Safe Speed Forums

I'm ambivalent on the subject of modified cars - some of them look really good, some like dogs dinners. I really like the paint jobs on some - the two tone paint jobs, when done well, are really eye catching. I can't say I'd like to own one of these modified cars myself, but I can see the appeal - or I can see why they might appeal, I should say ... the owners obviously care for their cars, and seem to enjoy the challenge of modifiying them in the most extreme ways. I suppose my first car was something of a 'modded' car, it was a crash damaged mini that I repaired with a one-piece fibreglass front end (one that opened TVR style, falling forward).

This weekend is the "Max Power" show at the NEC, and I noticed more than usual modified cars on the roads around Birmingham on my regular trips. At Warwick services I parked next to a Mitsubishi Eclipse that was either the car or a very good replica of the car from "Too Fast Too Furious" - again, a cracking paint job although not something I would want for myself.

In the car park were some other modded cars - playing music too loud and parking in the disabled spaces, and getting disapproving looks from the daily mail readers. One of them caught my eye particularly; it was a Peugeot 206 that had changed the doors so that instead of opening normally the doors went up, Murcielago style.

What I wondered was, at what point does the modification become so large as to require a full engineering inspection? The scissor door thing got me thinking - as the door forms part of the monocoque strength (hence the warnings to keep doors closed when jacking the car, for example) does a wholesale replacement of the fixings have a detrimental effect on the strength of the car? Kit cars have to go through a 'single vehicle approval', do modified cars need such reviews? Some people seem to do the suspension modifications popular in the US that allow cars to 'bounce' - again, does that effect the car safety?

My other point in this stream of consciousness is that it seems the "thing" to add a list of the suppliers of parts used in the modification of the car. It seems to be quite "de rigeur". The mischievous part of me wants to get some of these made into stickers that I can add to the bottom of the list:


Of course that's the same mischievous part of me that wants to write things like "someone's stolen 2 of your exhausts and the buggers also added two extra doors!" on BMW's with after market M3 badges on them!

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Or add Sinclair C5 badges to them

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

There's a raving great hole in the law here in the UK. We are well-endowed with different schemes for approving cars BEFORE registration (EC Whole Vehicle Type approval, UK Low Volume Type Approval and Single Vehicle Approval) but NOTHING to assess a car that has been modified AFTER registration. The authorities claim that we don't need such a scheme because everyone is required under UK law to comply with the "Construction and Use" Regs and the Road Vehicle Lighting Regs. In my view, that's a bit like painting double yellow lines outside banks in the hope that it will put bank robbers off because it's illegal to park their getaway car outside!

As far as I know, the only people who can prosecute for breaches of these regs are the cops but to my knowledge, nobody has ever been stopped by PC Plod saying "ello ello ello, wot's all this then sonny, I am arresting you on suspicion of having compromised your seat belt anchorage strength"! They tend to stick to noisy exhausts and dodgy lights & tyres.

It makes my hair stand on end when I see some of these "Lax Power" muppets charging round in their Saxos and Corsas with 18" alloy wheels shod in "BIG BOOTS" proudly displaying their original tiny little brakes through the spokes! As cars get more and more sophisticated, I wonder if they realise what the one-piece front end job will do to confuse their airbag computer in a crash? What the gullwing door conversion will do for their side impact resistance and what the kevlar racing bucket seats will do when their side airbag goes off. I sometimes wonder whether lowering the car 4" and replacing the 195/60/14 tyres with 255/45/18s will maybe affect their ABS, stability control and braking performance in some way?...

On the other hand, there is rarely a day goes by when I don't thank God that I grew up when you could still modify a car for pocket money prices and not have to worry about upsetting umpteen computers. The Uk's unusually permissive laws in this area might have had something to do with the fact that motorsport and high-performance specialist cars are one of the few areas in which we still excel. I can't help feeling that we might not have had the Colin Chapmans and Trevor Wilkinsons and Frank Costins who nurtured the industry in its early days if we'd had more rigidly enforced rules.

The "bottom line", I'd have thought, needs to be whether we have more kSIs in these cars than other similar countries. I believe that in Germany, you can't so much as fit a set of furry dice unless they are TUV approved and the modification noted on your registration document! Yet they don't seem to have better KSI statistics than we have.

If that's the case, maybe it's best that we leave it well alone and maybe, in his Maxxed-out Corsa, there's a spotty-faced baseball-capped "yoof" who's destined to be the next Frank Williams doing a "burn-out" in a B&Q car park somewhere out there as I write...

With regard the "Murcielago style" doors, the only modification there is the door hinges themselves....nothing else needs to be touched, therefore the vehicle structure isn't being altered from standard.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I can't understand the desire to spend thousands of pounds modifying what are often mundane small hatchbacks, when for the same money you could buy something that was half-decent in the first place. But each to the own, it would be boring if we were all the same so if they get pleasure from that then they can fill their boots.

The only thing that does irritate me slightly is having a stupidly loud exhaust - and nothing else. Dont get me wrong Im not against loud cars or bikes, I love the burble and roar of a good V8, but its the horrible waspy noise that is produced when a 1.0 engine meets a waste-bin exhaust I dont like. I can understand it when its part of a package of mods, but on its own its just annoying.

Perhaps the MOT could look out of modifications that significantly affect performance, handling or structuatal integrity? Unless it already does that is. I guess the problems would be on discretion, what one testers views as having an effect another may not. Just a thought.

[quote="Capri2.8i"]The only thing that does irritate me slightly is having a stupidly loud exhaust - and nothing else. Dont get me wrong Im not against loud cars or bikes, I love the burble and roar of a good V8, but its the horrible waspy noise that is produced when a 1.0 engine meets a waste-bin exhaust I dont like. I can understand it when its part of a package of mods, but on its own its just annoying.

[quote]

We get a few of those here. People with Honda Civics that have silencers the size of dump trucks.

My Buick looks so tame alongside them at the lights. No engine noise, no spoilers, no fog lights. But a 3.8 litre V6 under the bonnet. Simply destroys all the Honda floggers confidence when the light goes green.

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Once a Cornishman, always a Cornishman

A Civic Type R is 197hp and light with it. I can't imagine a buick would give it much to worry about

My Ka is what you would call a 'Pure Ka', i.e. it has no modifications (except a new stereo because I wanted a CD player).

I don't race it on the roads, funnily enough, but when some cocky 17 year old with R plates up comes beside me at a set of lights, I'll usually be quite quick on a green light... It's quite nice to see them struggling, with their wide bore exhaust which should probably be on a decent car, but it's actually on a 1.2 Corsa.

I edited to say that I have nothing against corsas, they're good cars, i meant to say a high performance car...

Near me there's a fairly respectable 'cruise' scene. I decided to go down for a nosey around the other evening, and it was quite nice to see the vast majority of them doing fairly subtle modifications, which I think improved the look of their cars vastly, nice alloys, the odd paint job. Most of the guys there are all really nice, and they don't really race as such, they just collect at the car park, play a bit of football, that kind of thing.

On the other hand, I can't stand silly looking spoilers which do nothing but increase drag, massive exhausts which do nothing for their performance, after market fog lights which they insist on burning continuously, and body kits, etc.

I also love watching the guys that try to outrun Evo's or Impreza's... Or a guy in a BMW, I always have a wee chuckle to myself.

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Mike

Ahh yes but what propotion of modified Civics are Type Rs?

probably most of them. mine is stock, but it's not and R

Not from my expierence. Generally speaking, but of course there are exceptions, the higher the stock perforance the less likely or less dramatically they are modded.

There are a noticeable amount of them now with go faster exhausts and even lower suspension. Your right about the low performance high mod ratio. But early ones are getting cheaper now and getting into the wrong hands. Would like one but they're too expensive and I rekon they might be a bit franic when you're not in the mood. Air con wasn't standard either. Just have to save up for an 06 Civic instead...

I'd noticed that - you see more modified 206 XSi (1.6i engine) than GTi (2.0). You also see a lot of HDi's with body kits!!

Thing that gets me is that "when I were a lad" I would have preferred a giant killer than a fart box - i.e. a car that looked 'stock' or even a bit ropey, but with performance far higher than it looked, than a gleaming shiney big bore exhaust (or inspection tunnel) on a 1.2 chavvy nova?

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

...just don't get me started

The thing with modification is that it enables a person to personalise their car; if they spent the money on a better car then it would not perhaps be so special.

However, on some occasions modifying a car is a waste of money. I know somebody who was going to spend £600 on a new suspension system for his car, and also considered new alloy wheels and even a new higher powered engine, but the car was a clapped out Vauxhall Nova.

Luckily, I think he saw sense and considered a replacement after losing control on a roundabout and damaging the front axle on the kerb! Novas are terrible for roll around corners.

I trust you have all met Barry Boys, right?

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Andrew.

i cant help but laugh at them. my galant is totally stock with the exception of a kenwood cd player and a sub in the boot. its a 2 litre 16v so i would wipe a lot of these modded motors off the road. the handling is good too for a car with soft suspension. why bother doing up a trolley with and engine when spending the same money will buy a half decent car WITH performance?
is it possible that i am now too old to appreciate the insurance premiums for kids these days? i had intended buying an EVO and that was only a grand fully comp for me

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
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Insurance is stupidly high for any vaguely interesting cars. When I was 24 I was paying £2200 on my Legacy with 3 years no claims (would have been £4400 if I'd insured it at my Liverpool address), I'm now only paying £1000 (with more no claims, of course)

When I was younger, I would have been looking at a grand to insure, say, an XR3i, and was being refused quotes on an RS Turbo. I also managed to get a 5 figure quote on my dad's C reg jag from the AA.

So yes, I can understand kids tarting up their cars to look more like the car they'd actually want to own. Doesn't stop me laughing at the more badly done and extreme examples though.

I have an issue with some of these points though..

[QUOTE=Mole]It makes my hair stand on end when I see some of these "Lax Power" muppets charging round in their Saxos and Corsas with 18" alloy wheels shod in "BIG BOOTS" proudly displaying their original tiny little brakes through the spokes![/QUOTE]

Those wheels wont make much difference to the acceleration of the car. They may give it a little more grip which would add the potential for more acceleration IF the engine is capable of spinning the wheels, which I doubt somewhat. They are less likely to come off on a corner and may stop a little better due to the increased grip (though better gains could be had by not fitting Kwik-fit own brand tyres). Yes the bright red painted brake DRUMS behind the spindly 18" alloys do look comical, but it's not a safety issue.



Who cares? The only person going to suffer from this is the driver/owner themselves, and possibly their chav underage girlfriend who was stupid enough to agree to get into the thing.



The affects of lowering and replacing tyres are fairly well understood. Done properly it will be an improvement. Cut the springs and it will handle a lot worse.

I doubt most of these cars have stability control to be honest. It's usually found on the higher end cars that actually need it.

As for ABS. I honestly don't know. People replace wheels all the time so I'd hope any problems with this would have been noticed by now. At the end of the day all ABS has to do is detect that a wheel isn't turning and do something about it. With the possible exception of Ford's godawful mechanical ABS I can't see how different size/shape/weight wheels will affect ABS.

I do accept the point about "fart cannon" echausts however, but apart from that if they aren't causing a nusiance or driving dangerously then leave them be, I say. I'd rather they spent their money on their cars than on heroin or knives.

My insurance company insured me on a 1.6 16v 206 but not on a 1.4 16v 206. The difference? The less powerful car was called a "Sport" rather than a GLX. Petty.

Yes but I wonder if all these mods are properly declared on the insurance? With most companies I would suspect that if they decalared the lowing, expensive alloys, exhaust, paint job, K+N etc etc it would be more then that of a more potent manufactuers spec car.

Im definately with the others when I would rather have a faster, if less "showy" car, but then thats just my own preference. Indeed I started on 2.8 Capris when I was 18(cheap car, expensive insurance), when all my friends had sub 1.2 hatchbacks. They were jealous of the perforamance and noise it made, I was jealous that they didn't spend their Sundays covered in oil.