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
Paying to replace springs, struts, and bushings with aftermarket parts on my EJ Civic according to highschool tuner law circa ’00 and without a legitimate reason to. They were KYB AGX 4-way struts and adjustable coils (Eibach?) and whatever name brand red polyurethane bushings set was in all the mags. Yep, I spent my money on suspension. And ruined it. Fender rub would happen in the rear with any person sitting outbound and anything more than a 60⁰ arc, unless set at the stiffest rear strut setting. Pulling the trunk fabric to use the little screwdriver to adjust the shocks gets tiresome to a “cool” teen. After 3 months adjusted the ride height back up to probably 1/4″ from stock and NEVER TOUCHED THEM AGAIN. This was after I sold the 17″ Enkei wheels I had on them because the “free” Yokohama tires that came as part of a package deal were treadware graded at like 220 and Summer only.
The bushings moaned at different octaves based on outside temperature (deep creaks in the winter; sharp squeaks and moans in the summer; a varying symphony in the transitional seasons).
Just dumb teenager wasted money. Funny I never spent money on engine “upgrades” and the only other money spent was on projector style headlights (actually so so so much better than the stock units for visibility- I actually aimed them correctly), altezza-style tail lamps (amber indicators after a fix-it ticket for the blue bulbs I had put in), CD head unit and upgraded speakers (Infinity).
I put bigger (WRX) brakes on my mk1 Legacy, but only on the front. With performance pads, the stock brakes were great and the modulation was perfect, so ABS was never needed even on gravel or snow and the car responded amazingly well to left foot braking. The problem was that they just didn’t dissipate heat quick enough and, as I needed new rotors and pads, I figured I might as well upgrade. Threw the balance way off so they had to be engaged slowly to shift the weight before hitting them to keep them from locking up and left foot braking wasn’t as effective. Plan was to change out the rears when I restored the car, but that never happened.
There’s so much it’s so hard to think of in advance! That’s such a mild change,too. Automotive engineering is hard!
In retrospect, I should have known better, but the wagon had larger rear brakes (similar size to the WRX maybe? Can’t recall now) and there was some reason I thought it would be fine. I guess it was technically fine for normal driving, but the whole point of was that the car wasn’t driven that way. But, yeah, everything is a system, not a set of components that work in isolation, which is where most people trip up with mods or mechanics or doctors fail to find the true root cause of a problem.
I did the teenager in high school special, and sawed off the muffler from my toyota pickup. High school me was convinced I was the cat’s ass with that loud as fuck truck, but it really just sounded like a cats ass.
Really what do all those engineers know about the balance of noise and performance? LOL. Now that I am old I can’t tolerate any exhaust that drones and I research “quiet” tires for my EV. What happened to me?
The worst was a cheap cat-back exhaust on my Elantra wagon. That made it awful to drive with the drone and being loud. It also hit the hitch I never used. The second worst was a polyurethane filled engine mount. It shook the car something fierce at idle. But no more wheel hop during hard acceleration!
I put a super firm front mount in my Protege5. Original was worn out, got a deal on a super firm aftermarket one. Shook like a paint mixer at idle.
Pretty much all the mods I’ve done to my Focus ST have made it worse as a daily driver.
2″ lowering springs mean that I have to be very aware of driveway entrances – my rear hitch scrapes constantly. The downpipe and GReddy exhaust tend to drone. The Big Wheel Stocker turbo doesn’t seem to have really done anything beneficial from a performance standpoint. Tinting the windows and putting a bigger intercooler on it were probably the only good mods I’ve done.
Lifting the xB 2″ and throwing 27″ tires on it has unquestionably made it worse, but it is worse in a “so bad it’s good” kinda way so it doesn’t count.
I lifted my Impreza and put on way too large winter tires from my previous beater, a Buick century. The lift was fine (shocks and struts from a Forester) but the oversized and much heavier tires made taking off from a stop so much harder and easier to stall.
A high-lift, high-duration cam with too narrow of a lobe separation angle paired with too tight of a converter. The cam sounded absolutely menacing and ripped hard, but for the sake of streetability I kept a low stall speed converter in the car. The poor idle quality and tight converter meant the car would often die at stoplights – not to mention the low engine vacuum at low RPMs meant the brakes had almost no vacuum assist at idle, so if the engine didn’t die at a stoplight the car would try to push through the brakes.
On the truck side of things, installing overload springs and/or air shocks instead of helper bags. Once I got a taste of helper bags, where I didn’t have to suffer the harsher ride when unloaded, I could never go back.
I have many I could dig deep to recall, but in general there’s a lot of missed time with the gf/missus/family that came from installation and fixing bad installations.
On the 1987 Honda Civic Wagovan I partially regretted installing a loud fart can exhaust.
I say partially because it sounded great and helped the power at high RPMs. It was fine for short trips, but on longer road trips, the drone was annoying.
What I should have done was get a fartcan that had a removable silencer option… like this:
https://www.ebay.com/p/17020358261?iid=284659578125&fitmentTarget=Model%3AUniversal
My first sport bike, an ’05 Yamaha R6. I was too cheap to buy an aftermarket can, so “screw it I’ll just cut 6 inches off the stock exhaust and re-rivet the cap back on.”
Not only was I itchy for many days afterwards thanks to the fiberglass packing, it was the WORST sound. I was hoping for just a bit more bark, but it seemed 3 times louder and the frequency was the type to dig into your brain. My buddy refused to ride with me again until I fixed it, it was that bad even at highway speed for the person in front of me.
My wife’s Buell Blast has a straight pipe exhaust, no silencer at all. It is extremely loud and if you’re the right distance behind her the resonance feels like it is turning your brain to jello.
The bike sounds fast though, even though it isn’t.
I did the same with my ’05 Z1000, but it was actually a vast improvement. The stock exhaust was almost silent, but I didn’t want to go aftermarket because the stock 4-2-4 setup was freakin’ cool looking. Trimming them both gave it a nice growl.
Oh yeah I always liked those. After that was when Kawi started moving to their megaphone-aping exhaust that I’ve never cared for, just far too large.
Yeah I could never get on board with the newer Z styling. I just picked up an ’07 Tuono with aftermarket Leo Vince cans.. now that’s a lovely noise.
Not the actual modifications necessarily, but a couple times cutting corners with cheap parts on the XJ resulted in more cost later. I should have returned the engine/transmission skid plate that did not fit correctly and gotten a better one, but ended up having the mounting parts cut/welded so it would fit, which cost more than the actual skid plate. Letting a shop regear the front axle initially with used gears was also a mistake, as it didn’t take long before they started eating themselves, and needed full replacement with new parts anyway. Both of these were useful mods, but should have been done correctly up front.
I’m also not sure if cutting out the rear shackle boxes and replacing them to relocate the shackle mounting points was worth the unreversible effort as it didn’t soften up the rear suspension as much as I hoped, but it was an interesting winter project.
Skid plate on an XJ? Interesting option.
I never drove an AWD XJ, only RWD, so I have no idea of its capabilities.
I did enjoy the supercharged V8 in mine, though.
He’s talking about a Jeep Cherokee (XJ), not the Jaaaaag.
No no I like where this is going
The headers and side outlet exhaust pipes with straight-through glass packs on my 70 Jeepster Commando were not a good idea.
Oh, geeze. Yeah, the lack of sound-deadening must have made the vehicle basically a tinny resonating box: ouch.
and the occasional lower leg burns if I stepped out without being careful.
None really (I have always been quite conservative), I guess if there is one mod I have considered undoing it is the removal of the broken aircon from my R33 Skyline, However, Since I am in the UK it’s not really that vital an option to have… More of a would be nice than a must have.
Of all the travesties I committed on my various cars over the years. The 70 w30 442 olds was the worst, full race .030 over 455, 11.5 : 1 compression, loose rings, aluminum rods, roller cam, holley dominator, manual valve body, high stall converter 4.88 geared differential. Nobody should try to drive what is effectively a race car on the street. Eventually good sense came to me and I undid the crazier mods. There were more mods and other modded cars, but the poor olds was the worst from a drivability perspective.
Was gifted a “six-inch” lift for my TJ, which I installed during the Covid break. It was a complete new-in-box kit from a manufacturer I won’t name because there’s nothing wrong with the kit, per se, and I don’t want to blame the kit maker for what I’m about to write.
The original stock springs were tired, so the “six-inch” lift resulted in an additional 8 inches on the front and 10 on the rear. I needed to replace the rear drive shaft with one equipped with a double cardan. The new springs are much stiffer, which results in a harsher ride. The only time the TJ’s ride isn’t terrible is when we go camping in it and load it with maybe 400 lbs of gear. I’m guessing the make expected users to install it on TJs with winches, hi-lift jacks, a hard top, roof rack — the works.
Paradoxically, despite stiffer springs and shocks the thing leans more in turns and feels like it’s going to tip over, which it probably is. I do not allow friends and family to drive the TJ anymore because I don’t want them to die.
I couldn’t turn down a free lift kit, but I should have.
In the Jeep world, adding even a two inch lift opens a can of worms that most people don’t realize they opened. All of the sudden the tires are too small, you need bigger tires. The bigger tires change the suspension geometry and it rides rough. While riding rough it accelerates slower with bigger tires- time for a regear…
I can’t imagine going from 0” to 6” lift was simple or easy (as you found out with the driveshaft).
Reminds me of an interview with a Jeep engineer lamenting the lift crowd: We spend millions of dollars and several years making a vehicle that handles reasonably well and does amazing things off road, and then some guy in his garage makes a lift kit in two weeks that undoes all that work.
Sounds similar to the engineers at a various diesel engine companies talking about how much effort they put into making an emissions compliant, durable diesel engine, only to have coal rolling idiots ruin the things, and then complain that engine failures are no longer covered under warranty.
Also, don’t forget straight up needing new, stronger axles in the Jeep world once the tires get big enough, that’s something I especially want to avoid.
I agree with the Jeep engineer. The TJ is basically ruined for pavement use, and the lift really only allows larger tires, which would mean I would need to regear, which really means new axles. To complete the lift properly, I’m looking at $10K for new axles and gears. As Bugs Bunny would say, “What a maroon!”
And then you’ll have the peanut gallery shouting: “might as well do an LS swap!”
I remember the same lament from car suspension engineers (maybe even Huibert!) when everyone since the ’00s has decided they need to lower their Honda or whatever everyday car to make it more fast/furious. So much “there’s more to a suspension that just springs and maybe dampers you’re thinking of!”
Kinda like peterbilt guys lowering their trucks by flattening their front leaf springs and setting the rear air bags lower. Then they complain about leaf spring snapping, air bags blowing, u joints wearing out, seals leaking, and transmission not shifting right. Not to mention the ride going to hell.
Sorry, I can’t hear your over this angle grinder I’m cutting down springs with!
Back then, I was on some of the Mustang boards, and like every day there was a “can’t I just cut a coil off my stock ones?!” inquiry. It eventually became one of the wall of infamy things, right up there with endless debates over the right rear end gears and should I remove the air filter snorkel or not??
I have lifted at least 3 jeeps and yes it often makes things worse but with my current jeep the 2 in progressive rate springs and new shocks and going from 32 to 33 in tires my JKU rides better than the 12-year-old stock shocks and springs.
they want to lift the jeep to make it “look” more tough/rugged or they vastly underestimate the capabilities of the stock jeep.
I’ve gotten lucky so far and haven’t had any major mod regrets.
(I’m not counting the time I broke the clock spring in my Prius while removing the steering wheel, because that was an accident, even if it was my most expensive self-inflicted automotive woe to date.)
I can name one mod I’ve removed, and three mods I later replaced with better versions of the same.
The only mod I ever removed was under-dash lighting in my old Ford Econoline. They were nice, but I realized, at night, they reflected almost perfectly in the driver window. Was distracting, so I removed them. A moment of silence for the $20 or so that I spent on them.
Other than that–had to replace the first aftermarket head unit in my van with a better one to control the subwoofers independently; later upgraded the amp for the subwoofers with a better one; and now in my Prius v I’m replacing the original Prius Offroad lift kit rear spacers with their HD coil springs. But none of those are necessarily “regret”, just learning experiences, and inexpensive in the big scheme of things.
Put a Mishimoto catch can on my S5 and made it a month before it threw a CEL. The rubber hose collapsed under vacuum. It did manage to catch a little gunk in that time, but in the end it just wasn’t worth it. Probably could have sold it to some unsuspecting buyer but decided to just take it off and leave it off.
I also regret buying ECS brake lines, but it was Covid times, stuff was hard to find, and I was refreshing the whole brake system so I really wanted new lines. That was an unnecessary mod and they rubbed on the front axles.
I regret gutting all of the emissions equipment on my 24 Hours of Lemons race car. My life would be so much easier if I could drive it on the street for testing, taking to shows, etc., especially because I don’t own a trailer so I have to rent or borrow one every time I want to move the car.
And not a modification so much as an experience, but I regret taking my 2004 Toyota Sequoia to Death Valley over New Years. When I visited it had recently been raining (a fairly rare occurence) and the dirt road to Devil’s Golf Course, an immense area of rock salt eroded by wind and rain into jagged spires, was full of puddles. Despite being rain water and not actually driving on the salt flat, those puddles must have had some salt content, because after splashing through those puddles the undercarriage corrosion on my native California vehicle aged by like 10 years. Sadly I didn’t think to wash the undercarriage as soon as I got home because I didn’t think I was driving through salt. But the end result was that the salt was corrosive enough that brand new shocks I had installed 3 months prior corroded which actually prompted a warranty return to the manufacturer (my employer) where it was deemed that the shocks met the manufacturer’s corrosion resistance standards. The salt was just that harsh apparently, and now underneath the truck looks like it spent time in the rust belt.
Any reason you can’t just drive a non-emissions-compliant vehicle in the street like the rest of us?
Yes, the lack of emissions equipment means it won’t pass California smog check which means no registration. No registration on a bright green car with a giant plastic dome on the roof = immediate target for getting pulled over.
Note: that above video was 18yr old me in ’98 performing the first start of my high school-built engine in that Cougar. My whole family and best high school buds gathered around to celebrate and brought the camcorder. The engine fired (without exhaust hooked up), but failed to drive, as the transmission was too low on fluid.
Not the most momentous, celebratory video from the camerawoman’s POV (my mom).
Big thanks to my mom for always being there for me with this hobby, decade after decade.
And after this, you decided to go a different direction, become a reality tv music-mechanic villain, right?
Failed reality show villain doesn’t pay what it used to in the early Aughts! Now they’re practically on every corner; everywhere you look.
Thank goodness “Semi-Consistent Automotive Writer/Contributor” for this place showed up as a career opportunity before I had to go back to changing oil and brakes at Valvoline! Cheers, Jack!
How cool would it be if Wilmington had a volcano and right when there was supposed to be a hurricane the volcano erupted and it rained obsidian everywhere and….
Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be that cool. It would be *neat*, just a very very bad sort of neat.
If you watched SWG’s reality show video (from that article a few weeks back) on YouTube, it actually follows with the second episode, which is more hilarious, if lacking in context – he gets exiled from his team for being too hip, but they end up visiting him…at his music club lair. He holds court and urges them to be cool.
Guy has 2 lairs!
Okay. I’ve gotta watch it. I’m slow to watch videos but this sounds to goodbad too pass up
Installed an aftermarket in-line adapter (at the plug in the back of the head unit) to add an auxjack to my stock head unit. I barely used it and after a few years forgot it was even there.
One day I’m driving down the highway and every light on my dash lights up and all gauges go to zero. I couldn’t figure out wtf was wrong after that. So, for the first time in my life I took my car to a dealer, they pulled out the aftermarket adapter and it was fixed. I had completely forgotten it was there, it shorted out or something and cause the BCM to freak out.
I regret putting coilovers on my car. I didn’t have the time to do it myself, so I paid a shop to do it. They cracked my windshield and tried to claim it was already cracked. When I replaced the coilovers later I did it myself.
I regret putting a beefier rear sway bar in my car. Same shop as above. Even though they were the type of shop to just ugga-dugga bolts regardless of torque specs, they somehow didn’t tighten down the sway bar bolts enough. The sway bar would let out a loud pinging noise as the suspension flexed. I had to tighten it myself.
I regret getting my windows tinted. Only because the rear window started bubbling and when I removed the tint film myself I broke some of the defrost lines.
I regret putting a CarPlay compatible head unit in my truck. Because it’s (the truck) a pile and I shouldn’t have spent the money.
I regret installing a backup camera in that same truck. Same reason as above and because it’s an old, regular cab I don’t have issues seeing out of it.
I regret putting aftermarket wheels on my car. Only because my car has TPMS sensors and when I asked to have them transferred from the stock wheels to the new wheels, the shop broke them and tried to say they were already broken. (Not the same shop as above.)
I replaced the air filter on my 80s Honda motorcycle with a K&N. Normally not a big deal but these bikes were tuned to run as lean as possible from the factory and the freer breathing K&N killed the bike’s performance. So, I chased it all the way down the rabbit hole with bigger jets in the carburetors and everything else. I monkeyed with that for 2-3 years and all I accomplished was cutting my MPG in half and making the bike harder to start. Finally one day I realized how to fix it once and for all and swapped it all back to stock. It ran much better after that.
I put an K&N on my Honda F4, same thing happened. Performance took a hit, so added exhaust, not fixed. Eventually sold it but should have just left it alone.
I’m slightly heartened to hear this isn’t a new phenomenon, at least. I don’t remember my 04 ZX-6R riding like this, but my 21 F 900 XR is so stingy at low gears and low RPMs the bike bucks and balks like mad. I’m pleased with most everything else but man I hate that.
I took the clutch cover off my Ducati.
My motorcycle sounds like I’ve a metal can of screws being shaken when I pull in the clutch.
I don’t know, I 100% support this one. One of my favorite noises and makes me wanna get a motorcycle license just to be the douche bag with the clatter
It’s a shame dry clutches aren’t more common.
I put limo tint on my Holden when my eyes were younger and I could see better at night.
Oh man…too many.
I V6 Swapped my Single Cab Tacoma. Never drove great, often ran hotter than I would have felt comfortable seeing, and had vibrations that never went away (I think the motor mounts we welded in a hair too crooked). Should have turbo’d the 3RZ. Speaking of Tacomas, I have a love/hate relationship with my ARB bumper. Looks great and makes the truck safer, but KILLS forward momentum and MPG.
I have a couple of Mods that I haven’t been happy with on my NA Miata. Bought a cheap used exhaust (cobalt brand) which was great, except it was bent from an accident. Never sealed right and when it warmed up, it droned too much. Also added a trunk strut (which, apparently did away with the torsion bar that holds it up normally) and the trunk rattled horribly. HVH is the worst.
Had a Toyota Echo in high school that I modified (gotta rock what you got). The fun part about Echoes is that Scion parts mostly fit. Painted my valve cover red, added a CAI from a RS2.0 XB, added a DC sport strut bar. The one I regretted was the coil pack cover I added from Toy Box Racing. The bolts were just a little too short to hold the cover on (using coil pack 1 and 4 for mounting) and let a bunch of rain water into spark plug hole #1. Caused a GNARLY misfire. That came off real fast after that.
Most recent was putting 18″ wheels from an RX8 on my Mazda3 hatch. Looked great, but rode like garbage compared to the 16’s.
I remember a kid in highschool who sawzall-ed the roof off of his Mustang II. Pretty sure he regretted it.