Dumb Mods That Will RUIN Your Car

Oh man, sometimes you see some dumb stuff on the road. Mods that make you embarrassed to even own a car. And hell, maybe some of you even made these mistakes when you were younger. I know I did…

But those days are behind me, and to save you the potential embarrassment, we’re going to run you through a list of the dumbest mods you need to avoid at all costs. And maybe do a littlle roasting along the way…

Loud Mufflers and Straight Pipes

First on the list is bound to get a lot of comments. And the pros are… it’s loud… but the cons are… it’s loud! Yes, I am totally guilty of this. My 997 has straight pipe right now and I love it! But, before y’all pick up your pitchforks, let me explain.

While this is technically a good mod because anyone can do it, and it’s cheap, and could net you a few extra horses, it comes at the expense of everyone around you. Piercing ear drums, making poor babies cry, scaring dogs, and depending on the car you amplify by removing the exhaust, it’ll sound like total shit.

In fact, I can pretty much guarantee that your Chevy Cobalt is going to be worse after you straight pipe it. No fart can mufflers or high flow cats are going to remedy the sound of hopelessness coming out the backend. And it’s almost always the most gutless, 1.3-liter, naturally-aspirated, ugliest car making the most noise. You know the nerds… Screeching tires at a stop light, redlining through every gear, making as much noise as a top fuel dragster while pushing about 30 miles per hour. Don’t be that guy, save the straight pipe for something we all want to hear.

And V8 turbodiesels in trucks sound incredible straight piped in my opinion. Ah, the spooling and coming-off boost is majestic.

Lambo Doors

A Lamborghini is a status symbol. It screams exotic, rich, supercar. It’s different in every way. It’s lower, wider, faster, louder, and when you pull up to the club and your doors go up instead of out, you grab the attention of anyone within 100 yards. Billionaire doors are the signature of the Italian bull brand. And the main reason not to get a Lambo with peasant doors, like on the Huracan!

But when the doors go up Lambo style on your 2010 Camaro, well, let’s just say you’ll get people looking, but it ain’t the kind of attention you want. You look like a total joke! Oh man, this might be the biggest sin on this list. These knockoff door hinges are never as good as the original. Lamborghini-engineered doors are rigid, they rise slowly, smoothly, and confidently. The Lambo doors on your local douchebag’s Honda Accord? Flimsy, wobbly, creaky.

There’s lots of good Gucci bag knockoffs, but no one’s really nailed the Lambo door counterfeit. And despite being tacky and dumb, they’re also one of the most dangerous mods you can make to your car! Real Lambo doors are designed to be safe in an accident. They’re rigid, they’re part of the structure of the car, they even have explosives mounted in the doors to get them open in case of an emergency.

Yes, guys, straight up. That Aventador has pyrotechnics built into the bolts in the door. So, if you were ever in a rollover accident and you end up on the roof in your $500,000 supercar, and you couldn’t open the doors, an indicator will start flashing on the dash and you can blow the doors off. That is absolutely wild!  

And it’s safe to say your $600 set of hinges from eBay don’t have this tech built in. So, you’re most likely out of luck, and it could even be fatal! But if you’re a little bit luckier, maybe your door will casually fall off your Celica when cruising to the local car show. So, make me a promise, hold off on vertical doors, even on your Corvette. Sorry, Bladed Angel. Wait until you can afford the car that came with them from the factory.

GT Wings

Squidd will hate me for this one, he loves these things. Downforce is an essential ingredient for cornering fast on a race track. The new C8 Corvette’s wing option generates 400 pounds of force at high speeds! So, generating that downforce with an aftermarket big GT wing is a no brainer mod right? Well, not so much.

See, the keyword here is high speeds. Cars utilizing GT wings properly are running over 100 miles per hour on a closed race course, not inching along the freeway at 4 miles per hour. So, when you slap a big wing on your Subaru WRX that has never seen the racetrack, let alone triple digit speeds, you look more like a 100% certified dork than a GT racing legend. No one believes your car with a big wang has been aerodynamically tuned in the wind tunnel.

Oh, and to add salt to the wound, your giant GT wing will most likely make your car slower since it’s adding drag at lower speeds. A go-fast part makes you go slower. It’s a bit ironic, don’t you think? 

Now, I kind of love-hate big wings. When done right, they can add a sick aggressive look to the car in addition to the downforce, like TJ Hunt’s 458 GT3 tribute car, that helps the car stay planted while carving up apexes at triple digit speeds. So, it’s believable. Rocking a giant wing on a grocery-getter is like wearing a bulletproof vest to a paintball match. Sure, it might help in some very small way? But, man, do you look stupid.

Sponsor Stickers and Upbadging

I loved stickers growing up. My locker was covered in everything from boy bands I liked to radio stations I listened to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Spongebob. Man, I miss those stickers. Stickers are a great way of showing pride of ownership, of showing loyalty, and they’re also a great way of showing that you’re desperate for attention.

They don’t make your car faster. They don’t make your car look better. They just make you look like you think your car is so cool that everyone needs to know what you have under the hood. A laundry list of brands slapped all over your rear window doesn’t just reek of desperation, it’s just plain dangerous and stupid. 

And what’s worse than that? Upbadging. This is just a whole new level of stupid. Upbadging is the practice of replacing your car’s badge with a higher trim car’s badges, such as replacing a base model 3 Series badge with an M3 badge you can pick up for $29.99 on Fleabay. Who are you trying to impress? Yourself? Because the people who would be impressed by you driving an M3 are probably other car guys who can see right through your lies and know you’re driving a 325! And when you pull up to the light and there’s an M3 next to you, what’re you going do then? That guy will blow the doors off you!

No, your six-banger Mustang is not an SRT8. And no, your Prius is not a V8 4×4 turbodiesel. So, don’t go sneaking out out in the dark of night, quietly when no one’s looking, and slap a Hellcat badge on your 200-horsepower Chrysler product. That thing aint loud, or proud, and the only thing that would piss the taste police off even more is if you did this next mod on it as well!

Fake Vents

Vents and ducting, like wings, are a functional piece of aerodynamics that make sense in competition race cars. They send air to various parts of the car to cool them, like your brakes and your radiator. For example, Formula 1 brakes reach the temperature of molten lava, a little fact I learned from Squidd’s video on F1! But, you’re not competing in Formula One. 

You don’t need to cool your engine as you floor it past the mall. Your AutoZone brake pads aren’t melting as you sit in stop-and-go traffic downtown. You need holes in your car as much as you need another hole in the head.

Now, it’s not just dumb car guys putting fake vents on cars and pretending it does something. Manufacturers do this all the time as well. For example, take the BMW M2, an all-around great sports car, but it’s plagued with fake vents. BMW even admitted there was absolutely no functional need for vents, but hey, they look cool, so let’s toss some onto the M2 and call it a day. Because… sports car.

It’s not just the M2, though. Cars like the Civic Type R and the new Supra are plagued as well. The point is that both individuals and manufacturers alike are susceptible to poking a bunch of useless holes in their cars, and neither of them are right! Now, I’ve definitely been guilty of doing some dumb stuff to my cars. But that’s just wrong.