The DVSA is continuing its crackdown on so-called ‘pop-bang’ exhausts as a garage in Slough has been forced to pay a four-figure sum after installing illegal car modifications that “create excessively loud sounds”.
SVG Motorsport Ltd has been ordered to pay a £1,600 fine after an undercover investigation by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority and Thames Valley Police found the garage offering illegal modification services. Reading Magistrates Court heard that SVG removed a car’s catalytic converter and remapped the ECU in order to make it louder.
The firm didn’t notify the undercover team that these modifications would invalidate the vehicle’s MoT certificate; removing the catalytic converter vastly increases emissions and thus makes a vehicle illegal to drive on the road. With this in mind, the DVSA says anyone found selling these modifications could be in line for an unlimited fine.
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Head of the DVSA market surveillance unit Chris Dormand, said the agency “works tirelessly to stop pop-and-bang modifications – removing antisocial noise and excess pollution from our streets”.
“There is no excuse for garages who make these illegal alterations,” Dormand continued. [The] DVSA will target any businesses who flout the law – as demonstrated by the success of this prosecution.”
Pop-bang exhausts and loud engines altogether have long been the subject of discourse between local residents, the police and car enthusiasts; similar cases have occurred in recent years, such as when the Kirklees-based AET Motorsport was fined more than £7,000 by magistrates for fitting “unsuitable parts to a vehicle which would make it illegal to be used on the road”. Police forces have recently gone as far as installing ‘noise cameras’ in places like Devon and Norfolk in order to dissuade and catch those revving loud engines.
Yet while many aftermarket pop-bang systems can be deemed illegal if certain necessary parts (such as the catalytic converter) are removed and noise goes beyond the legal limit of 75dB for cars built post-2016, many manufacturers do offer legal exhausts of this kind from the factory.
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