If there’s one thing car enthusiasts want from their vehicles, it’s more. They’ll dump tons of money into power-boosting parts, suspension upgrades, premium tires, engine tuning, and a whole slew of other fun stuff to make their cars faster off the line and quicker through turns. But for this Autopian Asks, I want to know about the other end of the spectrum: How much money have you spent on optional, not-repair-related stuff that doesn’t make your car perform better?
A funny thing about me is that, despite spending oodles of money on buying, storing, and fixing so many cars, I don’t actually like spending money on modifying them. Sure, I’ll happily blow $17,000 on a brand-new Smart, but then I’ll fight myself about spending $500 on a modification. That’s why most of my cars are almost completely stock. I want to put a set of VW GTI wheels on my Jetta SportWagen, but can’t convince myself to spend the money. I even fight myself over window tint, even though I hate driving around in cars that feel like fishbowls in the summer. So, it’s usually a pretty big deal for me when I do spend a lot of money on a modification, especially if it’s purely cosmetic.
Thanks to folks like the Bishop and Thomas Hundal, I’m deeper into BMWs than I have ever been before, and that’s dangerous. Thomas introduced me to a shop called ID4Motion, and all they do is make plug-and-play digital clusters for old BMWs and cars like the Honda S2000. ID4Motion’s instrument clusters were utterly amazing, and really help modernize a BMW E46 or similar.
I’m a huge fan of BMW’s clusters from the 2000s, but I still wanted to see what one of the nifty ID4Motion clusters would look like in my E61 wagon. Then I saw the price. I couldn’t believe people were blowing $1,000 just to have a digital instrument cluster. I’ve had the ID4Motion tab open on my phone for maybe two years now, thinking maybe one day I’ll spend the cash … but I just couldn’t justify it.
ID4Motion recently closed its doors, which made me sad. Thomas then informed me that sellers in China have been slinging their own digital clusters for years, and theirs were more like $300 or $400, not $1,000. So, I bought one.
I still feel weird about spending $400 on a purely cosmetic mod, but I did it. I’m also going to spend another $160 or so to give my E61 an Android Auto system. When I’m done, the E61 will feel at least a decade newer. Yes, I know I said I was going to sell that car, but every time I drive it, I fall in love again, so here we are. You’ll get to read about these things at a later date!
Am I the only one who feels this way? What’s the most you’ve spent on car mods that didn’t do a thing for performance?
Top graphic image: Mercedes Streeter
Never ask an old skool trucker how much he spends on chicken lights and chrome
I bought an Autopian license plate frame for the cost of my membership. I think it looks good on my yellow pickup.
Angling for COTD, are we?
Maybe…
I can’t quite remember how much they ran me, but the Enkei Compe wheels on my Bug replaced some dated EMPI Riveras, likely for no performance benefits other than they’re just better quality.
I bought a friends unused sub box for about $100(dual 14″, if I’m remembering right.) Never bothered to install it. Just rattled around in my trunk for about 9 months. I don’t know. It was 1998, it was a different time.
Retrofitting Comfort Seats instead of the regular full electric seats in a F10 BMW.
Boy, all that adjustments make that shit really confortable. A shame I could not find one fully spec’d set (massage + heat + ventilation), but still much better than the already good regular ones.
And Mercedes, one cool thing to do in you 5er is to retrofit the CIC system replacing the CCC. I believe is possible to retrofit a NBT system, but not so sure.
Not necessarily worth, but really fun for sure.
It is about $2000 for a tonneau cover for a pickup. It was the roll-up type made from aluminum slats. I needed something modestly secure and didn’t want the folding type that blocks the rear window when opened up.
The two things I’ve historically dumped the most money into that didn’t improve performance:
-Wheels/tires (always bought for aesthetics, never performance)
-Stereo systems. My first car had a deck, all new speakers, and two 12″ subs 6 months before I even had it on the road.
It depends on the definition of performance. Do skid plates, rock rails, winch bumpers roof racks count as performance if all the factory stuff got torn off on rocks? The only cosmetic or not functional stuff would be some $5 stickers. The dog net, jerry can holder and the other above stuff is “performance” if it allows me to play in the off road park or moab trail without even more damage.
Around 2005 I bought a very nice specimen of a 1992 Plymouth Voyager base model with a very rare 5-speed stick shift. By that time, the junkyards were full of second-generation Chrysler minivans with failed UltraDrive transmissions, and almost everything from the high-trim Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country was a direct bolt- or plug-in.
I can’t remember everything I installed in that Voyager, but the full gauge instrument cluster with tachometer was a biggie, and leather front seats, and privacy glass were also swapped in. The van cost me $850, and I bet I spent $4-500 upgrading it to T&C spec, but it was money well spent.
$4 on a Spaceman Spiff sticker for my Toyota back in 93
I can’t think of a better way to spend $4. I know Watterson never wanted Calvin & Hobbes to be used for merchandise, but Spaceman Spiff is more of a deep cut for the true fans. And certainly far more respectful than Calvin pissing on whatever brand gives you an inferiority complex…
I really wanted a Tracer Bullet one, but I never saw one for sale. And yeah, if anyone saw that and knew what it was, it brought an immediate smile to their face. I know he never wanted anything like that to be sold, but they joy that guy brought the world was hard to contain
“I’ve got five slugs in me. One is lead, the rest are bourbon…”
I haven’t done a lot of mods to my vehicles, and come to think of it most of them have been related to carrying cargo. That would include a set of SSD roof rails for my KIA Soul, a bed liner for my HiLux SR5, and an assortment of roof bags and boxes.
Relative to my income at the time the most expensive mod I did to a car was the stereo system I installed in a 1979 F-100.It had a CD player, fancy LED visualization, a pair of in-door two-way speakers and a small sub behind the bench. I was in high school working a minimum wage summer job and that was an entire months worth of income. It absolutely rocked until the entire truck was stolen and never recovered three months later.
I bought half of JCWhitney and put it on my 1980 Pontiac Sunbird which had a heat-locking Iron Duke.
I spent a bunch equipping my cars for towing. 100% worth it, zero regrets.
Picked up a 3rd row of seats and a center console for my police spec SUV from the pick a part, $80.
Kudos to Ford for. Keeping the same seat bolt pattern for like 20 years.
My favorite wheels for the longest time were Volk TE37’s, and back when I was in college, I saved up and bought a used set off of NASIOC for my 04 WRX wagon I had at the time. I think I spent about $2000 on them with a trashed set of tires. (I had no money left for a bit there, so I drove on those cupped tires) Mind you, while that wagon was in great shape, it also had about 175k miles, and was only worth like 6 or $7,000.. Oh well, they looked GREAT!
Trying to pick between the top two…
In the late 90s and early 2000s I would routinely spend more on stereo systems than I would on the cars themselves (which isn’t saying much, since most of my cars back then were in the $500 or less category).
Beyond that, probably the most expensive mod I’ve done is buying a used factory hardtop for my TJ, which are idiotically expensive these days.
I once spent hundreds of dollars powder coating a bunch of my underhood components in candy purple or silver, on my 07 Scion tC. I also replaced all the fender bolts with knock-off Chase Bays fender washers that were a matching purple. None of it made the car better, and the valve cover job may have significantly impacted the long-term engine health because I probably didn’t get all of the blasting medium out of it. I didn’t keep the thing long enough to find out.
Lots of other little things like fancy lug nuts, valve stem caps, shift knobs, a leather TRD steering wheel, that was exactly the same as the OEM one, but with a better material. I could go on.
Currently have probably $400 tied up into my audio system, not all hooked up yet. But I am also in the middle of importing some Japanese tail lights (thanks import tariffs) which could be as much as $750 all in… plus I’ll need to rewire the car for them! All in the pursuit of Amber superiority.
I spent about $800 on an assortment of JDM Honda parts to install rear A/C vents and USB ports on my Civic. That money did nothing for me as the driver but my kids greatly enjoy the airflow and place to charge their devices.
PPF. Cost even more to take it off once it becomes hazy and starts cracking.
Instructions unclear, installed $7K worth of PPF on my YJ.
I spent about $150 for a Bluetooth stereo in my old Camry. With installation included it was an easy sell. I’ve made performance upgrades on all of my cars by replacing some worn out OEM parts with superior aftermarket parts, such as better quality brake discs and sway bar links. I’ll have to let the philosophers decide if that makes me someone who upgrades cars for enthusiast reasons versus someone who uses the savings from doing their own work to put in parts that should last longer than OEM.
I guess my audio system. Not sure if it counts because it increased the “performance” of my sound. The only aesthetic mods I have are an RS grille I bought used and a set of small wheel spacers. People will happily drop thousands on useless carbon parts like ECU covers, fake diffusers and side skirts but I just can’t. Close runner up would be my ceramic tint, that stuff is expensive, but again that’s a useful mod to keep the heat out.
So strictly aesthetic stuff that has zero functional benefit, it would be the grille at like $200.
~$300 for a set of Rally Armor mudflaps for my Raptor with a custom colored logo.
The only thing $$$ I can think of is ceramic window tint? Looks good but also helps keep the car cooler and cut down on faded interior.