Car Mods I Regret Doing (And What I’d Do Differently)

I've had the opportunity to do a wide range of car modifications over the past few years and in this video I want to talk about some of the mods that didn't work out and I'll offer some Alternatives so that you guys don't make the same mistakes that I did with age and experience comes wisdom and what I thought was cool a few years ago is different from what I think is cool [Music] now I'll start with the most controversial one which is the super l L exhaust and maybe I'm just getting old but the loud exhaust doesn't appeal to me the way that it did a few years ago in the exhaust system that we have on the FRS is just too loud so hear me out every engine is different every exhaust system is different all cars have a different amount of sound ding in the interior and I actually like the exhaust that I have on my 340 because it sounds stock pretty much from inside the car you don't really hear it until you get on it most of the time when you're just cruising around whether it's on the highway or just normal driving you really can't tell that it's aftermarket from inside the [Music] car but with the FR FRS exhaust it's just ridiculously loud all the time it literally shakes the house when we start the [Music] car it drones on the highway and if my wife and I are in the car together we have to shout to be able to hear each other so in the future I'm not sure if I would buy an aftermarket exhaust unless there's either a a noticeable performance gain from it or B a way to adjust the volume whether that be a valve system or something like that but just something to keep in mind especially if you're modifying a daily [Music] driver Alcantara has become a super popular material for car interiors and you can see I've got it all throughout my interior here and I think it looks great the problem with putting it on a steering wheel is that it gets dirty and it's really difficult in time assuming to clean so if you're not familiar Alcantara is a man-made material that's made to imitate suede so it's basically a really high-tech fabric if you will now everyone who's had an Alcantara steering wheel has probably done the scratch test where you run your fingernail along the side and you can just see the dirt and grime and stuff that's built up from your hands it's really gross and unlike leather or faux leather you can't just take some cleaner on a rag and wipe it off it's like this whole hourong process to get this thing clean and then afterward it's going to be damp until it air dries which is kind of gross now there are some pros to it for performance driving Alcantara does offer better grip compared to a leather wheel and it extreme temperatures it's less shocking to the touch but I think for me at least for a daily driver I think just a basic leather wheel with a thick Rim something like the M3 wheel that I had in my E90 would be just [Music] perfect I've had mixed experiences with aftermarket body panels and carbon fiber parts and depending on the supplier or where you buy them from from sometimes they fit perfectly and sometimes they don't fit at all so a couple examples these carbon fiber s skirt extensions on the F FRS the fitment on them is not great and it didn't help that they were kind of deformed on arrival now they did straighten out a little bit when I put them on the car but they're still not quite right and these things were not cheap I had a similar experience with a fiberglass trunk on my BMW the part itself was poorly made and it just the fitment on it was terrible and to this day I look back on that as my biggest car modifying mistake the first time that it rained on the trunk part filled up with water the whole thing was just a disaster and I've heard similar stories about um carbon fiber hoods and Trunks as well so bottom line is if you want body panels that fit perfectly just keep the ones that are already on your car I noticed that carbon parts that I've got from Keys Motorsports have had consistently good fitment compared to random eBay sellers so I reached out to my friend Brian and asked what they're doing differently this is what he had to say so when it comes to carbon we know that there are a lot of different varieties out there we try to use the lightest strongest carbon we use mostly dry which a lot of people think has to do with if it's glossy or if it's matte it actually has to do with the manufacturing technique this is a piece of dry carbon and it is light as a feather which I absolutely love we also like to test fit our pieces to make sure that everything is going to fit absolutely perfect and another thing we do just to go the extra mile is we like to use very special tape that we actually have made right here in the United States in North Carolina it cost about 10 times as much if we got this overseas but this is the most important part of a spoiler because well it's what holds it to your car so if you use cheap tape it may fly off where we invest where it absolutely matters in the quality and also making sure that the installation is going to go flawlessly and it's going to stay on your car another thing is that we are New Jersey based right over here in the USA that's where your products are going to be inspected and shipped from and we also have a tier one support team right on the other side of that wall so if you need any help with anything we are physically here in the US to help you [Music] out M sport conversion so this isn't necessarily something that I regret because I think it was a good learning experience for me I had some fun doing it and I got some good YouTube content out of it but just I don't think I would do it again I think for a lot of people and maybe myself included at some point there's this idea that instead of paying a premium for mport that you can just buy a base model and then do the mport conversion yourself and save some money the problem is it's not just bumpers it's brakes it's suspension the steering wheels are different and by the time you buy all that stuff and assuming that you're going to do all the work yourself you're going to end up spending way more than if you had just bought an mport to begin with and like I explained in the last section you're taking a risk that it's not going to be a perfect fitment you're taking a risk that the paint isn't going to be 100% perfect color match or of the same durability and quality as a factory paint job there's just so many different variables you know I got lucky with mine that the um bumpers and everything for keys fit perfectly and I went to a really good shop and paid a lot of money to have the paint done perfect so U that's just another thing to keep in mind now if you already own the car and you plan on keeping it for a while and you just want to switch up the look then go for it but don't go out of your way to buy a base model thinking that you're doing yourself some kind of favor if you really want an M sport just save up and buy [Music] one hey having a super low car is awesome until you have to drive somewhere so I love the slammed car look but in my experience having lived with this for a little while now it gets old and I know someone's going to say it's not even that low dude come check this out you see that exhaust flunge that used to be round we scrape all over town in this thing and it forces you to change the way that you drive your eyes are just constantly darting all over the road looking for potholes and uneven concrete and there's even been times that I've taken routes that are out of my way if I know that the roads are not low car friendly extreme lowering puts extra wear and Terror on your tires and the other suspension components and of course the bottom of your car gets all scraped up and for what worst ride quality when I swapped out the billstein shocks for the BC extreme low coilovers on my E90 the ride truly suffered it's like I paid money for the car to drive [Music] worse but man it looked cool in pictures I think for someone on a budget who's looking to upgrade their suspension I would recommend a highquality shock and spring combo over a lot of these extreme lowering coilovers it's actually going to be a little bit cheaper and your back will thank [Music] you a common car modifying mistake that I've made myself a couple times is buying wheels that are the wrong size so I think most people know about bolt pattern and diameter but there's a ton of other considerations as well width offset Center board brake and suspension clearance the first set of aftermarket wheels that I ever bought were for my XB they were the set of XXR wheels and I knew that I needed a 4X 100 bolt pattern but that was about it and I ended up with these super wide wheels with a plus zero offset and they stuck out like 2 or 3 Ines from the car in the front it just looked absolutely ridiculous a cool Trend that I've been seeing is OEM wheels on other makes and models and there's a really cool Facebook group by the same name if you want to see more of what I'm talking about right rather than buying aftermarket wheels people are buying OEM wheels from other makes and models and putting them on their car and the cool thing about running a stock wheel especially if it's from a German car is that the quality is actually really really good not this one cuz it's a rep this is my spare tire a lot of times stock wheels actually go through more thorough and rigorous testing compared to a lot of the cheap aftermarket wheels that we have here in the US and OEM wheels tend to have more conservative offset so there's less of a risk that it's going to poke out from the car or rub on it suspension on the inside and if you go with wheels of the same make there's a better chance that the wheels going to work better with the car's overall design language than just taking a chance on some random aftermarket wheel ultimately buy whatever Wheels you like just make sure that they fit as I've gotten older my preferences for car modifications lean on the subtle side lately I like the OEM plus approach where instead of going aftermarket for everything you use only parts from BMW's catalog or retrofit parts from higher trim models it respects the designer intentions and only improves upon it using Factory spec parts only occasionally looking to the aftermarket when a part exceeds the performance or reliability of stock these days reliability in Daily drivability remain my top priorities I'm driving to Florida in a few weeks around 2,000 Mi round trip and I need to trust that my car and everything that I've done to it can make it there in back in one piece let me know down in the comments what modific ation you've [Music] regretted I want to plug my website here really quickly here you can see all of my current 340i mods in one place with specs and links to most of the parts uh these are the mods that did work by the way I have a shop with some merch these M brake caliper decals have been a hot seller I've got a Blog with step by step written DIYs that accompany these YouTube videos as well as some other random stuff that I'm into that I probably won't do videos on anyway feel free to check it out justin.com justinb i.com thanks for watching guys and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Justin Buice

Views: 60,247

Keywords: Justin Buice, BMW, 3 Series, F30, F30 BMW, BMW 340i, F30 340i, 340i, BMW 335i, F30 335i, 335i, BMW 328i, F30 328i, 328i, F30 M Sport, BMW mods, BMW DIY, BMW vlog, B58, F32 BMW, M340i, M240i, 340i intake, 340i exhaust, m sport conversion, m sport bumper, alcantara steering wheel, alcantara steering wheel cleaning, bmw coilovers, bmw lowering springs, bmw stance, bmw modified, bmw lowered, f30 m sport conversion, bmw straight pipe, bmw interior, frs exhaust, frs coilovers

Id: _nCGLcaKG5k

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024