The parent's point is that the engine isn't the largest contributor of noise. At low speeds the engine noise dominates, at "high" (meaning normal driving speeds) speeds the tire noise dominates.
Go listen to a highway and see
if you can hear the engines over the wooshing.
> Now you're talking about highways. People don't typically drive at highway speeds on city streets.
That was an illustrative example. Tires typically overtakes engine noise at about 25mph. That's city street speeds. (In most car-dependent cities 40-50 is also typical city street speed.) Again, this is why tires are the majority of car noise. When you hear a car pass by on a non-highway road, you're mostly hearing tires.
If wind is a serious factor either you need to publish your secret findings or link me to some research I'm not finding.
Most road noise generated from a vehicle is from tires on the ground once you get above 18 mph. Modern mufflers are remarkably effective at silencing the engine.
IIRC at highway speeds the overall shape of the car moving through the air is also a significant noise generator, but I don't remember where I read that right now.
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