A Hyundai Elantra N owner in California is battling authorities who ticketed him over an exhaust that was too loud, despite the fact that the entire car is still stock. The state limit for exhaust on vehicles under 6,000 pounds (2,721 Kg) is 95 dB. A video of the traffic stop provides evidence that the officer who ticketed the driver not only said that he would need to spend some $7,000 to fix the already stock vehicle but that he could sue his dealership over the fees.
First posted by the Elantra N owner himself over on Reddit, the ordeal was recorded on a dashcam in the car. An officer who identifies himself with the last name Canright approaches the car and almost immediately becomes aggressive in tone. When the driver explains that the car is a 2022 model and that it’s stock and even offers to open the hood so that the officer can verify that, Canright jumps down his throat.
“Oh no, I’ll just send you to the state ref and what they’ll do is send you back to the factory… they’re going to suspend your registration… they’re going to send you back to the dealer, dealer has to remove the track options,” Canright says. “That, you have to pay for, it’s about $4,000. Once that’s been done you go back to the state ref to verify that all the track modes have been removed… you’re about to spend $7,000 on this car right now.”
Read More: California To Introduce Sound Sensors To Crack Down Loud Exhausts
He’s not done though “you can’t drive this in track mode on the street… they tell you this at the dealer. If not, you could sue the dealer for the money, get your four, or five thousand dollars back.” The end of the interaction wasn’t recorded.
According to an update post on Reddit, the driver, OkCadidate103 says that the car passed state ref inspection but failed the exhaust test by emitting 98 dB. Of course, the inspector also ran the test in Sport mode which isn’t the default mode on Elantra N. Despite that, he can’t get it tested again because he needs to show proof that work was done to the car and now it’s “fixed”. That’s going to be tough since it’s still stock.
Documents show the results of the test and a local dealership’s acknowledgment that the exhaust system is indeed stock. He’s reached out to Hyundai corporate and we’ve reached out to him for further comment about the situation. We’ll update this post as we learn more. Hyundai has told us the following “Hyundai N vehicles as sold fully comply with Federal regulations and are legal for sale and street use in all U.S. states. Hyundai is aware of this incident and is working directly with the customer to help resolve the issue.”
