What Are The Worst Car Noises?

Menu Home » What Are The Worst Car Noises? What Are The Worst Car Noises? By The Bishop October 2, 2026 8:26 am 158 Comments My guess is that you could listen to the sound of a seventies Ferrari or Lamborghini V-12 ripping through the gears for hours. If not, the low burble of a muscle car might be your thing, or the high-pitched scream of a twin-cam four in an Alfa or Honda. Forget turning on the radio; that’s music to any enthusiast’s ears.

That said, there are automotive sounds you’re probably less pleased to hear. Telltale signs of impending mechanical doom certainly make the bad-sounds list, but I’m talking about skin-crawl-inducing noises that are self-imposed by the car’s engineers or owners, or sounds that are just normal for cars.

When I hear an eighties Mercedes-Benz diesel idling, it sounds to me as if it’s about to eat itself at any moment. It’s just awful, even though I know it’s normal and the thing will keep making that racket for fifty more years and 500,000 additional miles even if you run it on the dregs from a fondue pot.

Speaking of Mercedes, I once owned a 1990 W126 420SEL which had a seatbelt/key/headlight buzzer that was pure torture to listen to.

It was the identical part and sounded exactly like the one in this same-era R107 SL:

I just found a video of the game Operation, and the buzzer in that thing was less bothersome. Seriously, the Benz buzzer is identical to this sound:

Adjusted for inflation, this was a $198,000 new car, yet Mercedes put in what seems like the cheapest buzzer Radio Shack sold. Even an $8,000 new Chevy had chimes at the time.

Also, one of our cars (probably that Saab) had a power window that lowered only a few seconds when you pressed down on the button and then stopped.

It made exactly the sound of the guitar in the chorus of Led Zepplin’s Whole Lotta Love:

Oh, I know the sound of brakes on rusty rotors goes away in less than a block, but BOY do I hate that sound. The sound of fingernails on a chalkboard is an ocean sound generator by comparison. Yeesh!

How about you? What car noises do you absolutely hate? Also, if you have a car with one of those exhausts that make loud backfiring sounds on deceleration, you DO NOT sound cool, OK?

Top graphic image: Beverly Hills Car Club

That layered impact bang, folding metal crumple, tearing metal screech, shattering glass tinkle, then sudden dark silence.

0 Member CK 8 hours ago Brake squeal from racing pads, it’s the worst. Driving to / from track or AutoX, everyone at the stoplights stares and tells you that you need new brakes.

0 Member CR-V Oswald 9 hours ago > I once owned a 1990 W126 420SEL

Very nice. And I can confirm the seatbelt “chime” is, shall we say, disharmonious.

I will submit the worst car noise is the mystery rattle all cars develop at some point in their lives. Some are born with it, some grow it organically over the years. Is it something in the cup holder? The door cards? A loose clip somewhere? A window regulator cable? All the old expired insurance cards in the glove box? It’s unknowable, perennial, and nearly unbearable if you have sensitive hearing or misophonia.

I can’t diagnose it in my 2013, and I won’t even try to diagnose it in the old Mercedes because everything rattles in them. But I’ve been tempted to sell the (perfect, low-miles, no-telemetry, all-buttons, no-touch-screen) 2013 and get something that hasn’t started rattling yet.

1 Member Robyn Graves 10 hours ago Putting aside indicators of immenent mechanical failure, the sound of Nissan’s V6 engines, the VQ models from the 350Z onwards, are just atrocious to me. I’ve heard them completely stock, tricked out with full exhaust systems, and everything in between, and not once have I ever thought they sounded good. It’s like you took a sample of the sound produced by an old man trying to get out of a beanbag chair and stretched it out for an unbearable amount of time every time I hear one go by.

0 Casey Blake 11 hours ago In college I had a toilet wherein if you raised the lid and dropped it, it made a percussive sound just like the opening synth drum in Bel Biv Devoe’s 1990 hit “Poison”.

1 Member Dodsworth 13 hours ago The sound of a starter engaging a flywheel with missing teeth. The sound of silence when your battery decides it doesn’t want to participate any longer.

0 Member Urban Runabout 14 hours ago The very worst car noise is when your gasoline car very suddenly starts sounding like a diesel – and then the motor starts clattering, becoming louder and louder and the car is jerking while clouds of smoke comes out from under the hood – then the entire thing comes to a sudden and complete halt.

Congrats – you have just locked up your motor.

0 Member G. K. 14 hours ago To me, the absolute worst car noise is when you crank the key and hear the starter engaging, but the engine doesn’t turn, or there’s a thunk…suggesting the engine is locked up.

0 Epochellipse 15 hours ago Ever tried to start an older car when it was already running?

4 Member Dodsworth 13 hours ago Reply to  Epochellipse Once, when I was a teenager. One of the few times I feared Dad was going to punch me in the face.

0 Member CR-V Oswald 9 hours ago Reply to  Epochellipse Shifting into neutral (instead of drive) because you thought you had downshifted, and hitting the gas hard, is also an ugly sound.

0 Member Y2Keith 15 hours ago Definitely with you on the rusty rotors.

Squealing belts and that sound made by power steering systems in older cars when you crank the wheel all the way to the stops.

The sound a kicked-up stone makes when it thwacks your windshield or the roof of your car.

Any interior rattle that occurs inconsistently and is impossible to duplicate so you can’t track down what’s causing it.

0 Dave Larkman 16 hours ago I had an S1 Elise, a car with a chassis made from hollow aluminium extrusions bonded together.

Someone in its long and confusing history had dropped a screw into the dash extrusion. It ran all the way across the car, and every alternate turn would be accompanied by a scrapey noise followed by a ting, as the screw had the time of its life sliding from one side of the car to the other.

I eventually got it by making a ball of gaffer tape sticky side out, and left it behind where the stereo should have been, then thrashed it around some corners.

I estimate that to be just 2% as annoying as the “you’re breaking the speed limit” bong in the development Emira that would see a 15mph sign in the building site next to my 70mph drive to work. That bastard could not be turned off.

0 Hoonicus 15 hours ago Reply to  Dave Larkman Some years ago I read about a Boeing helicopter crash. The rotor shaft had sheared. It was caused by a wayward bolt or nut slowly milling the inside of the shaft tube.

0 Member Balloondoggle 16 hours ago “Cha-CHING!”

1 Member Kevin Rhodes 16 hours ago The horrible noises that GM pushrod V6s made back in the day. Actually, pretty much all GM motors sounded like ass back in the day.

0 Member Automated Manual 17 hours ago On a heavy truck diesel that loud bang when the turbocharger comes apart, followed immediately by the loss of about 60% of the engine’s power

0 Hoonicus 17 hours ago The classic VW exhaust chirp. Even before I knew overly restrictive exhaust mufflers and pipes caused it, it registered as bad. Like metal on metal that lost its lube.

1 Member Manwich Sandwich 17 hours ago Aside from what was already mentioned, that wheezy sound an engine makes when it has an alternator on the way out…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpQ6XI8e0LQ

Also as annoying… that ‘worn out wheel bearing’ sound that can come from a worn out wheel bearing, but it can also come from tires as they get worn out. Some tires are more prone to ‘cupping’ than others.

I’m actually getting my tires replaced today and I’m looking forward to that sound being gone. The tires being replaced came with my C-Max. They are now 6 years old, have around 100,000km on them, are starting to dry rot and have issues with cupping. They’re not too bad around town, but on the highway, they’re quite noisy… especially after they’ve warmed up.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L8srHHihh_s

0 Joe The Drummer 17 hours ago The sound made by my 1977 Dodge Tradesman van as it ate its own rear differential at midnight in Van Horn, Texas, precisely at the halfway point of a cross-country move from Arizona to Florida. Absolutely the ugliest noise ever made by any vehicle I have ever owned, including the Chevy Celebrity that grenaded the motor that one time. It sounded like metal chewing up metal, and crapping out metal.

0 Member Drive By Commenter 17 hours ago The popping of my shock absorbing hitch ball if I forgot to grease it. Also the low bass drum sounds my Seadoo trailer makes in the car when first starting out. At highway speeds it’s fine.