8 Horrific Noises No Petrolhead Wants To Hear

1. If you can't find it, grind it

Mechanical sympathy will be of the utmost importance to anyone who loves their car, and few sounds will make you feel like you’ve let your ride down than grinding a gear. Whether you’re giving it everything and lift the clutch before you’ve slotted the gear home, or you’re simply sat beside a non-petrolhead driver as they gormlessly yank the stick between ratios, the sound of unsynchronised gears slamming together will make you shudder.

2. The sound of alloy meeting kerb

In my time as a motoring journalist, I’ve only ever kerbed the alloys on two cars. The first victim was one of the gorgeous 19-inch wheels on a Peugeot RCZ R that clipped the pavement as I negotiated (badly) the narrow car-lined street outside my mum’s house. The sound made me feel physically sick. The second was pretty much every inch of all four 21-inch Turbine alloys on a Tesla Model S I drove to France.

We were supposed to be put on a Eurotunnel train with the truckers on account of the Tesla being very wide and the alloys being very big and very, very expensive. Too late to do anything about it, we discovered the numpties who processed our ticket ignored their instructions and put us on a carriage with, no joke, about an inch of clearance on each side. We drove very slowly through the train, upsetting half the tourists coming back from France, and yet we still inflicted a lot of scrapes. The whole time, my heart was dropping deeper and deeper into my chest as a feeling of misery washed over me.

3. Bumping into something unmovable

Have you ever been reversing into a space, not realising there’s a bollard behind you? Or maybe you’ve misjudged the length of your car and gently shunted a wall? Whatever the cause, that thud sound your bumper makes as it undergoes an unexpected reshaping will always induce an aggressive facepalm.

4. Slamming your seatbelt in the door

You jump in your car, carefree and full of happiness. You fall into the seat and slam the door shut with gusto. The satisfying clunk that normally accompanies this action as the door latches shut is replaced with the horrible sound of metal on metal. Yep, you’ve just shut the door on your seatbelt. It’s funny how such a small thing can sound like your car’s just fallen apart around you.

5. Unfamiliar sounds from the engine

When you drive as much as us petrolheads do, it’s quite easy to become totally tuned in to the sound your engine makes when it’s happy. You might not even consciously know it, but the second an unfamiliar knock rears its head, you’re on it. Time to start diagnosing the issue before finding out just how much it’s going to cost to fix..

Boots are useful places to store a great variety of things. Shopping bags after a trip to the supermarket; suitcases for your drive to the airport; a mattress and clothes if your life hasn’t turned out quite as well as you’d hoped. These are all things you can stow away in your car, out of sight and out of mind.

Or at least they’re out of mind until you come across some nice curves and start throwing the car about. Suddenly, whatever’s not locked down at the back of your car becomes a missile, thrown about by g-forces and making an awful racket. Better hope it’s not something expensive, or something that used to contain a liquid…

If you’ve dropped your car, or even just drive something super sporty with a ride height mere millimetres from the ground, you’ll know the pain of misjudging a speed bump. In fact, it could just be a slight change in elevation as you pull into your driveway that delivers that painful graunch. The noise your car makes as its undercarriage rubs against harsh tarmac is gutting.

8. Woop, woop, it's the sound of the police

Not that we’d encourage it, of course, but sometimes the way petrolheads enjoy themselves can be frowned upon by the rest of society. Occasionally, a roundabout will find itself the impromptu arena for an epic drift battle, or a set of traffic lights will transform into a drag strip. Unfortunately, from time-to-time, such activities can unwittingly occur in front of the local constabulary.

You’ll pray they didn’t spot you, but the unmistakeable sound of a siren means its time to put your happiest, most polite face on: "Hello, officer. What could possibly be the problem?"