Rant about noise, skip if you wish

[altivo]

Background: On August 24 of last year I actually ordered a new vehicle, a Ford Maverick. In case you aren't exposed to vehicular media, that's a compact pick-up truck, not the muscle car that once was sold under the same name. My truck has yet to even be scheduled for production, so I've not even seen it. Ford is moving awfully slow at producing these, apparently in part because they got far more orders than anticipated, and most of the orders were for the hybrid power train that they didn't expect would be so popular. After all, it doesn't have as high a horsepower rating. (Come on, Ford, climate change is real and your customers are aware of it whether you are or not.)

Anyway, this has spread my e-mail around to any number of sources for auto and truck stuff, filling my mailbox with a lot of trash as well as some useful information.

I chose the smallest truck because it was 1) all I needed; 2) much more fuel-efficient, especially in the hybrid version; and 3) attractively priced. It helped that reviewers compared its driving characteristics favorably to my previous car, a Ford Escape, and that they described it as "smooth and quiet."

Now come several articles along the lines of this one:
https://carbuzz.com/news/new-dual-tip-exhaust-now-available-for-ford-maverick

Jeez, if people want a noisy, smelly truck, why don't they just buy one? Why are they buying one designed to be fuel-efficient and quiet and immediately modifying it to make offensive and irritating noise? There are thousands of new and used trucks available to make disgusting noise with. Most of them will also do "0 to 60" much faster than a hybrid Maverick does.

I guess this is why I'm an equine. Humans are irritatingly stupid.

Comments

[theradicalchild]

Yeah, I'm not fond of noisy vehicles myself.

[ranunculus]

I SO agree with you!

[altivo]

Twenty years ago our rural road was blessedly quiet most of the time. Except for an occasional passing tractor or grain truck, engine noises were non-existent. We could hear the Diesel horns from a freight track three miles away, and the steam whistle from the railroad museum at about the same distance. But birdsong and the wind were the common sounds at most times of day.

That's all changed now. A constant parade of trucks, many of them with exhaust modified to deliberately make it louder, and likewise passenger cars driven by self-possessed idiots, too fast and too loud, mar what was once peace and quiet. (Not to mention gunfire. We didn't used to have gun nuts for neighbors but they are all around us now seemingly.)

[altivo]

See reply above. I fear it's a lost battle. The county has no noise ordinances and is unlikely to pass them or enforce them. Some of the small towns do have them, but lack the staff and teeth needed to enforce. The traffic noise is continuous, even on a road from nowhere to nowhere as ours is. The guns frighten me, to be honest.

[theradicalchild]

Outside noise tends not to faze me (except when I'm at work near its exterior where my coworkers and I constantly hear vehicles revving), but the noise from my bickering parents tends to do so more. I try to rectify that by putting music on my computer whilst reading.

[deffox]

I've always felt that the penalty for modified loud exhaust should start with crushing of the vehicle.

I'm not that familiar with that model. Sounds like a small battery hybrid boost for efficiency.

I've read that some hybrids with an all-electric range can suffer from the gas going stale. But I think that is more about the ones that have a 40 mile electric range, and the user rarely burns the gas.

[altivo]

The Maverick truck is new for 2022 and there are only a few thousand out so far. EPA mileage estimates for the hybrid run 42 mpg city, 37 mpg overall mixed traffic. The electric motor is hefty and the hybrid battery large. Some lucky buyers who already have their trucks are reporting city traffic mileage as high as 55 mpg.