Contesting an exhaust ticket - possibly a bad idea?

[cobrAA]

Fack! your right Caporal. I can just say that the OEM is straight pipe and it's true. then say that my ''S'' chamber is in my resonator at the middle of my pipe ( now I just need to get one weld to my actual pipe!!!) and take pictures of my new setup. + I will have a modified custom welded silencer so they wont be able to stick their broche anymore!

[nelsonmxmarc]

L'osti de broche calisss!

[DarkCaporaL]

You guys seem lucky that they only use a stick. Over here they use a friggin snake wire that goes in pretty DEEP. lol

Just dont forget that the point of the whole argument is to show that the exhaust is not louder than OEM, so make a link between

same caracteristics as OEM <--> Not louder than OEM.

Oh and you might want to bring up the fact that you only had the car for 6 hours (not base the whole case on it, but more like your opening introduction).

Something like "well I had the car for 6 hours, which was to my knowledge supposed to meet all norms, but then I got stopped and ticketed. So I started doing research, and found out that the exhaust has all the same caracteristics as the stock. Here is the evidence...blah blah".

Maybe not in those words, but I think you get the point.

[nelsonmxmarc]

So I went to court tonight; it went something like this..



.. An "Expert" pulls me into another room to basically tell me that i'm bound to lose. Based on his evidence, seeing as he is AN EXPERT, he is going to testify against me that in any circumstance, my information is wrong and that by pleading guilty im saving face.. blah blahh..

I say, "no", i'm going to testify, knowing i have sufficient evidence to prove what he had just explained to me, incredibly wrong.

We go back to the court room where my trial proceeds. The cop who gave me the infraction actually attended, and gave his side of the story; this is how it went..

.."I could hear his car miles away, it was the loudest thing on the road. I pulled behind him and automatically knew his exhaust was illegal"
(In reality, i was doing 30 km/h in 4th due to the fact i saw him, and cruised by, after which 30 seconds passed and he pulled me over)

"I then began to inspect his exhaust - with a flashlight i could not see and restriction or baffles, meaning i could see all the way into his engine (lawl)"

"After which i took a measurement of the exhaust, and then put a measuring tape inside of the exhaust and measured how far in it would go - 120" (LAWL)"

The judge then turned to me and asked, do you have anything you'd like to ask?

"What photographic evidence do you have of the measurement being taken?"
COP : "None".. moron.
He then rebuttal's by arguing that it is not necessary to take photos of the measuring process.. The judge overuled this one pretty hard..


Next was the Muffler expert extravaganza who took the stand, he began by saying this;
All R32 exhausts are the same, and that he has studied these exhausts and knows them to be 100% non free flowing, that all baffles are to be at the rear most portion of the exhaust (in real life, the resonator) in ALL circumstances. He then spoke of the resonator, and that there is no physical way the resonator deadens noise because it is "too small" of a unit to physically deaden sound.. (LAWLL) Next he blabbed about how an exhaust only suppresses noise if the entrance pipe to the muffler core is at one side, and the exit is on the opposite side; <__(()))----> .. Like that.

Everything he said; proven wrong by basic physics. Not to mention what i had in terms of evidence..

So then it was my turn to question him;

"Have you ever seen, heard or physically verified a Skyline R32 exhaust?"

Answer; "well, i have had many people tell me...."

Judge; " that is not what he asked"

Me; "I simply want to know, have you the physical possession of THIS particular exhaust system; not necessarily here, but have you EVER see, or examined one?"

Expert - "no....."

BAM ROUND 2


...

I take the stand.. First and foremost i argue about the fact of only having the car for less than 12 hours, and that it was nearly impossible for me to have even mounted an aftermarket exhaust. Having plead ignorance to not having known, i then proceeded to acknowledge that a mere warning would have been sufficient..

I then began to express my outrage for the incident, thus dwelled into the studies i performed to outrule the evidence against me, and that in fact, the HKS hi power muffler on my car at time of infraction, and at this very moment, is characteristically the SAME as the OEM muffler. I begin by laying down the facts, implicating that their 'expert' is lying, and that the R32 exhausts are not all the same, some, free flowing vs non. I further added that, i have evidence to back up my claim, that the OEM and HKS exhaust mimick eachother directly, in and that they are identical in terms of noise levels, restriction and emission (as an added bonus..).

This is where i got sh*t on..

"OBJECTION"...

"You have no expert present, or witness present to back up any of the claims you're making. You cannot protest against an 'expert' without an expert present."..


Apparently we're no longer allowed to testify on our own behalf? I was EFFIN outraged..

I basically lashed out and stated that my rights were being violated. That i couldn't testify on my own behalf and that my evidence and studies to prove the similar characteristics of the two were invalid.

They SHOT ME DOWN! SO HARD.. So, they resorted to the last thing they had.. Postponement of the hearing until May or further notice... Morons

[cobrAA]

do you had pictures? Nissan owner guide printed? or just your voice?

[nelsonmxmarc]

I made a 20 page proposal - Pictures of the OEM exhaust, oem exhaust measurements, measurements of MY exhaust off and on the car, with the resonator, pictures of the isnide of the resonator. Cross sectional diagrams of the muffler system. The owners manual references and information, with diagrams and pictures of R32 RB20 muffler, the WORKS.

The judge had no interest in seeing it unless i had an appointed 'expert' there as a witness.

[cobrAA]

Wow...Speechless.

Let me know what happens next man!

Just ask any mechanic friend to come to court and call it an expert!

[nelsonmxmarc]

Precisely what im doing. Josh is a studying physicist who's going to expand on the issue of baffles and noise reduction, while Phil, whos a licenced and professional mechanic, is going to go over the mechanical break down of the exhaust in terms of legality and rights. And i'm going to expand on how "changing the noise level, to a noise level that is non existant, is completely contradictory to the cause" .. And also tie the two together to provide the basis for how both OEM and HKS exhausts are characteristically the same, physically, and in terms of noise.

[DarkCaporaL]

Frist part seemed to went well. However, I wouldn't of said that the "expert" was lying and didn't know what he was talking about though. I think that's why they shot you down.

I would of just focused on showing the evidence you had about the exhausts caracteristics.

Well, next time, like you guys said, just ask a buddy mechanic that worked on skylines to come, like a certified guy from autoworx or something.

[nelsonmxmarc]

It was more or less, what he proposed about the exhaust was innacurate in terms of what I was able to uncover, as opposed to "he's blatantly lying". As a matter of fact, the judge pointed it out and even asked, "so what you're saying is he's lying" at which point I couldn't really justify saying sort of, only because he claimed to know the r32 exhaust 100% while in fact the data he provided is far from the truth based on my evidence..

Furthermore, I was unable to develop any argument whatsoever and in any attempt to provide documentation I was objected against only because they required someone other than myself to attest to what I'm sayin goes against THEIR expert. I'm assuming because he's some hired tool by the municipality, that they own his rights at which I'm then fighting the whole and not the person perse.

Real epic fail on their part. The only info he can retrieve for the next hearing will be entirely contradictory to what he presented. And I'll present further information to prove the officer was lying about the measurement of my exhaust. The best is that on one chart, he fills in integers as measurements, then in the written attestation, claims everything on approximation. Lol

"about this long, about that long"

and so I asked, if you had the proper measuring device why are these approximate values.

Not having a complete measurement of my system at hand I could provide evidence to falsify his claim at 120", but i will raise the issue next time..

[DarkCaporaL]

I would make sure to write down EVERY detail you can remember from the proceeding, and keep it written down, so that during the next proceeding, if they somehow change their story, you can call them on it.

I'm not saying to be like "dude, your lying", just question them more like "you just said that blah blah, but if I recall from my records of the previous proceeding you actually said blah blah, is that correct or am I misinterpreting what you previously said?" This would raise doubt in the judge's mind even more, which is a good thing for you.

The first part of the proceeding was very well played out, you discredited the officers testimony / verifications, and also the experts testimony, which is awesome. Just sucks that they slapped you on your own testimony. I'm guessing the only reason they did this is because you crushed them so much during their testimony. You dont usually see that.

[Shadao]

the 120" thing bugs me

i find it hard to believe that our exhausts are 10ft long...lol

[superdaveosbourne]

I liked the statement of being able to see all the way into the engine through the exhaust... Maybe he should share his knowledge on how to bend his vision around corners...

[cortexx]

I liked the statement of being able to see all the way into the engine through the exhaust... Maybe he should share his knowledge on how to bend his vision around corners...

ROFL!!!! would be an awesome way to inspect the state of the turbos without pulling anything apart