So, I have once again been for a short weekend trip to Germany. love the Autobahn

Noticed that around 210 km/h approx 136 mph and above I have quite a lot of what I perceive to be tyre or wind noise., more than what I am used to at these speeds... Anyone else noticed this?

Note. 20" premium summer Pirelli tyres are new. Photo not mine...

 

HAhahahahah , love it and only wish I could tell you if I have that problem. Great

 

I noticed a fair amount of noise at autobahn speeds; you can hear it here:

 

Ngarara wins today's Big Brass Ones prize and 100 internets.

 

Nah - relatively new 'bahn so flat & straight, early Saturday morning so not much traffic, good visibility (once we got through some fog) and a car which was rock steady even at max v. Was fun leaving a 996 Carrera 4S in my wake; he ran out of puff in the mid-170 region. And was a surprise, because I'm supposed to be limited to 174...

On the other hand, I don't plan to do it again.

 

You guys are funny, having grown up in Germany and lived there for 28 years.... in almost all cars you will only hear the wind noise at top speed.

Most everybody who has a "sporty" car starting at a GTI level will drive their car redline to redline all the time when there is no speed limit on the Autobahn. There is only about 10-12% of the Autobahn left without restrictions.

Last May I rented an XF diesel in Germany and hit 235km/h on my way back to Frankfurt Rhein/Main airport I was able to maintain that speed for maybe 20-30 minutes the rest was interrupted by traffic and speed limits and the diesel takes forever to get from 200kmh (about120mph) to get back up to 235kmh. The result was we lost the key hole cap on the driver side door .... but even with the diesel all you could hear was the wind noise. If you have wide tires you will also hear those but they would have to be bigger than say 280-290 to make their presence heard inside the cabin.

The only time you would hear an engine inside is really if you have a mid engine car or a coupe that includes the engine, like a 911. A car that encloses the engine within the cabin roof line. You can hear the exhaust of course depending how open and loud that is.

Here is a Bugatti which has the massive engine inside the cabin and even here at high speeds all you can hear is the wind ... the wind noise will be dominating, some more some less of course....


I have done 300kmh (186mph) in a 911 and it is no fun, the car is very difficult to control at that speed and very nervous. If you run into an open AMG or M5 etc (unlimited) you can see them hang at that speed steering with one hand and just fingers while talking to their kids in the back while you use both hands solidly on the steering wheel, constantly correcting in a 911. I am pretty sure the 911 driver just had enough and let go, even my Cayman was gear limited to 175mph and 911s have longer gearing in the 6th to go passed that. All Porsches "sports cars" are not electronically limited but just gear and drag limited.

 

Also look at this standing mile Pontiac GTO with several mods and a loud Corsa exhaust.


I can barely make it out but I think his tach tops out at 200mph and he does not reach 160mph on the standing mile. His car is certainly loud and all you can hear is the exhaust but as he passes the 140mph mark the wind noise is taking over ... despite his engine revving high with a loud, open exhaust on a V8.

I did about 175mph on that same strip in a 911 turbo and it was all wind noise nothing else to hear.

 

I have 295 tyres, and I'm not sure how much of the 'wind' noise is tyres. Could definitely hear the exhaust, though (not so clear on the video).

I know, Schwabe, we auslanders think the autobahn is a big thing - to Germans, it's just a motorway. But when you have a car that can do 300 km/h, and most other people are doing 200, things can get 'interesting' very quickly. Especially when the Dutch are about; they don't have the German sense of situational awareness when it comes to fast-moving traffic.

 

No question when you do 120mph and suddenly a truck pulls out in front of you at 62mph to pass a bus doing 61mph it is as if a wall popped up in front of you while you were going at 58mph ... and you get into a bit of a frenzy ...

the puzzled faces of the well revered Dutch vacationer crossing Germania with their trailer after they get the single finger salut when they pass a fellow Nederlander with yet another trailer and missed the missile in the rear view mirror approaching at 3000kmh.

If you drive fast in Germany, every single driver does cycles all three mirrors about every 4-5 seconds, no joke, you do not look at anything else. You cannot even look at the tach. You can hear on many Autobahn videos the driver ask the passenger "how fast are we going now" because you cannot look down.

However people from countries in which there is a 120-130kmh speed limit, are used to never look in the mirror because nobody ever comes up "much" faster than they are driving. They are shocked when they get the high beams because the last time they looked there was nothing all the way to the horizon.

Germans usually adhere to driving on the most right lane (which is the also the law) because even you are going flat out in your GTI you never know what is coming up behind you a lot faster than you are going... of course you have those who think you "should" not go that fast and block the left lane but that is whole 'nother story about Linksfahrer and how to deal with those ....


driving in their blind spot, they know you are there but cannot see you ... passing on the right is illegal in Germany and yes there are tons of videos on youtube about Linksfahrer ... we hate them THAT much ....

 

Yeah, and it's even more fun when they pull out at 60 mph and you're coming up at 180. Fortunately, the XKR has good brakes. I didn't encounter any Linksfahrers - would probably just have blown past on the right (freche Ausländer).