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The truth is that cars are subjected to a clean room test for VOCs. The automakers can get VOCs to an undetectable level, but purposefully keep them just under
by jcampbell1 6y ago
The truth is that cars are subjected to a clean room test for VOCs. The automakers can get VOCs to an undetectable level, but purposefully keep them just under the allowed threshold to create new car smell. Adjusting the amount of VOCs was often done by tweaking the formula for headliner adhesive. I know this sounds like a conspiracy, but people have a strong preference for new car smell. You can see that headliners have their own category for how much offgassing is allowed:
https://www.issa.com/wp-content/uploads/VOC_Limits_Summary_19.pdf https://www.issa.com/wp-content/uploads/VOC_Limits_Summary_1...
It is trivial to make a headliner that doesn’t offgas. With the stroke of a pen, the government could get rid of new car smell across the industry.
- DoingIsLearning 6y agoI suppose it's the same as car door design. Car doors could absolutely be designed to be shut in near silence, but people actually value the car door slamming noise as sign of quality/robustness. Most people would probably assume their car door is not properly closed if it was made to be more silent.
- henearkr 6y agoI think we agree it's stupid. The amount of accidents because of fingers caught in slammed car doors is ridiculous...
- mhh__ 6y agoThe sound of the door is more about the rhythm than the actual sound as per se - obviously this is difficult to convey via text, but a bad door is chaotic whereas the distinctive sound of an expensive car door shutting is effectively a sign that it was designed to sound exactly like xyz.