Wife stopped by police with Milltek on RS4

[bigsteve]

Hi

My wife was stopped today by the police saying our RS4 fitted with a resonated valved Milltek exshaust was too loud and to get it sorted. ( the S button may of been on) No ticket was issued but maybe next time, so are all after market exhausts illegal ? unless original Audi replacement

SHOCKED, yes it is louder than standard but not compaired to some of the cars that come past my house, so started looking in to the law

SHOCK HORROR

The offence I can come up with is "use a motor vehicle with an altered silencer/exhaust system" this is reg 54(2) con & use 1986, sec 42 of the RTA 1988, sch 2 RTOA 1988.
Basically the offence is self explanatory and from the officers point of view the "points to prove" are simple, they are date & location, use on a road a m/v fitted with exhaust system/silencer altered to increase the noise made by the escape of exhaust gases.

So it is quite easy for them to stop you, see that your exhaust is not standard/original and give you a ticket and as long as people cough up the £30 they will carry on doing it. This is a "grey area" and because of this some forces do not use this particular piece of legislation anymore.

However in the statement of facts it clearly says the exhaust must be "maintained in good and efficient working order" & "has been ALTERED in that it increases the noise made by the escape of gasses". So replacing the exhaust with a pattern or replacement is illegal, yes or no, most aftermarket exhausts on RS's are slightly louder/deeper sounding than original BUT if it is within the legal db limit and is being sold by companies as "road legal" I dont see how any court could convict.

But how do they prove its louder with out taking a reading from the same car in the same place with a standard and milltek exhaust fitted, I am sure they have to prove youre guilty not the other way round.

There tons of info on this problem on the scooby sites.

ADVICE PLEASE

Steve

[grizz]

The cat back valved resonated is 100% legal and has a ce cert ..

[bigsteve]

No i dont think it is, if the letter of the law is applied under is regulation

use a motor vehicle with an altered silencer/exhaust system" this is reg 54(2) con & use 1986, sec 42 of the RTA 1988, sch 2 RTOA 1988

The law is that, yes you can replace the exhaust but only with one that makes no more noise than the standard exshaust.

What the officer said to my wife was defective exshaust and get it sorted.


The cat back valved resonated is 100% legal and has a ce cert ..

A link for this info would be help full or a copy of paperwork

found this spec for standard car exhaust noise level

Standing - drive-past exterior noise level in dB 82 / 71

What do Milltek claim as there noise level as anything above this could be deemed illegal

Also what to do about this

No noise meter is needed. If in the opinion of the prosecuting officer, your car is louder than a standard car of similar type and age, an offence has been committed.
Technically, yes if you fitted a pattern exhaust from, say, Euro Car Parts, it may well be non-compliant. Any modification to the standard exhaust (including changing for a non genuine one) may render you liable to prosecution.


DVD’s reference reg 65 says:
(2) Exhaust systems and silencers shall be maintained in good and efficient working order and shall not after the date of manufacture be altered so as to increase the noise made by the escape of exhaust gases.

This means the exhaust must not be altered to a noise level above that when originally supplied. As I remember all vehicles when originally supplied meet European noise limits.

Vehicle noise standards are laid down in Directive 70/157/EEC and subsequent amendments [3], which regulates the technical approval of new vehicles and currently sets noise emission limits of 74dB(A) for passenger cars and 80dB(A) for trucks. it may of been loud in 2007 but not by much.
Ref:http://www.transportenvironment.org/mod ... id-20.html

Cars have to go through a european approval procedure which includes noise of course. I believe a couple of sports car manufacturers have gained approval for slightly increased noise levels.

This suggests to me that if you modify your exhaust to exceed 74 dB(A) then you are breaking the law on a new car.

My understanding of the European Directive is that those limits are the equivalent of "European Type Approval" so that if member countries individually decide to introduce noise limits, they cannot be lower than that EC limit - in other words cars that comply with those limits cannot be banned in any member state.

Modifying your exhaust so that it is "louder than standard" is an offence, regardless of its measured sound level.

As far as I can see Britain does have a noise limit, it has the limit of the noise limit as originally supplied, i.e. 74 dB(A). Modifying to increase the noise level is illegal therefore the limit is 74db for new cars now.

RS4 was 82db i think



cheers

Steve

[Steve_C]

All I know about exhaust noise levels is that its a big grey area partly down to the judgement of the officer. I would get on the phone to Milltek as I would have thought they'd have come across this before and hopefully have a response. If the law you state above was enforced nationwide they would go out of business.

OT: I got stopped on my bike years ago for having a loud exhaust. I tried to blag the officer and it was going well until he saw stamped on the end of the pipe "Not for road use".

[HYFR]

This post is the most ridiculous waste of time

Peopl up and down the country have been fitting aftermarket zorsts for fecking years and will continue to do so

Milltek and the like have made millions out of it

The police in your instance were wasting their own time

I won't be worrying a tiny bit

If anything I'll be going louder

[bigsteve]

It not a waste of time in my opinion for 3 reasons

1 Are aftermarket exhast companies selling non road legal exhausts, if they are dont you think we should be made aware of this , when sending £1000's on an exhaust so you can make an informed judgment about spending your money.

2 If you get a £30 ticket for having a defective exhaust should you pay it and admit you have an ilegal exhaust fitted or is there information available that prove the exhaust is legal, ie CE certificate etc.

3 If you dont fight the £30 ticket and win next stage is a order to remove the exhaust or forfit the car if stopped again.

So all i am asking is has anybody got any USEFUL comments to make about this issue or had the same problem and how they resolved this.

Dont get me wrong my wife and I are happy to keep the exhaust on the car as we love it, but we want to know were we stand legally, it that so wrong!

Steve

Hope some reply posts are not from exhaust retailer's with a agenda to keep selling illegal exhausts.

Steve

[HYFR]

Steve

I see where your coming from, fair enough

But did you also know its against the law to go over 70mph on a UK public road

Did Audi have to inform you of this before you purchased your 400PS beast?

The zorst companies are not making anything illegal

Going by UK law, you are the one breaking the law by fitting a zorst louder than the one the factory put on

[grizz]

Your supplier will be able to get a copy of the cert from the milltek sales web site .

[RichRS6]

I think the officers were probably after chatting your missus up.

You really have to look at why the legislation exists in the first place.

I'm no lawyer but it is designed to stop people (boy racers I guess) using straight through pipes and no silencers producing ridiculous db's.

DVD’s reference reg 65 says:
(2) Exhaust systems and silencers shall be maintained in good and efficient working order and shall not after the date of manufacture be altered so as to increase the noise made by the escape of Exhaust gases.

The above statement is not very specific.

Does "the date of manufacture" in the statement above refer to any replacement ?

If so then as long as your system is CE certified and legal for road use and you don't then remove the silencer boxes with the intention of increasing the db level above the 74db limit you should be ok.

It doesn't (IMO) say anywhere that the use of fitting of CE Certified and legal for road use aftermarket exhausts is illegal only then modifying them to make them louder.

My defence would be that the primary reason for fitting the Milly was because the original system was damaged and the Audi part was unavailable and twice the price, I did not fit a Milly purely to increase the vehicles noise level. Honest Officer.

It would be interesting if you could take a db meter reading though.

If you have an iphone there is a free db meter app which you could then use to prove your point to any plodder who subsequently stopped you.

If they then continue to stop you you can have them for harassment.

Just my tuppence worth..........

[grizz]


http://www.press.millteksport.org/media ... 9%2000.pdf

[RichRS6]

Nice one Grizz.

Just print out a copy of that and keep it in the car in case they decide to stop you again.

If they stop you more than Twice then get a solicitor (or just do it yourself) and send them a letter letting them know that if you are stopped again you will be taking them to court for harassment.

[bigsteve]

Hey thanks Grizz

I have printed that out and will put that in car straight away. It will really throw Plod, if he even bothers to read it.

One thing that is bizarre about all this is that run a couple of Triumph 1050 both with aftermarkets cans, there BS marked and legal, but there just been a change in the rules for bike exhausts that they don’t even need a BS mark now, only they must not say "not or road use" on them.

Seems car drivers are being discriminated against

I live on a hill after a tight junction you should hear some of the barstewards that come past my house, worst are Honda Civic's they really scream and a bloke in a Scooby wakes me up in the morning if still a sleep at 8.15am but the loudest but nicest is a guy with a Maserati quattroporte but I’ll let him off as it sound so good, but makes my RS sound likes it got 5 silencer boxes on it.


Steve

[AdrianE]

It's pretty much impossible to do a noise test, even with all the correct gear, unless you're in a controlled environment. No way can plod do anything that'd stand up in court based on a noise reading from meters they don't even have anyway. A decent solicitor would just pick holes in how they got the reading.

I'm with Rich on this - if the system is intact and not blowing then they can go whistle.

[bigsteve]

Cormwall Plod brought 7 noise meters but they dont have a fixed noise standard in law, just nick you if its over 90db for a defective exshaust, all a bit hit and miss i think.
But I can still do without the agro from the misses when she gets home about buying a car with a "SH*T exhaust" her words not mine.

So hoping the CE paperwork will do the trick if stopped again by plod

Thanks again

Steve

[Steve_C]

Let us know what the rozzers say if/when you get to show them the CE certificate.