High cost accessories on cheap cars. It makes me laugh.
I saw a Ford F-250 from the late ‘90s with huge diesel stacks attached to it. Mind you, it had a gasoline engine and it wasn’t being used for mudding.
The truck owner had to have spent hours physically boring out the holes in the truck bed to attach an accessory that costs between $300 and $500 on a truck with a blue book value of about $4,000. I have no problem with trucks; I happen to drive one and love it.
However, there is a practicality issue. My truck isn’t worth any more than the F250 listed above. I’m not going to sink a paycheck into an accessory that isn’t going to get me anything more than unwanted attention.
Furthermore, with vehicles like mine that are pushing their teen years, many other problems crop up such as shocks, struts, differentials and of course the added cost of using synthetic oil for a high-mileage engine.
I can see the fun in adding on to your car or truck. I’ve wanted to do it too. I had a ‘97 Windstar that was possibly possessed by Satan or some other demonic being. Twice it stranded me.
Regardless, I was dead-set on getting a lift-kit for this thing and decking out the interior like Xzibit had paid me a visit. It had over 175,000 miles and would lose oil pressure frequently. To those not familiar with auto mechanics, that means it’s going to die. My van had terminal cancer, but I wanted to get it a lift-kit and some throw pillows.
It wasn’t until I unloaded it on the first sucker who gave me $1,200 and went out to find something better that I finally saw how terrible this thing was. It was then, and only then, that I realized how silly it was to want such an expensive “toy” for my vehicle. I have actually been witness to a jacked-up mini van. It was everything I thought it could be–absolutely stupid.
I’ve seen worse, though: an early ‘90s Buick with an IndyCar-style spoiler and a Dodge Neon with underglows, tinted windows, racing stripes and spoiler. Neons are classified as “four-bangers,” meaning they have only four cylinders. It wouldn’t even reach a top speed to need a spoiler. Just imagining that little Neon trying to go around a track made laugh out loud. It made me think of “The Little Engine That Could.”
One of my favorite things to see are $1000 cars with $3000 rims. The wheel wells are rotting out from rust and as you look down you notice they’ve invested more money in tires and rims than in Bondo and probably engine repair.
There’s nothing wrong with loving your car. I love my trucky. There is, however, an egregious lack of logic in wanting it to look pretty over having it actually function.
Customizing an automobile should be done when there’s nothing left to do on the vehicle in pertinent body work or mechanical function. I had to learn this, and hopefully the person driving around in that ‘94 Fiesta with spinners will learn it too.