Toronto: new noise by-laws in effect October
 

It's all over the news and apparently police have been handing out tickets left and right over the last couple of weeks. So behave

Makes me think twice about getting headers. I'm not exactly a tool and don't make noise for the sake of making noise, but I bet they'll be on the over-zealous side, at least for a bit. Most of the emphasis is on downtown streets and I don't blame them. Just last week me and my wife were sitting on a patio and an AMG with one of those generic every-german-car-has-it, ugly, industrial, blaring exhausts just absolutely shatters the air 6 feet from my ears and I just wanted to throw my plate at him. And I'm a car guy!

Yep.
Tell me about it.
Those laws are for idiots that love to make noises.
I'm in California so I'm guess our noise levels are about the same.
Eh you have to be a full retard to get busted for exhaust noise.

Same sort of thing happened to me... some dumbass chode driving around in his PoS VW sees me drive by and decides he has to do some ear bleeding popping from his junk ass car..

I’m just hoping there will be some concrete decibel figure to stay under rather than the very vague “at the officer’s discretion” type of ticket

The press conference John Tory did on this, he said there would be a DB figure, and it would be tested at idle. Although, no DB figure was actually mentioned. I think they are still trying to determine what's reasonable, and what's too loud.

This stuff gets complicated fast. Having a limit is fine but they need to have very clear instructions in how to go about it.
The Federal number for new cars is 80 (82-2)
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/...lText.html#s-5

(iii) SAE Standard J1470, Measurement of Noise Emitted by Accelerating Highway Vehicles (June 1998), the sound level does not exceed 80 dBA when a value of 2 dBA is subtracted from the final reported value referred to in section 6.3 of that Standard, in the case of a passenger car regardless of its GVWR or any other vehicle with a GVWR of 2 722 kg or less

This measure is obtained through a very complex and difficult measurement standard but translates to around 95bd in "real world" levels.
The city of Calgary ran up against this issue a few years ago and I doubt that Toronto will have much better luck sorting it out.
http://www.beyond.ca/calgarys-excess...ion/15447.html


Now... All that said keep in mind that the law says:

Muffler

(1) No person shall operate a motor vehicle or motor assisted bicycle unless it is equipped with a muffler that is,

(a) operating;

(b) in good working order; and

(c) sufficient to prevent excessive or unusual sound and excessive or unusual smoke.

Same

(1.1) No person shall operate a motor vehicle or motor assisted bicycle equipped with a muffler cut-out, straight exhaust, gutted muffler, hollywood muffler, by-pass or similar device.


(1.2) No person shall modify a muffler to increase the sound output of a motor vehicle or motor assisted bicycle.

Unless your exhaust is 100% stock they can nail you no matter what the noise levels are. Even just having pops or "unusual" noises is a violation.

Engine revving and exhaust noise are part of summer. I put up with most of it except those morons who decides to do this after 1am. I heard cars squealing their tires at the stop sign periodically at 2-3am. They should nail those idiots.

Well let’s hope it’ll be more reasonable than this and more about noise levels rather than what you’ve done to your car. Good thing I kept my OEM catback. Sounds like I might still need it. I mean my Corsa is loud but not disturbingly so and has a briefcase type muffler just like the OEM catback.

Anyway, cars are under assault periodically so looks like this is another one of those storms we’ll have to weather.

Yep. It really isn't anything new. They have hopped on this bandwagon now and again as far back as I can remember. Just lay of the WOT if there are cops around and about 95% of the cars, trucks and bikes out there will never be even noticed. The only ones that really need to worry are the guys with machine gun pops or such that are just designed to say "HEY look at me" in the first place. They will indeed get looked at.

The loud exhaust is fine if you're not hooning.

I have a neighbor with a 2010 3 series BMW, straight pipe with no cats. Every night before he moves the car inside his driveways. He would spend 10 minutes revving the car to show off his stock 3 series with black plasti-dipped wheels before ACTUALLY moving the car. I totally support this law if it stops people like this guy from doing that kind of shit every night.

Idunno, I got eyeballed pretty hard while driving normally in traffic yesterday. Maybe the cop had no idea what my car was, but he did full head turn watching me drive by.

That is not my interpretation. The law references modifying a MUFFLER not an EXHAUST SYSTEM. To me, that means hollowing out a muffler or otherwise modifying the muffler that came on the car. Installing an aftermarket exhaust system is fair game.


As for "pops" LOTS of cars do it - many from the factory, nowadays including every AMG and Sport Mercedes model. That makes those types of noises ROUTINE, not unusual. At least, that's how I see it.

I just know that they will be unnecessarily targeting cars that "look" modified, just like every time they do this, and I'm sure they will nail quite a few of the idiots highlighted above (the people who deserve it). I'm also 100% confident that lots of us "normal" car enthusiasts who happen to have a louder-than-stock car will inevitably get caught in the cross-fire.

My car is louder than stock, yes, but not wildly so, and I try to be responsible about it (shift low after 11pm, no unnecessary revving etc.). But now I'm worried shitless while driving because it's yet another thing that I have to worry about, and why? Simply because I'm an enthusiast who enjoys the sound of my car?

What about all these fucking Harleys that rip around with straight-pipes so loud that you literally have to pause your conversation until they pass by? What about the exotic cars that are loud AF from the factory and pop/burble/spittle with every slight touch of the throttle? What about the bro-dozers that sound like chewbacca screaming as they roll coal down the 401? I doubt any of these will be targeted as much as the tuner community, even though they are some of the worst offenders.

No doubt there are lots of people who deserve this. But also no doubt, lots of people who DON'T deserve it will get caught up in this BS, all said and done.

It's a sad time to be a car enthusiast in Ontario.

If you remove the original and replace it with an aftermarket you have modified the muffler. Any change from the stock version is a modification. A play on words will not change a cop nor a judges mind.


As far of the rest of the exhaust goes the laws covering the cats cover headers and pipes. It is illegal to do ANY modifications to the emissions system so this leaves very little that can be changed in an exhaust system that you could not get dinged for.


Noises that come from a stock car can be proven to be "normal". If they are not part of the stock setup they are indeed unusual and subject to the law. Saying that other cars do it does not make it usual for all.


You can try to twist things around all you want but they have heard all of that rationalization before and will hear it again. Everybody just needs to ride this blitz out and things will go back to "normal" soon. I went through this sort of crackdown in the at least twice in the 70s, once in the 80s and several times in the 90s and they always eventually just said "screw it it ain't worth the hassle".