Originally Posted by
Boozy
The thing is I'm only 16 years old, and I live in a gated neighborhood so it has to look nice before I put in my driveway, otherwise I have to keep it in storage. But I'm thinking that I might wait until next summer and keep saving up money in the mean time so I can do everything at once, unless I can find I really good deal before then.
don't get any kind of body kit, aero, anything like that.
get the stock bumpers.
get the car painted one color.
Then, go through the car, top to bottom, front to back, and fix EVERYTHING.
You're buying a car that is older than you.
It is worn out. Everything is worn out. Parts that you don't even know exist yet are worn out.
Even if you are buying a really "cool" car from someone else that has fixed it up or whatever, everything is still broken.
there are only a handful of people in the entire state that I would trust with buying a car from that everything has already been fixed on it.
so instead of wasting all of your time and money on some body kit, just get what is broken, fixed.
Hell, the windshield is going to be all scratched up.
There are 5 dozen things that would be better to spend your money on instead of a body kit.
If the paint is really that bad that you won't be allowed to park it in your driveway, then get it painted. Doesn't have to be anything special, just so it looks decent.
I know it is hard to wrap your head around at 16 years old, but there are so much better ways to spend your money instead of just the basic looks of a car. Most people don't think body kits look good anyway. Only a small portion of "car people" do. The average person thinks that cars with a bodykit are owned and driven by punk ass kids that don't know better.
At 16, it is highly unlikely that you even know all of the parts that can and are worn out on an older car, let along how to replace them.
Trust me, even if the car runs and drives "perfect" there are still dozens of things that could be better.
Take the money that you would spend on a body kit and fix the oil leaks. get a decent tune up. replace all of the worn out, 20 year old rubber bushings with new, quality parts. Detail the interior, replacing all of the worn out parts. Fix the rust in your hatch. Fix the leaky sunroof weather stripping. Replace the scratched windshield. Fix the exhaust leaks. Get a spare engine. Prepare for the oil pump, water pump, alternator, power steering pump, etc to go bad. Fix and update the a/c correctly. Get a decent battery. upgrade the sound system to something quality. Buy decent, quality wheels and tires. Learn what all you can do with the car, and learn what all you actually want to do with the car and set goals with it. Learn the difference between cheap and inexpensive. Learn the difference between expensive parts and quality parts. Learn how to drive. Trust me, at 16, unless you have been racing since you were 12, you don't know how to drive yet.
the list goes on and on, and that is all before you buy a body kit.
With that said, if you are stuck on getting a body kit.
Don't cheap out. Find the look you want. Find out what parts you need to get that look. Find a bodyshop/painter that will install it, and do a quality job. Triple check that the job is done correctly, and get a quality paint job for the whole car, not just the body kit parts.
A good rule to follow when getting body kits and all of that is that you want it to look like it was there from the factory. Like it was designed that way, like those parts were supposed to be there.