Is All Hope Lost for Me for Driving in 'Louder' Cars?

So I'm not sure if what I have is tinnitus or not - but I had to sell my last high - performance car (V10 engine), convertible etc because of a very strong ear / pain / flare up after I would drive it (almost no matter the distance, whether it is a few miles or much longer). This flare up would last anywhere from 1-6 hours depending on how long I drove the car. Did not matter if car was top up or top down. It is very painful and besides ear pain and mufflness would give me a long lasting headache(s). The car did have a loud factory exhaust on it. I tried driving with ear plugs on, without much relief.

So I ended up selling that car earlier this year, and went to look at another high-performance car yesterday - that definitely is not a 'quiet' car (relative to a lexus) - but nowhere near as loud as my previous one. Loved everything about it - until I took a drive and literally after a quick 5-10 minute test drive was plaqued with the same ear pain / mufflness that I experienced before. The symptoms typically wind down after several hours - but those initial hours are horrible and seem to take over my head.

Now I LOVE exotic / sports / high performance cars - and as a side effect they typically come with additional road noise, less insulation and much louder exhausts. I am also not a big 'fan' of having to drive with ear plugs - as that almost in itself 'defeats' the purpose of hearing the cars engine, exhaust etc -- sounds which I do enjoy but keep getting a very STRONG ear pain and reaction right after I'm done driving it.

Typically in normal day-to-day settings I dont have 'ear ringing' , 'mufflness' etc - but I am very hardly ever subjected to loud environments - and my daily driver is as hush as can be.

So what say you - just move on with life and forget louder / sports cars? I do not want to create 'damage' to my ears and go through these bouts of pain after driving the car - because that would also hinder any and all enjoyment that I would derive from driving one.

I am in my 30s so it took me by surprise when this first started happening as I've been around louder cars my entire life. Part of the issue might be me having a convertible in my early 20s that I drove for 4+ years.

Any suggestions are GREAT as I'm torn on purchasing this car as it is literally EXACTLY what my dream/perfect build of this car is - but in no way can I commit to a purchase that in itself would already start causing me 'pain' by using it.

 

I have only once been in a loud sport car and this was before I got T. I was only fro about 5 mins in it, my brother was little longer and he has told me that this was easily on his top 5 loudest noises he has ever heard list.

So I would say when you drive for more than 1 hour straight you should probably use earplugs just to be sure you don't get T.

But as I said I am not a car expert, I would wait for other answer.

 

@carfan13 - if you have the $$, a Tesla could be a good choice.

 

@carfan13, I was in your situation in August 2014... you can read my post from back then. I love sports car. I did get one but it was bit loud so I drove it about 2 years with ear plugs then I decided to put a resonator in the muffler. Noise level has gone down lots and most of the days I drive without ear plugs.

I have worked very hard and I always wanted to buy car which is ultra loud..I have given up on that dream but I can still buy other fancy sports car which are not that loud.
You can buy sports car and there are ways you can make it quiter and still get thrill of driving a sports car .

 

I had to put back the regular exhaust on my louder car. It was just too much

Ear plugs won't work well since it's mostly under 1000hz frequencies but good ear muffs like the pelotor x5a will work fine and are easy to put on and off and give your ears a break - assuming you have really noise damaged ears not stress related T

It may help measuring the Db inside the cars just to get a feel on how really loud it is

Also you can develop an outer ear infection if you scratch the inner ear skin with plugs and enough bacteria is in there - happened to me once ...muffs are safer

 

I doubt you get to scratch the inner ear with plugs because there's an ear drum in the way. You have to get past the ear drum first, and then get past the middle ear, before you reach the inner ear.

I think what you mean is that you can get an infection from the rubbing of the plugs on the walls of the ear canal, which can get close to the ear drum (perhaps that's the area you refer to as "inner ear"). That could potentially lead to an outer ear infection indeed.

 

@Bobby B , hi Bobby I have never heard of any getting ear infection with plugs .
It's
Important to insert plugs and remove it bit gently . I use hearos plugs and they are so soft , I just don't see how they would cause any scratch or irritation to ear canal .

 

Yeah I pushed these dirty plugs too hard back and forth and it was hot and humid

The ear canal quickly swelled and I could not hear much after a few hours

All cleared up after a week on antibiotics so no permanent issues unlike noise damage

 

I was getting ear ringing and pain about 5 minutes in if I use plugs or not. I did not really care all that much about my previous car so did not spend tons of time / experimenting into finding a better solution but scared of going into another car - where I will be trying to manipulate everything just to end up in the same place - selling it as I wont be able to take the horrible ear pain that develops after driving a 'louder' high-performance car.

You're right - earplugs don't work well as I found - and that seems to be consensus of many who tried going that route. Getting my hopes up with being comfortable in these types of vehicles - basically anything more 'extreme' then a standard / luxury car --- and its a shame as the time finally came when I worked so hard to reach the point of being able to enjoy them - only for this to get in the way! Such is the way of life I guess...

I also thought that my ears would 'acclimate' over time to the 'noise' - and it would be easier or more negligible to me over time (and the earaches / ringing / etc would go away) - but I dont think that holds true either...

 

Are there earplugs that do a better job of blocking out 'low frequency' noise in cars? I tried several and most have not mitigated the issue for me!

 

That's because low frequencies find a way around the ear plugs. There's no ear plug that will shield you perfectly from low frequency sound energy, unfortunately.

 

Reviving an old thread but I recently got myself a new performance car (Bmw M2) at start of July 2020 and 2 weeks into ownership I’ve developed tinnitus.

It’s a stock bmw M2, so its not the loudest car but not the quietest either. after some spirited driving in the first week it did give me somewhat of a headache. The car also gives me an ear fullness sensation as well which is something very foreign considering I’ve driven around 7 different cars in 20 years.

Was hoping to get some advice as I’m really not sure if it’s the car itself or possibly something else that has triggered the tinnitus. Would be great to hear from other car enthusiasts with tinnitus on how to solve things going forward. Not even two months into ownerships and I’m prepared to move onto another less performance oriented car.

 

The first thing I'd do is put some ear plugs and an apple watch on and go for a drive. Use the watch to measure the sound in the cabin while you're driving. If you don't have an apple watch, you can get a device on amazon for fairly cheap to measure the sound.

If it's too loud, either get rid of the car, or modify it. Cars like that often have a combination of a loud exhaust and fake engine noise pumped into the cabin via speakers. Get a quieter exhaust, and if it has that fake sound, see if it can be disabled. Since it's a BMW, it probably already has a good amount of sound insulation in the car, so probably not much more can be done in that aspect.

If it's a convertible, well, just get rid of it lol.

 

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