunder in my chest when I'm at the track.
I also drive a V-8 Expedition, that came with a fancy tail pipe so you can hear me coming. I also get 14 mpg around town and I'm good with that.
If I could get myself into and out a Mustang 5.0 GT easily, I'd have one of those in the garage for weekends. Unfortunately, the hardware in my back doesn't like it when I crawl in and out of cars.
For the record...I don't have a penis.
sara at January 26, 2015 1:22 PM
A lot of Japanese girls have fake boobs that look natural. Well in porn. They implant the boob underneath the muscle, do no bigger than a C cup, do something with stem cells (I don't remember what), and then finally inject fat.
It's just an American thing to make them look like two grapefruits stuck on a washboard. My understanding is that it's the porn stars themselves who like the look and it doesn't affect their porn sales too much in either direction. It's also why they get that god-awful facial plastic surgery and puckered up asshole lip injections.
Ppen at January 26, 2015 1:52 PM
Extra noise may also help pedestrians avoid getting hit, especially in parking lots and where cars are backing up. Folks shouldn't be texting and walking, but they do.
clinky at January 26, 2015 6:30 PM
I don't care about them tuning the exhaust to sound a certain way...the previous owner did that on a car I own. It actually does a pretty good job of make that little 4 sound like a much bigger 8 at times. I think it is kind of silly.
I am not sure about adding noise.
I can see it soon:
Mechanic: no big deal sir. Your engine is fine. Just some dirt got on the tape...we clean the tape heads and popped in a new cassette and she sounds as good as the day you drove her off the lot.
The Former Banker at January 26, 2015 7:10 PM
"Extra noise may also help pedestrians avoid getting hit"
Prii have backup beepers. It's silly (what, is it a moving truck?). That is, until you are next to it when it first starts to move, and you realize you subconsciously estimate danger in proportion to noise - and it is dead silent when it first moves.
flbeachmom at January 27, 2015 9:29 AM
Jess, the Tesla is silent. It's an odd thing to process because if you stomp it it'll throw you back in your seat from the power, but you hear absolutely nothing.
I love the sound of a throaty V12 in a Ferrari. I can't stand that buzzing bee sound on most Hondas I encounter and it's a million times worse when the ricers slap on a fart can exhaust. That said, my car sounds different altogether. I have a rotary engine that makes a humming/whirring sound and the higher the RPM gets the higher the pitch and level of sound. It's a very harmonic sound.
BunnyGirl at January 28, 2015 3:02 PM
Gas hogs can be quiet. My first car was a 1964 Pontiac Bonneville, two tons of steel with something like a 360 c.i. V8. Tuned up by my Dad (who made less as a college professor than he once had as a mechanic), it had enough power to give you whiplash, but at low speed it was so quiet that I learned to stab the brakes just hard enough to squeal the tires when nearing pedestrians. (Except for that time I spotted a buddy ahead of me walking down the right side of the road - which is the wrong side, safety-wise. I eased the car up until his left hand brushed the fender, and boy did he jump...)
No cell phones back then, not even Walkman tape players, but even without electronic distractions, often enough the walkers just weren't paying attention.
I suspect that was also one reason kids in that era often put a playing card in their bicycle spokes. It saved a lot of shouting or squeezing the horn when you shared a sidewalk with pedestrians.
Now I'm driving a 4 cylinder VW TDI diesel. It's not silent, but it's fairly quiet, and it sounds nothing like a V8. I get 50mpg at freeway speeds, and lots more torque and power than the Jetta sedan needs. I just wish I could get that engine in a small American-made truck.
markm at January 30, 2015 11:30 AM
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