Exhaust options - help a ginger out!

[cwspellowe]

anything over stock (76db aparently) is illegal
hence why my old one straight through was 101db
and last one with 1 box was 97db
and i got 6 points and £200 fine for it.

Stupid that mate, what a knob. Did the copper know you before hand as that is steep.

When is the reading taken, idle, 2krpm, 6krpm?

Sounds like he got bent over. The law states that the exhaust can not be modified to make it louder than it left the factory. This fails on a few points:

1. How do the roadside police know how loud it was from the factory?
2. How did he measure it? IIRC only VOSA have those facilities to be used at the roadside, not regular Pandas or Highways.
3. The law says the exhaust can't be modified - grey area, does that mean you cant drill holes in the exhaust and remove the baffles? If you swap it, different manufacturers will have different specs of silencer so it may well end up louder than it left the factory.

How on earth can they regulate that? Only thing I can think of is antisocial order offences. Even then though you don't get points as it's not a road traffic offence.

100dB IS loud though. Very loud.