Useful vehicle modifications

[Alaskajohn]

Admit it, you want this too!

 

[The Lazy L]

 

[Aerindel]

My list of mandatory mods when I get a car.

1 ABS delete.
2 Daytime running light delete
3 Door/key chime delete.
4. Hatchback or tailgate rear INTERIOR handle addition
5. Tail light kill switch.

 

[LadyLocust]

My list of mandatory mods when I get a car.

1 ABS delete.
2 Daytime running light delete
3 Door/key chime delete.
4. Hatchback or tailgate rear INTERIOR handle addition
5. Tail light kill switch.

You forgot one. I always wanted a horn that was a train horn Also, the seatbelt chime can go away. They connect it to the air bags in new cars so you can't disconnect it.

 

[Weedygarden]

They connect it to the air bags in new cars so you can't disconnect it.

This is probably because of people disconnecting them!

 

[Mountain trapper]

You forgot one. I always wanted a horn that was a train horn Also, the seatbelt chime can go away. They connect it to the air bags in new cars so you can't disconnect it.

On my truck and Rubicon I was able to disconnect all beeps and buzzers. My wife stopped me when she saw me start taking the dash apart on her new Grand Cherokee. Now I just leave the seat belt buckled behind the seat.

 

[LadyLocust]

This is probably because of people disconnecting them!

Yep - which I was one of. I actually called the car dealership when I got my car. I asked about disconnecting the chime. The attendant said, "It's a safety feature." I replied, "It's not a safety feature. It's an annoying feature. The seatbelt is the safety feature." Silence.

 

[Weedygarden]

On my truck and Rubicon I was able to disconnect all beeps and buzzers. My wife stopped me when she saw me start taking the dash apart on her new Grand Cherokee. Now I just leave the seat belt buckled behind the seat.

I have never understood the need to disconnect them. I've known people who did, but why? If I hear them, I check to see what I have missed, and sometimes I do miss things. And no seat belt? Why? I'm just curious, why?

 

[Mountain trapper]

I have never understood the need to disconnect them. I've known people who did, but why? If I hear them, I check to see what I have missed, and sometimes I do miss things. And no seat belt? Why? I'm just curious, why?

I find the sounds and lights annoying, and I don't need them. There are times where I wear seatbelts but not often. I live in a low population area and seldom drive in traffic. I'll wear them when I feel that I need them. I've got confidence in my driving abilities. Everything in life comes with a risk.
I disconnect the daytime driving lights too.

 

[Spikedriver]

I would make it mandatory for every new car to have a disable switch for the feature that stops the engine at a stoplight. That sh1t drives me up the wall. If I wanted the thing to shut off I'd shut it off...

 

[Neb]

I find the sounds and lights annoying, and I don't need them. There are times where I wear seatbelts but not often. I live in a low population area and seldom drive in traffic. I'll wear them when I feel that I need them. I've got confidence in my driving abilities. Everything in life comes with a risk.
I disconnect the daytime driving lights too.

I was hit head on in my lane going around a blind curve by a kid going 60 MPH trying to make home before his Cinderella license expired.

It is not only our own skills...

Ben

 

[Neb]

I would make it mandatory for every new car to have a disable switch for the feature that stops the engine at a stoplight. That sh1t drives me up the wall. If I wanted the thing to shut off I'd shut it off...

You can disable that feature most of the time by simply not stopping and just keep creeping forward. I used to play a game of seeing how far I can go in bumper to bumper traffic without stopping. Trying to go south out of Cleveland at rush hour or get around Washington DC were real challenges!

That freaked me out when a I was driving a rental. Hundreds of miles from home and the engine just dies!

Ben

 

[Spikedriver]

You can disable that feature most of the time by simply not stopping and just keep creeping forward. I used to play a game of seeing how far I can go in bumper to bumper traffic without stopping. Trying to go south out of Cleveland at rush hour or get around Washington DC were real challenges!

That freaked me out when a I was driving a rental. Hundreds of miles from home and the engine just dies!

Ben

Lol I'm not going to mess with doing that. A lot of cars have a button that will disable it but every time you turn off with the key the vehicle will default back to the start/stop setting. I'd rather it would just stay off but I could learn to hit the button if I had to...

 

[Supervisor42]

I have never understood the need to disconnect them. I've known people who did, but why? If I hear them, I check to see what I have missed, and sometimes I do miss things. And no seat belt? Why? I'm just curious, why?

For most of us it is not only an annoyance, it is a disadvantage.
Examples:
1. Get out of your car in a crowded parking lot and if the key is in the ignition switch, the whole time the door is open, the car is shouting to all bystanders: "Boing! Boing! Carjack me now! Boing! Boing!".
2. Pile a bunch of groceries in the passenger seat of DW's Acadia and you will listen to 'Boing, Boing, Boing' all the way home because the groceries are not wearing their seatbelt. No way to shut it up either.
...I can mention more if you haven't broken out the wire-cutters yet.
p.s. I always wear my seatbelt because I don't want to die, not because some idiot-chime told me to.

 

[Aerindel]

I am a seatbelt nazi, I always wear it. But I have zero tolerance for a vehicle telling me what to do. If any of my vehicles made a sound when the seatbelt wasn't plugged in, I would disable that too, but none of them came with that 'feature'.

It's also important to me that my vehicles don't have any automatic lights or sounds when you open the door or that you can't turn off if the vehicle is running.

I genuinely feel sick every time I read about all the 'features' of modern vehicles.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Its all a personal choice, wear it or don't wear it. I dont care what other people do. If I drove on congested freeways I'd probably wear a seat belt too.

 

[Neb]

...

I genuinely feel sick every time I read about all the 'features' of modern vehicles.

Maybe a rant but...

Re new features...

I like standards.
Clutch to the left brake in the middle gas to the left.
Turn wheel clockwise to turn right.

But get in a rental...

How to set cruise control?
How to turn on windshield wiper?
Etc

Every car is different. New features need new standards.

Ben

 

[Spikedriver]

Maybe a rant but...

Re new features...

I like standards.
Clutch to the left brake in the middle gas to the left.
Turn wheel clockwise to turn right.

But get in a rental...

How to set cruise control?
How to turn on windshield wiper?
Etc

Every car is different. New features need new standards.

Ben

I get what you're saying. My little SUV and my truck have the cruise in different places and they operate with a different procedure. Sometimes I forget which vehicle I'm driving and I end up turning the radio down trying to set the cruise. But sometimes I kind of like having choices because if there's a feature I find out that I hate, I can eliminate that vehicle from my list of potential cars.

For example, I like to sit with the driver's seat high and upright, or my back starts to hurt. In Honda vehicles when you raise the seat, it moves forward as well. I have long arms and legs and I can't get the seats far enough away from the wheel and the pedals unless the seat is almost bottomed out. That eliminates Honda cars from my list.

 

[backlash]

My wife's Toyota has an app on her phone to remote start the car. No button on the key fob.
I just found out after the first year I would have to pay $4.99 a month to keep the app feature enabled. NOT happening.
My F150 will disable the radio if any occupied seat has the belt unhooked.
It's to get kids to buckle up, like they don't just hook the belt behind them.
My F150 and my wife's Toyota are so different I have to take a few minutes to remind myself where everything is. I can't tell you how many times I flash the headlights while trying to turn on the wipers.

 

[Spikedriver]

I think I would modify almost every new car to have more torque. Most of the newer vehicles with 4 cylinder engines have enough horsepower, but you have to be doing 4000 RPM to get that power. Most of my driving is interstate miles at 80-85 mph and I get sick of hearing the little engines screaming at me for hours on end. Plus I don't like it when the transmission shifts down two gears just to climb a little hill.

 

[LadyLocust]

I have never understood the need to disconnect them. I've known people who did, but why? If I hear them, I check to see what I have missed, and sometimes I do miss things. And no seat belt? Why? I'm just curious, why?

When I stop at the end of the lane and get the mail then pull in my drive. I do not buckle. I don't want a dummy buckle, because there are times when I do where it of course. When we were out feeding cows I think we buckled the belts and shoved them in the seat. Not everyone drives in cities. But most carmakers don't realize that.

My wife's Toyota has an app on her phone to remote start the car. No button on the key fob.
I just found out after the first year I would have to pay $4.99 a month to keep the app feature enabled. NOT happening.
My F150 will disable the radio if any occupied seat has the belt unhooked.
It's to get kids to buckle up, like they don't just hook the belt behind them.
My F150 and my wife's Toyota are so different I have to take a few minutes to remind myself where everything is. I can't tell you how many times I flash the headlights while trying to turn on the wipers.

Oh yea! No key fobs. Just a regular flat key that fits in my pocket please. I can't wait to get my bronco back. No annoyances and a flat key. I love it!

 

[Supervisor42]

I think I would modify almost every new car to have more torque. Most of the newer vehicles with 4 cylinder engines have enough horsepower, but you have to be doing 4000 RPM to get that power. Most of my driving is interstate miles at 80-85 mph and I get sick of hearing the little engines screaming at me for hours on end. Plus I don't like it when the transmission shifts down two gears just to climb a little hill.

Be glad you didn't grow up driving big-block V8's.
You got in 4th gear at 40mph and were done shifting gears until you rolled to a stop.
You'd be popping the hood on current ones like me and looking for the 'Briggs & Stratton' sticker.

 

[dademoss]

Be glad you didn't grow up driving big-block V8's.
You got in 4th gear at 40mph and were done shifting gears until you rolled to a stop.
You'd be popping the hood on current ones like me and looking for the 'Briggs & Stratton' sticker.

My last car had less displacement than a 2 liter MT Dew bottle . My 2nd car had a 455 V8. Suddenly, I am sad.

 

[Weedygarden]

Not everyone drives in cities. But most carmakers don't realize that.

A seatbelt is not a 100% guarantee that if you roll your car you will survive. I have known a couple people who lived in the country who died in roll over accidents and were not buckled in. Both of these people were young. One was a teenage girl, 15 years old, and the other was a young man, 23 years old who left behind a wife and two children. Driving on gravel roads in the dark will sometimes make it harder to avoid the gravel ridges that tires can get caught in and cause some sliding.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88566737/charles-william-meekhttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/98515178/judy-ann-rysavy
Somehow, some of my daughter's friends had parents who were never available to drive their own children around to movies, etc., and those children wanted to resist being buckled up in my car. "We don't wear seat belts." Right. My car doesn't move if passengers don't buckle up.

I had a conversation with a seatbelt resister. "What would you do if you get stopped and you are not wearing a seatbelt?" "I'll slide it over my arm and pretend it must have gotten unbuckled." Same person did get stopped and did get cited for not having his seatbelt buckled.

 

[Spikedriver]

I

Be glad you didn't grow up driving big-block V8's.
You got in 4th gear at 40mph and were done shifting gears until you rolled to a stop.
You'd be popping the hood on current ones like me and looking for the 'Briggs & Stratton' sticker.

I didn't grow up on big blocks but I've had plenty small block Chevys. It kind of blows my mind that the 4 bangers of today have way more power than the old '78 Malibu I had in high school. But those little motors still have to turn a lot of RPM to get that power. The turbochargers they put on everything nowadays help. I have a 2014 Equinox with a 2.4 liter non turbo. Pops has a 2019 Equinox with a 1.5 liter turbo. His has way more low end grunt than mine does. But it's still a 1.5 liter engine and it's not strong enough for going 80 on the interstate...

 

[Weedygarden]

I

I didn't grow up on big blocks but I've had plenty small block Chevys. It kind of blows my mind that the 4 bangers of today have way more power than the old '78 Malibu I had in high school. But those little motors still have to turn a lot of RPM to get that power. The turbochargers they put on everything nowadays help. I have a 2014 Equinox with a 2.4 liter non turbo. Pops has a 2019 Equinox with a 1.5 liter turbo. His has way more low end grunt than mine does. But it's still a 1.5 liter engine and it's not strong enough for going 80 on the interstate...

Didn't those cars also use a lot of gas?

 

[Spikedriver]

Didn't those cars also use a lot of gas?

Most did. That old Malibu might have gotten 19mpg on a trip. I had a '76 Chevy 3/4 ton truck at one time. It had a 350 engine, full time 4x4, and was geared so low that 70mph was just about top speed. That thing got 6mpg on a good day. I loved it but it was hard on my wallet.

 

[Supervisor42]

My last car had less displacement than a 2 liter MT Dew bottle . My first car had a 455 V8. Suddenly, I am sad.

I bet it was an Oldsmobile.
If you are gonna sling 5,000 pounds of car down the road really fast, you need a real engine.
That MT Dew bottle really puts today's engines in perspective.

Didn't those cars also use a lot of gas?

Yes, but nobody cared (except little grey-haired old ladies).

 

[Spikedriver]

That 455 used a 2 liter bottle's worth of gas every mile too. Of course when gas was $.39/gallon, nobody cared. I may be driving from Iowa to New Mexico in a couple weeks for work. I shudder to think what my gas cost would be for that round trip if I was driving a mid 70s era big block boat...

 

[dademoss]

I bet it was an Oldsmobile.
If you are gonna sling 5,000 pounds of car down the road really fast, you need a real engine.
That MT Dew bottle really puts today's engines in perspective.
Yes, but nobody cared (except little grey-haired old ladies).

1974 Pontiac Granville, Police Interceptor package. I bought it from a guy that ordered with his employee discount from GM. The 0-60 wasn't fabulous, but only God knew where the top end was.