Wasted your money?

merlin

merlin

merlin

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Are there any mods you've done to current or previous cars/bikes etc that with the benefit of hindsight - you now think were a complete waste of money?

I "think" I've been quite prudent spending money on past cars, modding the Honda was expensive but I really enjoyed it and the net result was a vastly better car. The exhaust parts were insanely expensive - but once you got them in your hands - you could see why, top quality stuff. Even modding the company owned scoobs was ok cos I always kept the old bits and did a swap before the cars went back.

Only thing I think that was a total waste of money was a Samco intake hose for the last scoob - it cost me £200 and I didn't think I'd have problems getting it to fit, but I did, so I had to sell it for £140 a week later.

You could argue modding cars is a waste of money full stop - but if that's your attitude - you're in the wrong forum. :p
 
I just spent a day rubbing down the wheels on the Pop and bought £40's worth of high gloss 2-pack black to put on them. It's going to look the baws but the rest of the car is rat-look so I question my mentality in doing that :(
 
I tend to waste money on pointless tat as theres nothing I can to to improve perfomance. Ones that spring to mind are-

LED side lights... several sets. Gave up on about the 5th set when the guy I bought them from basically said this is the last set your getting under warrenty :o Bought 2 sets in total from 2 different sources before giving up, probably £15 to £20 ish between the 2 :confused: Absolute tosh just to make my orange sidelights look white and spangly. Now got philips blue vision sidelights in there which I got for free.

XSi gear knob... pointless but I like my leather and aluminium knob :eek: £10

Stainless steel sill protectors with 306 ingraved on them... err... yeah not sure what I was thinking that day! My memory has blocked out how much I paid for them. About £25 I think.

My other waste money wise is car cleaning stuff. I'll buy what I think is the dogs dangly's, then I'll move onto something else with half the original stuff left, then do the same again, and again. Got stacks of half empty bottles in the shed :o
 
I don't think any of the mods i've done to the current car are a waste of money tbh, i've thrown a lot of cash at it and i benifit from everything i've done, its a better car for it imho, the closest thing i've come to wasting my money on would be the ECU / WB02 but thats only cause i can't take full advantage of them yet, once the rest of the upgrades take place they will be well worth the cash.
 
Wasted?? Never!! Its all about carefull (lol) buying :D

Got 2.5k for my minivan when it got written off. (crashed into from behind)
Bought a 1992 corolla for 500quid - sold for 500 quid a year later
Bought a 160k BMW 525i - drove to nearly 200k (head gasket) - Only paid 1k for it :) Currently still have this as a Project car!
Bought a 411 quid volvo 480 Turbo (drove for 8 months) - got 350quid when i got shunted from behind in it. Drove it for a further 2 months, still got it, going to be getting rid of it next week, prolly for 50 quid or so. (potientally 11 quid for a years motoring!!)
Currently own a 1994//5 530i - with 50k on the clock. Paid 1800 for it. Just got through service with no major issues

I always try to get my moneys worth from vehicles :)
 
I don't think I've ever modded a car. Partly born out of being a tightfisted git, I tend to get my enjoyment from cars in a different way, by not giving a damn about them and giving them absolute hell for every single mile of their life with me.

I've been tempted to buy a £500 exhaust in the past but always found something better to spend the money on. Stereos - I'm always worried the car would be broken into causing me major inconvenience. Alloys - frightened of ruining the handling. Engine mods - no chance of ever seeing that money again.

I like to appreciate other peoples' modded cars but have never had the bottle to do anything to my own. And now I'm coming into company car territory, there's even less chance. Roll on mid-life crisis... :o
 
racing..... i bought a road car and built it as i went.... uber expensive
ive just bought a radical 1300 all in for a fraction of what ive spent on building my car... roughly 28k over five years :( the radical was 7k :D
 
hammergm_1_600.jpg


I win :D
 
Well I spent £20k+ on something that's more of a toy than a car, what do I win?

If I was sensible I'd sell the Elise and pay of a chunk of my mortgage but unfortunately I'm not sensible so I'm keeping it (and modding it) :)
 
Barry Smalley said:
;)
Click to expand...

You could argue modding cars is a waste of money full stop - but if that's your attitude - you're in the wrong forum.
Click to expand...

Was what was said.

Cars in general are a horrific waste of money. It is frigthening how much you spend when you add it up.
Click to expand...

Is what I said. I wasn't arguing about modding just about wasteing money on buying cars. If you see how many I have owned you will understand my logic. Please do not misrepresent my posts.
 
ive changed loads of bits on the old golf, but due to the car being worth peanuts, ive not been able to justify spending a lot of money on it.

all 'mods' ive made in the past have been extensively considered and researched so that i get the result im after (i think we've all brought pointless tat when we were young and impressionable).

the most expensive, and possibly pointless, expense was £100+vat to take the car to stealth racing for them to do some diagnosis work on the car to find out and repair the final 3 faults (which did involve rewiring part of the loom) and then sticking the car on the RR after testing it to see if the faults came back.

that was a hard one to swallow, but essentially i may have never found out those faults without their tools and not been able to fix them (or locate them so quickly) without their expertise.

so far tho, since the last RR session, i am sure that ive gained power here and there, and expect it to be in the region of 180bhp now, and the sick thing still averages 34mpg over and tank and gets thrashed tons.
 
I put a performance catback exhaust, Pipercross induction kit and lowering springs on my 1.25 Fiesta. Totally pointless.

I remapped, added a performance catback exhaust, a Forge recirc valve, lower strut brace and Forge silicone turbo inlet pipe on my Leon Cupra. Well worth it.

I've done nothing to my 850R yet, but certainly plan to remap it in the future.

That's not including pointless mechanical replacements involving replacing engines in two vehicles only to sell them weeks later.

Money pits, the lot of them!
 
well the beauty of chopping and changing cars as often as I do is that they rarely / barely depreciate. Most i've ever lost was about £200 on a Prelude over a year and a half, but all my other cars i've made slight profits on when sold.
 
Near £100 on a dump valve I suppose.
Though I have gotten to quite like it and am no longer embarrassed if it goes off accidentally when passengering peeps. Maybe not a total waste.
 
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