is anyone else’s stock motor loud?

[hotmilk400]

i was just wondering, but is anyone else’s stock motor loud? or at least there car in general? my friend has a 328i , 97, and u cant even hear his car (along with every other stock car on the road).. he can take it up to like 5 rpms, and you can just start to hear it.. even with the windows open, u cant hear the motor, its perfectly quite.. yet, my 98 318ti sport is really loud.. its not like, "i have a huge exhaust tip loud", or "i have a hole in the exhaust loud", its like, “I have a 6 cyl that has mechanical problems loud”.. ha-ha.. I changed the air filter, cleaned out the whole intake (except the manifold) made sure my ASC-T wasn’t the problem. Cleaned my air intake sensor. New spark plugs, and new oil not to long ago.

the only thing that I could think of it to be is something related to the exhaust. I am getting CAT efficiency codes (so I cant pass inspection =/ , any other help there as well? Haha.. any way to get around it?) I dont know if the code is 100% right, that Is just what my code reader is telling me.. other code readers give a unknown code..

I don’t know really why my motor is loud or if other 318ti’s are loud.. most cars u cant hear the motor when u are driving your car, where as mine , I need to kep the radio kind of loud so I don’t hear it (I ignore it anyway) It doesn’t really sound bad bad, but it shouldn’t be loud I don’t think.. the only problem sound that I can hear is my motor sounds more like a giant air compressor motor running.. haha.. and it kind of sounds like the valves might tap (I not 100% sure yet, but it kind of sounds like a tapping is starting.. maybe its something else or normal.. ) any suggestions? Is it suppose to be kind of loud?

[autoxerwgn]

Well it's hard to say if your car is sounding "normal" but I can say that I have owned a E30 318is in the past, and when the M44 was still in the ti, the 4 cylinder engines are a bit louder than their 6 cylinder counterparts. With the M44, BMW even made changes to try and quiet things down like the big foam intake tube and a bunch of foam insulation in the airbox.

[318tienthuziest2316]

i know that my car has a fairly loud tone to it, but that is on purpose. i have 2.5 inch pipe from the cat back with a high flow 2.5 in/out cat, 2.5 in/out cherry bomb glasspack, and and 2.5 in/out muffler with a tip...but that doesnt answer your question. when i bought my car before fabing the exhaust i had a "rattle" and the car was loud without the rattle, my brother has the e36 M42 318i and i noticed that his car is slighly louder than the 6 cyl brother of a 325 or 328 for that year. i personally didnt mind being able to hear my engine more than normal, it helped me to shift and tell me when the engine was laboring to much to get rid of gas mileage. i hope that answers your question

[elchicano]

I noticed my engine got a little quieter when i changed my belts.

[hotmilk400]

okay. well i probably do need to change my belts, they are cracked on the inside.. but the motor is louder then the 328.. i guess its normal then. it sounds funny, but it has a deeper sound then the 6cly 328.. it sounds like i have the bigger motor because u cant hear my friends car at all.. okay, yeah i was just wondering if everyones was like that or if it was time to part it out.. haha..

[crazy_hippo]

I think its normal for M42 to be louder than M50/52s.

Inline 4 engines are unbalanced by nature and thus there will be more vibration and noise compared to 6 potters. Only later engines have balancing shafts to make it quiet.

Unless you are hearing abnormal noises like chain slacks, spun bearings (loud ticking noise, not to be confused with lifter ticking noise), its just fine.

My 318is is probably louder than most of yours here...lol..