Mods! If you like to wrench, chances are at least a few of your Snap-On sessions (or Pittsburgh appointments, no judgment) have been devoted not to repairs or maintenance, but to making modifications to your machine to help it perform better, look radder, last longer, or any combination of those.
If you research well, choose quality parts, and work within your skill set, dollars to donuts you’ll be happy with the mods you make. But sometimes, out of exuberance or ignorance or dubious taste*, well-intended hot modz are soon revealed to be wrenching regrets.
I’m blissfully unaffected on this front since my wrenching escapades are limited to slapping in brake pads and performing oil changes, provided I’m in the mood. But as they so often do, the Autopian gang has come through and will now regale you with their highly relatable regrets:
Stephen Walter Gossin
I regret the first big mod I ever made, on my first car. In fact, I regret it so greatly that I haven’t really modified any of the succeeding cars much at all! Only having three forward gears in my ’84 Cougar with the 3.8L Essex V6 seemed lacking when there were Fox platform mates with 4-speed “AOD” automatics. Finding one at a junkyard was easy and cheap, so it seemed like a no-brainer.
Spacer
Awww, baby Stephen!
What I didn’t realize until after it was installed (and my 3-speed unit had been donated/tossed) was that the gear ratio in Cougar’s rear end was far, far lower (2.73:1) than the ratio used with the 4-speed unit. I didn’t have the money to buy a new rear end, and there wasn’t a speedometer gear made for the AOD with a 2.73 rear gear, so you had to guess how fast you were going from that point forward. In the end, it accelerated my movement away from that car and towards something new, as I grew weary of the glacial accelerations and lack of a speedometer. Keep ’em stock, kids.
Rivers
I regret lowering my IS300.
Technically, I didn’t own it at the time and only helped my little brother-in-law do it, but I probably would’ve encouraged him to reconsider had I known I’d end up buying it from him. It bottoms out way too easily now.
The Bishop
I regret installing a set of Blizzaks on 18-inch AMG Monoblock-style wheels. This was a success in that it gave me the desired appearance of a cocaine-dealing villain in my black W126 Benz. However …
… the car was originally designed for 14s or 15s, so let’s just say that the ride was less than ideal after the Monoblocking. Not to mention the steering now had a sixth sense for finding grooves or, well, whatever it wanted to. Is looking good better than feeling good? I’m not so sure.
Your turn – tell us about the mods you regret!
*We are pro car here at The Autopian, and appreciate all forms of automotive expression. That includes “angry eyes” Jeep grille surrounds, so if you like ’em, good! We are not here to yuck anyone’s yum … even if we occasionally have a few yucks at the expense of your yum.
Top graphic image credits: Rough Country/extremeterrain.com; EnginKorkmaz/depositphotos.com
Yup I’m a member of the loud exhaust idiots club a few times. Glass pack on my 2001 XJ when I had to modify the tail pipe to clear the tow hitch. Drone City. Muffler delete but keeping the resonator on my first Aurora? Also drone, but somehow adding glass packs made it worse. Figure that out.
It’s so fun to see everyone doing (and regretting) the same things: lowering, big rims, LED bulbs in normal lights, etc. It’s like it’s a right of passage for every car person.
Had the leafs rebuilt on a friend’s ’65 mustang and the shop asked if I wanted them to add an extra leaf to prevent future sag. An otherwise stock, silly looking, jacked-up mustang was the result…
The worst mod ever was when I decided to raise my Patrol using flatiron as shackle extensions for the leaf springs. Sure,it was higher,but it rode like an elephant balancing on water melons.
I regret suddenly installing a VW Karmann Ghia Cabriolet as a hood ornament on my Mom’s ’72 Mercury Monterey Custom…
Lowering my Honda as a teenager. Bought some really bad quality used stuff the first time around. I should have realized as the spring wasn’t contacting anything on the shock itself. Imagine my surprise when I’m bouncing down my street, scraping the crossmember.
Took that out, bought Koni Orange struts and Eibach springs. Eventually got it installed and was great. Installed with an impact gun (woops) and ended up missing a bolt when I moved to the opposite coast and was getting it aligned.
Regrettable mod on a car I bought was a lowered e36. Its stupid low and I can’t wait to raise it back up. Underside is pretty beat up. Lost the fuel filter cover within my first month of ownership.
I tried doing the headliner in my ’61 Olds. Used way too heavy of a material. Glue wouldn’t hold. But first car, good way to learn from mistakes.
tint on my e34. I mean the tint itself was good and the shop did an excellent job. it just ….looked worse
So many times:
Polyurethane mounts throughout on a street car that saw the track maybe 4 times a year…Never again. Overly loud exhausts during my youth is probably a close second.
I put in an 034 motorsports street motor and transmission mount kit in my otherwise stock mkv VW. Better, crisper shifts was the promise. All I got was an assload of vibration (that died down 10-15k miles later) and the shifts while better, still aren’t amazing.
I regret putting (almost) full skid plates on the ZR2 when I have to get under there for maintenance. Luckily it’s not often, but the fuel filter change is coming up and I need to unbolt most of the TC skid to get to the filters. Not terrible, but a PITA.
I once put a metal Porsche emblem on the front grille of my 1974 Pinto. Because I had $3 in my pocket and Pep Boys was open. True story, bro.
LOL, I put an AMG emblem on the back of my ’22 Maverick.
Buying tags and registration on day one of ownership.
Or cutting off the mufflers on the 69 Super Bee in order to facilitate the installation of new headers and exhaust.
Then blowing the piece of shit up the 3rd day of ownership.
Seen this movie too many times, especially when was a younger, more faith based idiot.
Now days I wait as long as possible before spending a dime above the actual purchase price.
And own only Toyotas the last 35 years.
Which reminds me that my damn driving lights (after market) quit after a year.
And I need to fix them ASAP.
Because shit happens.
LED headlight bulbs in aftermarket halogen reflector housings. One or the other might have been okay, but particularly the bulbs cast a very poorly controlled beam pattern, and one time driving home in an ice storm they iced over and made it seem like my brights were full on, no difference, and of course they weren’t generating heat to keep them clear.
Probably would have pulled them and thrown Silverstars or something in if the car didn’t have to be retired for unrelated reasons.
On my first car some water had gotten into one of the below-the-bumper front fog lights. Rather than replacing the part, I allowed my brother to spray paint over the lens, so you couldn’t see it was discolored.
The fix wouldn’t have been that expensive. Far cheaper, in fact, than running over a curb I couldn’t see on a poorly illuminated road I was driving on that took a sudden turn without any signage. A curb that – if I’d had functional fog lights – I probably would have seen.
The damage wound up totalling the car.
As a youth, I regretted replacing the crappy bent antenna on my Geo Prism LSi, with an aftermarket one. But not that there was anything wrong with the part itself. After a couple of months, the sunroof began to not just leak on me, but after rainstorms, a literal waterfall would cascade onto my head while turning.
Later, I found the rubber washers in a plastic baggy on the workbench in my parents garage…
I would have saved a ton of money if I hadn’t deluded myself into thinking that C6 sport seats would be better than the ones I already had just because they would be simpler to wire (and they weren’t even that) and someone had already provenly swapped them.
Replacing the “angel eye” parker globes on my e90 with cheapy eBay LEDs after one of the globes blew and the local BMW shop wanted $200 for an OEM globe. They lasted about a month. Replaced them with another cheapy set from a different brand… they lasted about two weeks. Ended up biting the bullet and buying the OEM globe from Latvia of all places off eBay for $60. Lasted until I sold the car.
“Is looking good better than feeling good?”
Let me just say, you look marvelous! Absolutely marvelous!
Billy was so damn funny when he was on SNL.
It sucks that we get old.
“I hate it when that happens…”
drilled and slotted rotors. at least the ones that i got from summit racing for my s10. They lasted … 5,000 miles maybe and were instantly warped like a pringle chip..