---
title: "Think Your Car Door Sounds Nice and Solid When It Slams? It’s Faked"
description: "Why changes in safety standards resulted in sound engineers lying to you."
date: "2020-08-19"
modified: "2020-08-19"
authors:
  - name: "Stef Schrader"
    job_title: "Contributor"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/stef-schrader"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/35871/think-your-car-door-sounds-nice-and-solid-when-it-slams-its-faked"
categories:
  - "Culture"
  - "News"
---

# Think Your Car Door Sounds Nice and Solid When It Slams? It’s Faked

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/2020/08/doortrix_970x546.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

The sound of your car's door slamming is a lie. A trick. A clever ruse. And it's all thanks to the engineers who designed your car.

Your car doors are carefully designed to sound sturdier than they really are, reports [*Mel*](<https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/car-door-sound-engineering>). You can thank psychoacoustics for this practice, which is the study of the mind's perception of different sounds.

https://youtube.com/embed/MJesIniGVjM

Here's an example: Ever experience the satisfying thud of closing a 1980s BMW door? There's a heft to those doors that makes them feel solid. Substantial. You're safe here. This car is well-made.

Yet we all know that even high-end cars have lost a lot of that extra heft, largely thanks to advances in automotive safety, as [*AutoBead*](<https://www.autobead.co.uk/pages/about-us>) co-founder James Ford explained to *Mel:*

*Engineering the sound of a car door closing can be traced back to changes in the car manufacturing industry 10 years ago. Increased safety measures meant that car manufacturers had to add extra bars to the side doors to meet safety regulations, which subsequently impacted the sound that doors made while closing*

So, while your car may be safer now, automakers know that you associate that meaty clunk with quality.

[Less expensive](<https://www.thedrive.com/article/6398/what-do-you-really-get-in-the-nations-three-cheapest-cars>) cars have emulated this, too. The author of the *Mel* story talks about how satisfying the sound of his 2012 Nissan Sentra's door slamming is, and a Sentra is about as far from a luxury car as you can get without buying something like a [Mitsubishi Mirage](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/30144/the-extremely-cheap-mitsubishi-mirage-is-headed-towards-its-best-sales-year>) or a [Kandi Coco](<https://www.thedrive.com/news/35742/a-clear-florida-title-is-your-cue-to-give-this-weird-tiny-ev-an-absurd-engine-swap>).

“One of the first things a prospective car buyer encounters is the sound of the driver’s door closing — often inside the showroom. This sound gives a subconscious sense of value,” music professor Jonathan Berger explained to *Mel*.

Berger, who works in the Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, has even tested out this theory by making students in his psychoacoustics class rank different car doors from most to least expensive based solely on the sound of their doors. Respondents claimed that the low, soft thuds with an after-sound of some sort (the example Berger gave with a "ker-chunk") came off as the fanciest. A Purdue University [survey](<https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/07d9/5703671adb1b0567407e8397abe00b099d5a.pdf?_ga=2.54523752.1198030643.1596595695-1409152537.1596595695>) from 2016 cited by *Mel* came to a similar conclusion: tinny-sounding door slams came off as cheap and flimsy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDyp-wr6Lv0

Car companies know that perception matters when it comes to selling their cars, too. Ford themselves admitted that "engineering the right sound of a car door closing was their first opportunity to make buyers feel the car’s quality, craftsmanship and safety and to justify a premium price tag," as *quoted* by Mel. Lexus even made a whole [video](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDyp-wr6Lv0>) about their quest for the perfect close. Mercedes' own manager of sound quality and design Tobias Beitz also told [*Bloomberg*](<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-05/mercedes-doors-have-a-signature-sound-here-s-how>) that "the optimal acoustic design of the door structure, latches and seals" was what signified the quality buyers wanted—not weight. Even Opel—purveyor of [fine](<https://jalopnik.com/germans-have-a-whole-genre-of-jokes-about-one-particula-1835008795>) reasonably-priced European cars—spends a good amount of time analyzing the sounds that different parts (including doors) make before a car goes into production, as shown in the [*Deutsche Welle*](<https://youtu.be/MJesIniGVjM>) video above.

This is why each brand staffs sound engineers like Beitz to make sure the car door has the right combination of foam, mats and other soft components to make you think you're feeling an eighties 3 Series door, even when you've got a modern Sentra. Even the locking mechanism is specifically tinkered with to make the right click.

So, we hate to break it to you—your doors are one big lie.

*Got a tip? Send us a note: tips@thedrive.com*

## Author
Stef Schrader is a former senior staff writer for The Drive. She started writing about cars in 2013 after meeting Jalopnik's editor-in-chief at a race track, where Stef can be found at every available opportunity.

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefschrader/>)  
[Instagram](<https://instagram.com/stefthepef>)  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/stefthepef>)