Many consider the Lexus LFA the greatest-sounding car of all time. Its 4.8-liter naturally aspirated V-10 is paired to an exhaust made by Yamaha, specially tuned to evoke the sounds of V-10-powered Formula 1 cars. Changing it in any way would only make it worse, as this video comparison shows. 

Supercar Ron on YouTube decided to modify his red LFA with a set of lovely BBS wheels and an unnamed aftermarket exhaust. While we don’t mind the wheels, it’s clear removing Yamaha’s expertly tuned pipes was a mistake. A dyno video published to TikTok with back-to-back clips of the stock exhaust and the modified exhaust is all you need to see.

 

While the aftermarket exhaust is certainly louder, we wouldn’t say it’s any better. In fact, it sounds a lot raspier and less sophisticated than Yamaha’s setup. If we had to choose, we’d go for the stock pipes every time.

“It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made with a car,” Ron said in a video published to YouTube.

When Ron first published video of the LFA’s modified exhaust sound to Instagram, he was inundated with comments trashing the decision. “Absolutely ruined the sound,” one comment reads. “Stock exhaust sounds much better,” says another. “The one car that doesn’t need to be straight-piped,” reads another.

“Turns out when Toyota spends millions of dollars tuning an exhaust to perfection with Yamaha engineers, its not good to get rid of the work that was done to make that happen,” he said in the video’s description. “I have since made amends with the car community and reverting the car back to its stock exhaust.”

Thank goodness.