Damn Swede

Back in October I got pulled over leaving the University by an unmarked car. I came to the 3-way intersection and noticed the unmarked brown Vic to my right so I did a nice and quiet right turn passed him. The cop does a U and gives me the cherries. He said he could hear me coming and that was unacceptable. (I was travelling parallel to the road he was on about 100 yds. away with a small 5 ft. hill between the roads so I wasn't able to see him, but was on university property. Didn't really think about how loud I was, but I suppose my shifting from 1st after 5000 RPM going around a bend didn't help. I'm normally a respectable driver concerning my noise levels... damn that nice sunny 20 degree day...)

Anyway, he gave me a ticket for $110 for having a "improper muffler", which in his words translated into him asking me if I had a silencer for the muffler. I said yes I do but did not know it was required to be installed, and so he gave me the ticket. Now I've been driving around my home for three years without so much as a complaint from the neighbours or even a second glance from the cops. I spend a month down here and I get pulled over twice. (The week after this muffler incident, my one headlight blew and living near a club means the cops like to sit at the end of my road and do spot checks. A really cute officer was nice enough to give me a 72-hour fix it, and it got dropped, but still, this gave me a great impression of the local PD after living here for a freaking month... :P )

And so, I come here to ask if anyone here has had any success in fighting their exhaust tickets, or if they have any tips for me before I go and plead my case. I'm not really concerned about losing as it gives me some experience in a court and who knows when that sort of knowledge might be useful, but if it saves me $110, why not?
This is a 2.5" pipe through a single cat to an N1 muffler, so yeah, it's mildly loud but up in farm country, it's practically an Insight. Should I be looking forward to more harassment from the locals down here, or is this an isolated incident?

eViLRotor

iTrader: (2)

The issue is coming up with a valid argument that the exhaust is not 'illegally loud' and thus didn't warrant a ticket. I can't really think of one, short of doing a decibel check. Even then, you'll probably still get owned by the N1's lack of baffling. Chances are, if the cop thinks your exhaust is too loud, it probably is.

I've gotten two illegal exhaust tickets in all the years I have owned my car. Not bad considering all the things I could have gotten nailed for. I just pay them. I see it as a pennance. I pay the fine, the cop gets his quota, and life goes on. The more people fight measly stuff like this and make the cops go to court, the more the cops get pissed off, and the more they will harass modified car owners.

Beater86

do it up....
even if you lose the judge might drop the ticket to a lower amount of money
but yea just look up some **** and know what your talking about.... like theres always way to make you sound like your innocent.. use examples... and **** and you will be fine

swanton187

I had a friend with a jdm engine Honda civic with a very loud exhaust at high rpm and he was hit with a $900 ticket (no lie), He fought it and won.

Terrh

iTrader: (7)

I'd say fight it!

I got a ticket last year and wish I had fought it, myc ar isn't quiet but it's WAY quieter than the 10000 harleys always crusing around town at WOT

FC3S.USD

iTrader: (2)

harleys from factory come with that exhaust, our cars dont.

Its totally up to you to fight the ticket or not.

The only thing i can suggest is , Is that the only thing in your car thats not legal or loud, then fight it .

But if you have other stuff in the car that would get you penalized I would just pay the ticket.

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

I'm in a grumpy mood, so this might have a "tone" to it. Take it with a grain of salt.

If you want to stop getting "harassed", then stop breaking the law!
Lets start with the exhaust noise. It is too loud - period. N1's are non baffled exhausts, and technically those are not legal for street use. Police don't like anything that is louder than stock. I'm curious as to what your defence in court will be? "Well your honour, I am fighting this ticket because I don't believe that it is too loud." That's not a defence. Will you cite the fact that unmuffled V-Twins are way louder? Harley's are loud from the factory, so that is OK. Rx7's are not. But even if they were, saying that someone else has a louder exhaust doesn't make yours any more legal. Then you tell the cop that you didn't know that the silencer needed to be in there? He must have thought one of two things: 1) You were born yesterday 2) You thought he was born yesterday.

Then you go on to complain that the local PD pulled you over for having burnt out head lights? You were surprised to get pulled over for this? I'd be praising the cops for getting off with a 72 hour warning for that, not bitching that they are harrassing you.

Just because you've never been pulled over in "farm country" doesn't mean that the noise level of the car is legal. It just means that the cops ther didn't pull you over. To be honest, I don't think it is worth fighting at all. Pay the $110 and be happy that you've driven this long without a ticket so far. You have no grounds with which to fight, and all it does is clog up the court system and waste time.


Now, for something mildly constructive.

If you are truely interested in fighting it for the experience, then take a few hours and go down to the court room to watch the preceedings. That will tell you all you need to know about what you can and can't fight successfully. It will also show you some options. I think your best option is to go in there and ask the court to reduce the ticket amount. Tell them how you are a starving student or something, and they may drop the dollar amount. Asking them to drop it all together is a tall order.

-TAL-

When i got pulled over for my exhaust, I got off with a warning but...

The officer told me that a straight through muffler illegal period. regardless of the noise.

misterstyx69

iTrader: (142)

wonder what ever happened with rx_prez's run in with the law(no disrespect Dave)..(dave) anyone?..how did the thing turn out?..

Alak

iTrader: (9)

Guy here has a straight through exhaust on his Supercharged FB. Its so ******* loud at idle it will set off car alarms 100 yards away. Rattles peoples windows at 2500RPM.




6 years and no ticket.



Best thing to do is bring in a bill of how much your muffler cost, and how much a factory one cost. Considering your in university, it will show you can't afford the 'Proper Size'.

Terrh

iTrader: (7)

that's a good idea actually.

Go to the dealer and get a price quote on a pair of stock mufflers.
even if you got ripped off on the N1 I it was less than half the price of stock.

Just because harleys are loud from the factory doesn't mean they can be loud...

it really pissed me off when I got pulled over in my (pretty quiet) TII, while the cop was talking to me about it a harley THUNDERED by and it was on the next street over at full throttle and high (well high for a harley, they don't rev lol) RPM.
One of the local sportbike guys here mentioned getting pulled over for his (stock!) exhaust all the time... it all depends on what you drive I guess. Some people get hassled, some don't. Lets hope that some "new scene" comes around shortly and the cops bug them instead of us...

I'd buy a harley if they weren't so damn slow

doridori-rx7

iTrader: (3)

was there an actual db meter in use to measure the sound? you said you shifted between rises in the hill ( in the valley)? did the cop see you rev to 5000 and shift? were thier buildings near by that could have compounded the noise?

what does the ticket say exactly on it. I was reading a few of the HTA laws, I don't remember seeing that a stright thru muffler was not a valid muffler.. do an inquiry at the court about that, I'd like to see where this law is.. If you can go get the mufler tested for noise levels with and with out the baffle in, take that to court with you.

I believe the testing specified in the HTA is 3feet away x 3feet off the ground.. but I could be wrong on that..

Also to shave a few DB off get a few wedge cuts welded onto the tip that will point the exhaust towards the ground more.. A Japanese magazine did this with an HKS Hi Power I beleive and knocked off 11db. Another way around it is to install a larger V8 sized baffle this will drop the 'tone' and get rid of allot of the harsh high pitched sounds that really make the db level stand out.

pd_day

iTrader: (6)

Muffler

75. (1) Every motor vehicle or motor assisted bicycle shall be equipped with a muffler in good working order and in constant operation to prevent excessive or unusual noise and excessive smoke, and no person shall use a muffler cut-out, straight exhaust, gutted muffler, hollywood muffler, by-pass or similar device upon a motor vehicle or motor assisted bicycle. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 75 (1).

Idem

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a motor assisted bicycle with an attached motor that is driven by electricity. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 75 (2).


I fought this ticket before and won. Technicalities......
This is not a noise ticket, you can be making 0 db and they can still convict you. This is an improper equipment ticket. Chances are, the officer have taken a light to flash the inside of the can to see if it's striaght thru as well as stick his night stick in there to see if he'll hit any baffle.

Good luck.

Nick86

iTrader: (1)

The cost of a stock muffler is irrellevant - it could be $2 million dollars and the N1's could be $.10 each. The issue is that you told the officer that the system came with a silencer and you chose not to install it. You own the parts to make the car quieter, and didn't use them. Putting the silencer in is free.

You could tell the court that you understand now that the muffler without the silencer is too loud, and that you have since put it on the car. You are a starving student with no job etc, and you'd like the ticket to be reduced. If they take $50 off it then that is better than nothing.

Damn Swede

Wow, thanks for all the advice guys. Seems like I've finally joined a brotherhood or something.

Now upon making my first post, I knew this exact one was coming, and I accept it. I was merely making a comparison due to the fact that most of us know exactly how loud a 7 can be, and that I was stating that mine is really average loudness when compared to the rest of you. (I've been to plenty of meets, I've heard/smelled that damn 3-rotor even.) I know this doesn't make me above the law, but it is a law that is very open to interpretaition to begin with.
There is nothing about having a silencer installed in your muffler in the above quoted statement from pd, which I already knew, so that's why I was surprised when he said that it was required. I'll ask about this new found requirement tomorrow, and hope that the police may create new laws on the spot based upon the mood that they are in at the time. :P

I just added this second part because personally found it funny that in my 6 years of driving experience, I had only been pulled over once and that was for doing 110 in an 80. (Was at 12 at night coming home from Toronto on a straight stretch in clear weather) Now that I moved down here, and got pulled over twice in a week just 4 weeks after finally replacing my stock rims with some decent rubber, you just have to kind of laugh at the situation. I like to think of it as giving them something to do.

I am happy that I haven't been harrassed until now as I feel that I am in no way harming anyone with my actions. If I got any other complaints from those people living around me then I would take whatever steps necessary to rectify the situation. I just take this ticket as a cop being bored, knowing that it is the end of the month and has to get a few more ticket stubs in. He saw a car with rims and a younger driver that sounded loud, and killed 25 minutes of his shift. Don't take me as saying this is profiling, just me being easy pickings, and this is one of the crappier things about owning a wonderful car like the 7. Oh, also, I won't use this in court as I know how well it will fly. Like I said in the OP, I'm just using this as a learning experience. I honestly doubt my single case is going to cause any difference in the already backed up provincial offence courts. Perhaps the striking office workers may have something to do with that...

Pretty much the idea behind why I'm going. I'm not going there expecting to win, if I do, hell, it'll make my weekend. Thanks for the post Nick, it's helped me shape my arguements.


It was still light out and I don't recall him ever actually being behind the car besides the walk up to my window. The muffler is on the right side so I doubt he got a good look inside of it.


No dB meter, purely by his ear. Not that it really matters to a judge most of the time, but I will still bring it up. It was pretty much an open field between us so I'm assuming that he saw me coming with no buildings around. The hill rise is gradual enough to not really have that large of an effect on the noise. And thank you for the tips, I'll look into what I can do short of turboing the damn thing or breaking my bank to make it a bit quieter.

Damn Swede

Ever since that day, I had the silencer in and left it there, even though it doesn't do much for the noise levels. The lack of any torque is killing me, but so is the lack of funds in my bank. One had to go.

Oh, and quote for a new stock dual exhaust from the cat back from Kitchener Mazda? $890 installled. My N1 cost me $100 off Ebay and installation with new 2.5" stainless pipe was $240.

misterstyx69

iTrader: (142)

I went to court over a ticket for speeding..in the Barrie/Bradford area..it ended up bein thrown out of court(Bradford) because they could not find the paperwork..if you do decide to fight it..the cop may not even show up..because he really does have better things to do than go to court over an improper exhaust..my opinion anyways for what it's worth..(my speeding ticket was 106km's in a 50 km zone..I thought I was on the Other Road..where I would have been in an 80km zone..but still speeding..)

re.fc3s

I had the same situation in september. I was in highschool and turned over my ignition. On my N/a I had some cheapo muffler from canadian tire.. Anyways as the report states "was revving my engine with other cars in the parking lot." There was a mazda 323 beside me and a teachers minivan on the other side.. I read this statement and came to an actualization that cops can make **** up if they feel like it, and get away with it. Im always polite and respectful to the law and to officers. Anyways as soon as i pull out of the parking lot officer pulls me over, he seems delighted. He asks me about my exhaust, inquiring if the exhaust was afftermarket, i agreed. Anywho its trail date and i wanted to make an appointment to discuss the ticket. I talk it over with an x-cop and explain why i think the ticket is garbage. I said when i got pulled over a transport truck blew by me making a horrendous amount of noise.. invalid point. I also point out with my printed out version of the traffic act, that i do not have a hollywood muffler, or strait pipe. Invalid point. He claims it should be a midas muffler. I say it doesnt say that on my paper. invalid point once again to him.. Hes an ignorant and stubborn *** clown.. I bite my tongue and listen to what he says. He says the basis to charge me was the fact the officer THOUGHT my car sounded louder than others. Im 18, and I THOUGHT that this is harrasment. Ive been pulled over 14 times in the summer for "checks" to see if the car is mine. The policing in my neighbourhood is a pile of ****. Anyways, I try to complain that factory vehicles can come loud out of the factory.. I also talk about snowblowers and how they are loud, garage vaccums, and also motorcycles. All loud items to the ears. They dont really care about any of it. They make a decision and stick to it, I got fed up and agreed to half off my ticket. My advice to you is to not do what I did. Fight the ticket and set an example that this law is to vague. How can you charge someone on matter of personal opinion? There was no dB check? Its just an opinion.. opinion is defined as "A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof" That doesnt sound like it has proper merit to fine someone does it? No it doesnt...

my 2 cents

85rotarypower

I'm with this guy. I feel that it doesn't matter what the hell it is, weather its a harley or an 18 wheeler or a goddamn silent electric car. If its loud, its loud and ANYTHING that is on the road that is considered "loud" should be pulled over, not just us "tuners". I have many people that agree with me too. In my town, we really don't have a problem since there are so many older muscle cars running around with super loud exhaust, but in other towns its downright rediculous. Why must we be punished for being loud while the trucks that run around our main streets don't get a thing. Its f***in rediculous. And don't try to tell me they can't make those trucks quiet, because they can if they want to. You can make anything quiet if you try to. A perfect example is the rotary.

Oh, and to the comment about using a flashlight and nightstick to see if a muffler is straight through, thats a bullshit test. What if your muffler is mid mounted or you have a second baffled muffler further up the system? They still going to ticket you because you supposedly have a straight through muffler? Some of these laws are just pure bullshit.

Another thing, I don't know if anyone else here watched the little show on the discovery channel or whatever it was, but it was a show based on the streetracing in toronto. Main guy they followed had an RX-7. But anyway, that show was filled with so much bullshit that i almost couldn't watch it. Some of the stuff the cops were told to look out for was pure bullshit. One was about a muffler, If the vehicle had a muffler that looks like this on it, then its an illegal exhaust, and nail them with that. Another was about fuel cells, they said that chances are that if the person has an item like this in their car, its likely filled with a substance like jet fuel. They also said that the fuel cell was "unsafe" and that it was made of "thin, cheap plastic". uhh, any fuel cell I've seen is made of high quality, thick plastic or metal. ****** bullshit!!!

Rant over.

23Racer

I wanted to let you guys know that all of this hassling has been going on since the beginning of time.

I used to have a 1964 Ford Galaxie. It was built in the style of that time. It had 6" shackles on the rear, the front was raised 4". I had a huge teardrop hoodscoop and a 351 Cleveland with headers, cam, slapper bars and 4BBL Holley on a 2 inch hi-riser manifold. It was all legal at the time but highly visible. Every night I went out in the car I was pulled over. The cops would crawl all over the car with flashlights, billyclub prodding etc.... Once they even slit the rear seats supposedly looking for drugs.

What a laugh, I don't even smoke or drink. All of my protests did nothing. At the time I used to get all kinds of "Fix It" notices for everything from headlight aim, to exhaust outlet location, non-stock shifter to sunvisors!

I talked to a friends father who was a cop and he told me something that has stayed with me ever since. Cops are human. They get pissed off when they see idiots driving like madmen on the street and they can't catch them. They have to clean up after someone runs out of luck or talent and smears themselves around a post. They get frustrated when punks get away with stuff they really shouldn't. As humans when they can't control everything they try to control what they can which tends to be the low hanging fruit of visible vehicle mods that don't meet code or that they can pick on. Its not fair or right but it happens.

After that I started to be smarter about visible mods and noise and never got pulled over or ticketed again in any of my later stupid cars (knock on wood). I am not saying don't fight the tickets, what I am saying don't make your car low hanging fruit begging to be pulled over. As well if you are young you get hassled, sorta a cop learnin' process. That is why all of my friends on their straight pipe Harleys get away with it. We are all geezers paying huge amounts of taxes and they let us slide sometimes. LOL.

Eric

doridori-rx7

iTrader: (3)

best defense is a polite word that you are recording this stop for ' both our 'protections and lots of pictures ( if applicable ) of the scene/surroundings. If the cop is on thin ice or he's shady then most of the time they will leave you alone with a gruff warning.. if hte cop feels he's in the right then he will stick it out. Cousin is OPP and he said it was all perfectly fine and legal. (well within your rights), to do this and any normal cop won't mind at all.

gscully

This post is gold, right there is the HTA section. When you go into court you have to prove that your exhaust meets all the requirements outlined above, if you do that you'll win

re.fc3s

they will say excessive noise is the issue if they are agaisnt the wall. If in your report it says improper muffler, you can say they have no real way of checking... you can probably win that way. If in your ticket report he states that there was excessive noise, which im guessing since you agreed to not having a silencer installed, good luck. Like i said, they can charge you on matter of opinion. Remember your just another ticket to them... But, there is also a way of getting around this.. you can prolong the charges until they throw it out of court.. ask me how i know.. Just trying to make the issue go to court again and again and eventually they will "lose the file" or just throw it out.