We all like our cars to be fast, sure. We want good handling, we want a nice exhaust note. But most of the time we spend in our cars isn’t on the track — we’re just getting from Point A to Point B, and wouldn’t it be nice to do so in a bit more comfort? Yesterday, we asked for your favorite quality-of-life car mods, and you had hundreds of answers. Let’s take a look at some of the best.
If you live in a snowy climate: getting a second set of wheels and having dedicated snow tires and summer tires. There are not many things more relieving than being able to drive through blizzard conditions without the anxiety of your car slipping all over the road.
I had blizzaks on the stock rims and pilot supersports on a set of aftermarket wheels for my RSX-S back in the day. Car was unstoppable and very confidence-inspiring in the snow, but was fun to take to the track or autox on the stickier tires in the summer. 10 minutes total to switch them out in the garage, with no concern about getting an appointment at a tire shop to change yours over. One of the best car decisions you can make IMO.
I lived the “two sets of tires, one set of wheels” life for a long time. It’s inconvenient, it’s bad, and it means you’re beholden to a shop when the weather changes. Get a second set of wheels, you won’t regret it.
Switching from 18" wheels with rubber-band tires to 16" wheels with nice tall sidewall tires. No more flat tires, more comfortable, quieter. Looks lame, but meh for a daily driver.
Reject modernity, return to big sidewalls. They’re comfortable, compliant, and often cheaper. Learn to stop worrying about looks and love the sidewall.
I added the OEM cruise control to my manual as the dealer said only the automatics came with cruise control. Luckily, Kia was nice enough to pre-wire all their cars for top trim levels. I just had to install the switches in the steering wheel along with it’s ribbon cable.
If your car has high-spec options that you didn’t get from the factory, you may still have unused wiring lurking behind the dash. Why not take advantage of it?
Weather Tech floor mats. Keeps all the crud and grime out of the floor. Take them out, spray down with tire cleaner, hose off, dry, and they’re back to looking like new in about 5 minutes of work. No damp carpeting in the vehicle, no mold, no mildew. Yes, they cost a bit more, but totally worth it.
I’ve had WeatherTechs in my past few cars, save the carpet-less track Miata, and they’re truly a godsend for keeping your carpets clean. I’m not sure how much of the laser scanning is marketing drivel and how much is engineering design, but they always work.
A Light In Sight, best $13 I have ever spent (when I bought it, looks like it’s $19.95 now). It’s a Fresnel lens that sits at the top of your windshield, centered on the driver. It allows you to see traffic lights when nearly directly under them. At 6'-2", driving a MINI, this keeps me from having to do the mad monkey head bob to see when the light turns green. It’s so useful, my 5'-2" wife got one, and also loves it.
Having owned multiple Miatae, I am far too familiar with that head bob. I’m going to have to look into this Fresnel lens myself, I think.
Smartphone
Being old enough to have existed before GPS was widely available in cars, not having to use a physical map is absolutely life changing. Also, what people don’t often realize is that if you don’t know where you are, maps tend to be useless.
Also having lived through the evolution from cell phones physically installed in cars to our current world, not having to locate a payphone to make a phone call is also completely life changing.
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Block heater
If you don’t have a garage, and you live in a frigid winter climate, there’s nothing sweeter than being able to unplug, then hop in your car on a cold winter morning and have instant heat. There’s less of a worry of the car simply not being able to start (which was more of a concern in the stone ages, from whence I came).
As a millennial, my phone ownership predates my car ownership. I even used an iPhone for navigation on my motorcycle, riding that back from Jersey. Phones may not feel like a car mod, but they’re incredibly useful.
Gas pedal repositioning spacers or gas pedal extenders for making heel-toe downshifting much easier. I’ve done this for like 5 cars I’ve had in the past. NC and ND Miatas, BRZ, Focus ST and Fiesta ST.
For sportscars, the pedal spacing on the Miatas and BRZs leave a lot to be desired for heel-toe pedal spacing. Actually, it’s fucking bullshit that the pedals on those built-from-the-ground-up sportscars are spaced so far apart, as well as being uneven with the gas pedal being much lower than the brake pedal.
I can forgive that on the Ford STs since they were econoboxes to begin with. But on real sportscars, that’s a faux pas.
Nowadays, my Veloster N has rev-match downshifting that can rev match much better and more consistently than I can heel-toe. And I can heel-toe pretty damn good.
Had I kept my FR-S, I would’ve put a pedal spacer in there, too. Not only are the pedals far apart horizontally, they’ve got considerable vertical distance between them — you need to be really hard on the brakes for the pedals to line up.
Jalopnik featured an answer of mine to a QOTD that was “what feature did you wish your car had?” And my answer of CarPlay was chosen. It was a system put in 2016+ golfs. My 2015 didn’t have it, and I would have to retrofit it. Well thanks to a member here who saw my answer - gave me a full parts list complete with part numbers to convert my 2015 Golf Sportwagen TDIs MIB1 system to MIB2 with CarPlay. Thank you Chimuel!
Enthusiast communities are a great place to look for car upgrade info. It’s always possible that your specific model has some specific quirk, and that other people online have already sorted out how to turn it into a feature.
Garbage bag/bin. Choose what fits your aesthetic sensibilities, but something as simple as a Command hook on which to hang a plastic grocery bag will suffice.
I never have enough stuff in my car to warrant a trash can, but I realize most people aren’t that meticulous. A trash bag is a nice way to keep the inside of your car a little neater and tidier.
Super quiet muffler. A nice exhaust note is a pleasure for an enthusiast and loud exhaust is fun for everyone, but if you are spending a significant amount of your day in your car there is something enthralling about having your car deliver its power without making a big production of it. It almost seems magical to have it press you into your seat in near silence. Having your car go while also being able to hear the full dynamic range and auditory nuance of Lateralus is delightful.
Many times, I’ve wished I could turn down the sounds of my car in order to better hear my music. A quiet exhaust may not be great on the race track, but it can be fantastic for daily driving.
I spent $300 and had the failed leather steering wheel on my old Ram rewrapped by Redline Goods earlier this year. It’s an old truck I don’t use every day but every time I do - the wheel is the primary point of my connection with the vehicle and the new leather makes it SO much nicer.
There are so few points of your car that stay in constant contact with your body. Why not make sure the ones that do are in nice shape?
Added the Nissan iPod/iPhone interface to my 2006 Infiniti G35 Coupe 6MT. Took me about 3h, mainly because of routing the cable harness from the audio module in the back and placing the interface box beneath the back seat and routing the connector cable underneath the back carpet with a coat hanger (!), but in the end the only thing you could see was the little lightning connector protruding from underneath the armrest to connect the iPod/iPhone, as shown in the picture.
It allowed you to use the steering wheel controls to skip songs and the Bose head unit to toggle between playlists. It was very neat. Worked great, with the only changes required being adapters for the 32-pin -> Lightning plus a tiny converter from 12V to 5V as the iPhones got modernized. Worked flawlessly from 2009 to 2018, when I sold the car. That was the only mod I did to that car, so it was probably one of the most unmolested Infiniti G35 Coupe in the country when sold.
Always hide the wiring. Who likes to see cables scattered around their interior when they’re driving around? If you can have a plug poking out from an armrest, and nothing else visible, you’ve done the job right.
More or less, a lot of this stuff applies to pickups. I did all of these mods to my Frontier over time. When the new Ram came along, I chose some of the most life-critical mods that I absolutely could not live without.
1) A QUALITY locking bed cover. I chose the sliding ones because of the T-slot rails:
2) Not to mention, Bed-over rack for double-decker hauling:
3) I used to think these look stupid, but keeping your windows cracked without worrying about rain: Vent Shades.
4) I’ve come to the point that I’m not comfortable driving without a dash cam or radar detector:
5) Emergency kit with tools plus fixed storage bins:
6) Secondary Fuel Container (15 and 18gal in my trucks):
This looks far less Mad Max than I would expect for adding a second fuel storage solution to your truck. It’d likely be perfect for extended overland camping trips.
For the Toyota Tacoma it was an issue w/ the seats and my lower back.
The seating position is really bad in any 2005 and later Tacoma. So much that even after a couple of hours I had major lower back pain to the point where I’d have to lay down on the ground at rest stops.
A lot of people purchase expensive spacers to put underneath their front seats to change the seat angle and their back geometry.
I did something far simpler.
I was adding a Ham radio to the truck and needed to remove the seat. When I sat in the chair for a beer break, I had noticed that I felt better than when I sat in the seat w/ the headrest in place.
I have a Scion xB, it’s also a Toyota known as the bB in Japan. I tried swapping the headrests to see if that did the trick.
It did.
There’s something in the design from the new headrests to reduce whiplash by making them closer to your head at all times. Unfortunately, Toyota doesn’t understand they’re causing more problems than they’re solving by this incredibly stupid design.
I chucked the Tacoma headrests and bought an extra set of xB headrests on eBay for $19.99 + shipping. The alternative was seat risers for $99.99.
I’ve had my own issues with Tacoma seats, but the headrests on my FR-S were canted forward in the same way kalieaire is talking about. It’s even worse when you try throwing a Snell helmet on. Maybe I should’ve picked up some xB headrests.
[just a picture of a Fuel Shark]
Such a cheap device, offering such incredible savings on fuel? Something that good must be true! Sign me up!