So my STOCK Civic is lower than the legal limit in Texas.
 

I like the look of a lowered car, and like that it also has a side benefit of lowering drag.

So I looked up the laws on theTexas DPS site :

Head Lamps
Every head lamp upon every motor vehicle, including motorcycles, motor-driven cycles and mopeds, shall be located at a height of not more than 54 inches nor less than 24 inches to be measured from the center of such lamp to the level ground upon which the vehicle stands when such vehicle is without a load.

Guess where my STOCK headlamps are located ?

22" at the center to the ground, and "20 to the center of the filliment .


And the 54 " light rule ? Every.Single. Day I see truck after truck at my job that completely sails over that in height.

This is Texas.
Odds are I would get a ticket for having my car at stock height if rhe officer felt like it.

Should I risk lowering the car ?

Pop-ups are for sissys. Get some Chevy/Buick teardrops.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...headlights.jpg

I remember reading something about the Civic headlight height many years ago. It was lower than allowed, but I thought Honda got the law changed or something. I can't find anything on Google. Maybe it was in a car magazine.

If the car is stock, I wouldn't worry about it. What are they gonna do, force you to redesign your car?

If the officer is being a dick, they impound it @a ridiculously expensive fee schedule.

Ask me how I know this.....

My car was stolen, and then impounded.
By the time that I found it, it had racked up a $400 bill.
I had my car destroyed AND it cost me $400 to get it back.

I was never informed that the car had been found, and I had to search for it by calling all the impound yards.


Just to be clear, I'm not worried about getting ticketed for having my car as it was stock.
I was just posting about how absurd the laws are.

I would like to lower the car still.

[hint] Is the windshield header less than 54"? [/hint]

The purpose of the lowered law (headlight centerline to ground min.) is to prevent blinding oncoming cars. Headlights are to be aimed down a certain amount of inches at a fixed distance so the focal point of the light is on the road not straight ahead. On a lowered car the headlights are not aimed down but almost level so they can see down the road, so anytime the car is going up even a slight grade, they are blinding oncoming cars with the focal point of the light. You will notice this driving. Almost all lowered cars in the opposite direction seem to be blinding you unless they are going downhill. It also seems that most lowered cars have obnoxiously bright headlights and foglights.

there is also the law that the rim of the wheel has to be below the lowest point of the body, so the car can steer if there is a flat. Common sense, but I am always amazed at how many lowered tuner cars I see that looks like they violate this rule.

The setup at Permalink#2 had sealed beam headlights at eye level. One could use that old yellow beam like a laser pointer on high.

Anything above eye level would be better on low beam.

Apparently in California.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/hyunda...st-california/

Texas DPS headlight height regulation
 

It looks like the reg. was published in September, 1995.
Any car existing in the public domain prior to that date would be 'grandfathered in', and exempt.

Who knows... Maybe modding the hood to fit a pair of sealed beams in a way similar to the Austin-Healey Sprite? :D

Unfortunately, stuff like that is par for the course in California.

That guy was running the car in a track or off road mode. So it wouldn't have passed federal let alone state and local noise limits. He basically abused the privilege and this is how they end up banning such modes for everyone.

The confusion was wrong for a judge to try and make him permanently remove such a device rather than just give him a fine and tell him not to do it again. Still I'd rather this one guy have to remove it from his car because he can't follow the rules, than have it banned for everyone.

I'm skeptical this is a valid interpretation. The "N" button is prominently on the steering wheel, and I had a quick look at Hyundai's site and at the owner's manual. Both describe pressing "N" as just one of several driving modes, to be used to enhance fun and performance similarly to how "eco" enhances economy.

The vehicle may not have met California regulations from the factory, but this issue was larger than a single owner. I see it as an issue of California certifying a car to be used on its roads, with a manufacturer setting advertised to be used on roads, and for it to be illegal based on California's laws.

I once sent an email to the Texan DOT about studded snow tires, since I was driving from Colorado and New Mexico and would only be driving on a few miles of Texan highway. But I was told I could get pulled over and fined. So I put on the all-season tires and sure enough, went through a terrible blizzard on the way down and another on the way back. And I mean for half the state of NM and half the state of CO, trudging through deep snow and over icy roads. I think the next time I look for snow tires I'm going to try to get studless.

I got pulled over in the stock 1984 VW diesel for not having enough power. 25 in a 55mph zone, fully loaded going up 6 or 7% grade. The officer was nice though, just curious why I was billowing so much smoke and not going any faster.

The car was tested in various modes and both the sport and the N mode put the car over the 95 decibel limit. That makes those track or off road modes only. The 95 limit is not just California, it's the limit here in free Montana as well. Nobody wants the peace and quite shattered by excessive, pointless noise whatever it's from. So leave the load exhaust for the track or at least some backroad and not neighborhoods like this kid.

Used to be just "lake pipes" named for the dry lake high speed competition. But if you un capped the lake pipes on the street you get a ticket. The N mode is basically like factory installed lake pipes. It makes a legal street car illegal at the push of a button. Exhaust cutouts used to be legal too, but too many people used them on the street and got them 100% banned most places even if closed and using the factory mufflers.

While I'm in agreement that loud cars are obnoxious, these "offroad" modes don't seem to be advertised, or even stated as being offroad modes, anywhere obvious in what's available to consumers. As such, how is a consumer supposed to know that if they press the prominent button on the steering wheel, their car will suddenly never be allowed on a public road again? That is essentially what happened in this case, because once that button was pressed, and a police officer noticed, there was no fix, and no possible resolution.

I wonder if the new Toyota Corolla GR will have a similar issue as its exhaust has a solenoid actuated valve to bypass a major part of the muffler. I'm not sure what makes it open though, but IIRC it's when you floor it.

Most likely it will be locked or unlocked on-demand, yet I'm not so sure.

I found this article:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/45026/...-exhaust-pipes

It's nothing new

makes it open
 

The modern Corvettes run on four cylinders, with half the exhaust closed off until you spank the go-pedal. Then the computer picks up on the prompt, and everything reconfigures for high-output, low restriction.
Some motorcycles have done this for decades.

I don't remember this, as EFI took way longer to catch up on motorcycles than on cars.