At my old place the car was on the driveway. Due to me working on the car at the front of my house I got to know all of my neighbours and they all loved my car, no issues.

Friday we moved. I started my car today, in my lovely garage to warm it up before changing the oil. After about 20 mins the neighbour I share the driveway with (stock 30's style simi house) said " although I love your car its noise is reverberating around my whole house and winding the dog up, can you turn it off?"

He was very amicable, to be expected considering I had been there less than 48 hours! I turned it off but need to solve this situation.

Its a detached garage set back from the houses, to help light in the garage (no power yet) I had the garage door open. It would act like a resonance horn the exhaust was near the back, bouncing off of the garage walls while it projects out the front.

Anyone come across this before? Any thoughts on how the calm the low frequency boom down?

I was thinking to have the garage door shut and apply 2" insulation board to the inside of it (something I was thinking of doing anyway. Then get a long bendy tube to vent the fumes out of the side door.

I am going to speak with him once I have a plan because he needs to compromise a little. I am not going to cut the noise completely or never start my car in my garage!

Photos of garage to come, but it is nothing special!

Biz

Just a thought...

What time were you doing this ?

Could you have taken it for a run to warm it up and then put it into the garage to change the oil ?

Compromise is the answer, especially if you've just moved there...

When I had mine I never had it idling on the driveway or running in the garage for long after 7pm at night.
(We had neighbours behind with a new baby)

Concur, a five minute drive will get it warmer qujcker and not irritate anyone.

ATB

Simon

Never leave mine running in the garage. It resonates through the house and fills it with fumes....

Assuming you are just running it at tickover an additional silencer with a longish bit of exhaust to vent outside the garage will make it massively quieter. If you combine this with driving it to warm it up whenever possible your neighbour might be OK with it.

When I first put a bike engine in my old locost, I booked it in for am exhaust in Sheffield. 6am I'm struggling to push it onto a transit beavertail, there's no winch... So I rolled both down the road, fired it up with no exhaust on, and had to almost redline it to creep it up the ramp

They must've loved that!

That said I'd not leave it running on the drive, though I don't imagine they'd mind. For a start, i bought this one off the lad next door!

To be honest even running your car the right way round (IE exhaust pointing straight out) would cut the noise down a fair bit. As you say you are making a natural echo chamber which will be quite effective in pumping up the volume.

I would also go for the extended silencer as well. Ten minutes down the local scrapyard to remove a good amount of pipe and a decent sized silencer to bolt on will get it down to below production car volumes. Keeps the fumes out the garage as well.

Insulation board won't help, it's still a flat surface no matter how thick. You need the rippled foam to deflect the echoes. The proper anechoic foam costs a fortune, but I'm sure there is a low cost version. I'm thinking a wooden mould with a few tins of expanding foam, then some means of attaching them to the wall?

egg cartons!

I'll be round next Saturday and see the family and new house :-)

Hang an old duvet/thick blanket etc behind the garage door, that will help matters, along with getting the exhaust out the back.
But surely idling the car in the garage is a rare thing? As above, driving it will warm it up faster and be better for it.

Build a bass trap into the garage?
Can't remember how exactly (learned it in 2001) but I'm sure google will through up diy solutions.
Sound deadening, soft furnishings, foam, old heavy drapes, etc will all help, but fills your garage with flammable crap
Reduce the possibility of standing waves (?) By trying to make the inside as asymmetric as possible

May or may not make a huge difference, but its all recording studio design stuff

Its a dog im sure you wouldn't go round there to ask him to turn his dog off if it started barking but I understand you have to keep the neighbours happy ive got some miserable oldies across from me.

20 minutes idling is taking the pee really. Drive it or silence it, easy to get a clamp on flexible hose and second truck silencer for if you /must/ run it in the drive.

(I'm a lover of fast loud cars, but not in a residential setting).

I try not to make noise after seven at night but mostly before that it's fair game. I'd rather have engine noises than bloody barking dogs!

Thanks for the feedback guys. All wise words.

It was a reasonable time. About 11am, on a Sunday though.

I can't drive it up the road as it's not taxed on MOTd. Track days only at the moment.

The garage is sparse but is to narrow to put anything on the walls. So it's seems egg cartons on the back of the garage door (and close it) if an additional tin top silencer does not work.

As someone who used to drive a race engined mini to work at 5:30am each morning, I would never leave it idling for longer than it took to get strapped in and off the drive. Although I did make a point of fitting another silencer out on the drive one Saturday afternoon, so you can make a show of doing your bit at least. I find that if you show that you're actively trying to fix a problem you can get away with less of a fix than otherwise!

Whilst I understand your desire to run the car up at home, a drive round the block would be quicker and better for the car overall. Doing it in the garage will just annoy the neighbours I'm afraid, as that's all I managed to achieve with the sound deadening at my old house!

a drive round the block is no good when the cars not road legal. as long as its at a reasonable time of day(like 11am on a sunday) i wouldn't think twice about leaving it idling in the garage or on the drive to warm it up. next doors never complained much the same as i've never complained about his kids making a load of noise when there outside.

no need to unnecessarily upset a new neighbour though so explain it wont happen often but you need to do it.

Sorry to hear that Biz

I once had the concil called down on me by the neighbours under the pretext of running a commercial business from home when all I was doing was replacing the cross member on my landrover

A couple of years ago I had a lockup with 6kw generator, the neighbours complained about this, it was the cased silent model to address this I ran a couple of foot of tube with some hard bends out through the wall which dulled it right down, as it was pretty much fixed in place easy to do.

My suggestion is get some convoluted tube and run to a vertical bit of scaffold tube bolted to the wall that stops above the garage roof, fit a fan and you can run with the doors shut.

quote:

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Originally posted by bi22le
Thanks for the feedback guys. All wise words.

It was a reasonable time. About 11am, on a Sunday though.

I can't drive it up the road as it's not taxed on MOTd. Track days only at the moment.

The garage is sparse but is to narrow to put anything on the walls. So it's seems egg cartons on the back of the garage door (and close it) if an additional tin top silencer does not work.

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Sounds like your neighbour is actually quite a nice guy - maybe you could talk to him and agree when you'll do your testing? Or give him some warning so that you can agree an amicable time? A bit of friendly negotiation would save a huge amount of grief.

You could also offer to take him out for a spin when the car's up and running!

I work shifts, so do all my engine runs during the week, when all the moaners are at work

but my next door neighbours are fine, and when I have an early 0600 start on a Sunday morning, I pre warn them,
never had an issue yet

steve