My car’s loud cause I’m poor and exhaust parts are expensive. It’s stinky inside sometimes too, probably not helping with the IQ thing. Guarantee it bothers me more than it does you

Modified exhausts are way louder than simply broken ones. Maybe 1% of loud cars I see are old and beaten up. In vast majority of cases someone paid extra to install custom exhaust.

I think you must live in a nicer area than I do lol. There’s like two guys with fart cannon Subarus, probably five with straight piped pickups, and uncountable beaters with soup cans/tin foil/hose clamps/rtv/bailing wire doing their best. We have cheap power and everyone wants electric but no one can afford it. There is exactly one Nissan Leaf owned by the school district superintendent. My car was $700 including all the parts to fix it. That’s pretty typical here. Cheapest exhaust I could fit was $800 alone when I looked into it, and almost certainly more now.

Probably difference between USA and Europe. In Europe beat up cars will not pass technical checks. To have a really loud car you have to replace the exhaust for the check and then install the custom one again. Only special kind of drivers have the time and will to do it. Mostly bikers.