Question of the Week: What’s the Worst Warning Noise You’ve Ever Heard?—WINNER’S UPDATE You Should Know
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.
This week, we asked: What’s the worst warning noise you’ve ever heard?
Thanks to everyone who participated. Many of your nominations involved a number of cacophonous sounds following a disaster, and these certainly harkened back to last year’s spooky season QotW: scariest noise your car has ever made.
Warning buzzers from the 1970s and 1980s were quite popular in this week’s comment thread. Amid safety regulations, the unruly noises proliferated in American automobiles during the 1970s, and BaT member @CrownRegal told us a funny story about a 1973 Buick LeSabre that tried to warn him when it was already too late:
My first car in high school was a 1973 Buick LeSabre.
I was driving my girlfriend home after a date one evening when we decided a “detour” was in order. Our favorite country road was 15 minutes away in the wrong direction, and arriving late at her house was not an option. “Mr. P” was a big man of Irish/Italian descent by way of Boston – not a man you want to see standing at the front door when you drop off his daughter after curfew. We decided to park on a cul-de-sac in an abandoned subdivision about a mile from her parents’ home. The developer had gone bankrupt shortly after the streets were installed, but there were no homes to contend with. In my haste to get to the back seat, I neglected to remove the key from the ignition, and neither of us heard the police cruiser that pulled up to see what was going on. A very loud BUZZZZZZZZZ interrupted the festivities when he opened the car door. The dome light coming on was a nice touch, too. The police officer told us to get dressed and present him with some ID. I politely asked him to close the door so the buzzer and light would turn off. My girlfriend was crying as she pulled on her clothes, stating with certainty that her dad was going to kill us. Even though I had never had any interaction with law enforcement to this point, something told me we weren’t going to get in any trouble. I was right. The officer looked at our IDs, saw that we were local kids, and told us, “Next time, find a better spot.”
Congratulations, CrownRegal! Be sure to check your inbox to claim the prize.
Now, let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread:
“My old 1984 Chevy Chevette had a loud turn signal clicker.
One day I had to check a see what I was hearing under the dash and I found a louder “clicker” spacer like relay plugged into the electrical connector and the turn signal relay plugged into that!
I removed it and probably still have it in my toolbox Lol.”
“We’re reminded of that highly annoying seatbelt’s not buckled chime when we forget to buckle the rear seatbelts in my wife’s ‘23 Subaru Outback before our BlackMouthBeagleDor jumps in the backseat in a bum’s rush fashion only to set off said sensors most anytime he moves once we’re rolling.
It took us a few months to figure out it was the weight of the dog setting off those sensors, as that feature outside of the front-seats was a brand new thing for us. The noise only gets louder…”
Image: Car and Driver
Word has it that the Subaru contingent is actively conducting seances in search of successfully disabling the rear seat belt chime, but you didn’t hear it from us.
“’80s Chrysler K cars that had that EVA with that creepy monotone robotic man’s voice telling you to do things like fasten your seat belt or check your coolant level or to close your drivers door.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/1oel1n9/chrysler_and_dodge_talking_cars_19831988_eva/“
Creepy, definitely.
“My Jetta in the 70s had an alarm for low oil pressure that made a pretty urgent sound. It got my attention right after I had done an oil change in the garage and forgot to replace the drain plug.”
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations once again to our winner, CrownRegal. We’ll be back with a new question soon.
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
Last week, we asked you: What’s the dumbest warning label you’ve seen in a car?
Today we’re following up with a somewhat related question: What’s the worst warning noise you’ve ever heard?
Humans are forgetful beings: headlights left on, seatbelts unfastened, keys forgotten in the ignition, or hey, it’s time to shift, to name a few of the reminders our vehicles have given. Throughout the years, car warning noises went away from harsh buzzers and beeps and chimes to little mnemonics conjured by classically-trained composers. Though these sounds are meant to give us that useful nudge, they sometimes came off as rather annoying.
We’ll forgo any examples, and get right to it. But we’ll leave you with a fun one: this custom eight-bit rendition of “Africa” by Toto used as the open door chime on this Volvo 240.
What’s the worst warning noise you’ve ever heard?
Tell us all about it in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
“The Citroën C3 Aircross we rented in Italy had a lane departure warning siren (alert) that could give you a heart attack. Yelled at us like we had ordered a Coke Zero to go with our Foie gras”
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