What aftermarket parts improve the looks of any car?

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

Anything from JC Whitney. 

Wait, are they still players?  I haven't seen a catalog since the late 80s.

I'll jump on the bandwagon and say lowered + wheels.

Sometimes, even just lowering without new wheels is enough.

The funny thing is, with the possible exception of KS1's, one of the best mods to any car in my eyes is removing aftermarket wheels and putting stock ones back on.  Man are the majority of aftermarket wheels ugly.

I do agree with the comment on small wheel spacers helping most cars though.  OEM clearance standards have to take into account max tolerance stack up plus worst case conditions and still require clearance to other components which means at least a 5mm spacer can normally be added to any car with zero impact on clearance with no noticeable effect on scrub radius either.

TE37s

Every car looks good with a properly sized and spaced set of TE37s

Everyone knows flames make it 200% better looking. 

A wink mirror!

A respray/wrap of the paint in a color not found in the grayscale spectrum.

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

Everyone knows flames make it 200% better looking. 

I've been seeing a lot of minivans with flames around the Raleigh area lately. Is this a local thing like the Carolina Squat or nation wide?

I am going to have to disagree with wheels.  back in the day, yes, converting from the plain-jane steel original wheels that came on most cars was an improvement in appearance but today when most cars  come with alloy wheels from the  factory, the only ones that can be improved are the ones that look goofy with the stock wheels and that is a pretty limited percentage.

The wheels on my two modern sports cars are great - no change would improve the looks, IMHO.

I'm glad that I'm not the only person that doesn't automatically like aftermarket wheels, especially on trucks. 

I wouldn't say all, but many cars can be improved with different wheels.  Plenty of stock wheels are decent looking, but it's less common for them to be really good looking.  That said, not all aftermarket wheels will look better.  Plenty of people choose downright ugly wheels, or ones that look nice on their own but just don't go with the car. 

So, we have determined that across a given type of modification there are good choices and bad choices. You can still buy ugly aftermarket wheels and some stock wheels look good. 

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm glad that I'm not the only person that doesn't automatically like aftermarket wheels, especially on trucks. 

Well, yeah there are plenty of terrible looking aftermarket wheels.  

But you guys seem to fawn over K1s, so who knows. 

There is also the function aspect, for example, I don't particularly LOVE Enkei RPF1s. They aren't bad, but not my favorite. 

However, going from stock 17x7 to 18x9.5 RPFs actually saved me something like 3.5-4 lbs per corner and allowed dramatically larger tires, which of course ate up the weight savings. 

Some really nice BC Racing forged or similar would be close to $4k a set vs $1400/set. Although now Titan makes some nice forged wheels in the $500-600 wheel range, but no custom fitments, and limited platforms. 

Wheels and tires with the caveat of taste. Seems like a lot of cars and trucks have tires that are too small, even if the wheel design looks good. Filling up the wheel well helps.

For some reason, mudflaps almost always look great to me (again, if they're good ones).

I'll second the chin spoiler comment.

Nice exhaust tip or tips is another. Subtle but makes a big difference.

Hard to come up with anything else universal, but in most cases color matching or blacking out chrome accents and trim seems to help a lot.

In reply to BenB :

Less minivans here's but like new gm and Ford crossovers driven by old guys. 

I have never seen a car that couldn't be improved with nice aftermarket wheels and lowering (expect for some very expensive/exotic stuff).

BenB said:

I've been seeing a lot of minivans with flames around the Raleigh area lately. Is this a local thing like the Carolina Squat or nation wide?

The minivans with flames on them I've seen driving around Raleigh seem to be the new "work truck" choice because of the insane used car/truck market these days.

Granted, I've only seen the same two driving around so far.

Here are my bad choices:
Really big wing
Stretched tires
excessive camber
crackle tune (No, really, it makes EVERYONE look bad)

 

1" drop and more attractive wheels made a bunch of difference as did a subtle change to the previously black lower panels. I"m a big fan of using whels and tires to change the look of a car, as it's easily reversible if you want to sell.

My Mustang was the same way:

Debadging.

In reply to mtn :

I'll play along. Debadgeing looks like the vehicle got hit and not repaired correctly. 

Jerry said:

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

Anything from JC Whitney. 

Wait, are they still players?  I haven't seen a catalog since the late 80s.

My Subaru had a pair of 15" subwoofers from JC Whitney in 1997.

Keith Tanner said:

So, we have determined that across a given type of modification there are good choices and bad choices. You can still buy ugly aftermarket wheels and some stock wheels look good. 

Lowering, however, always looks crappy.  Makes the proportions all wrong unless you cut and roll the wheelwells higher to even up the wheel gap.

It used to be that 1-inch increase in wheel diameter was an improvement in looks.  With most cars, I think they look better.  Now it seems like a reduction by at *least* 2 inches improves looks.  And ride quality.  And probably performance too.  If only brake rotors also hadn't gotten so unnecessarily large.  I hate everything about the 19" wheels on the wife's Focus RS: I think they look dumb, they ride terribly, the tires are delicate and expensive, and your average semi truck has a better turning radius because Ford limited the steering angle to keep the 19's from hitting the wheel wells.  The winter wheels are 18", which provides only a barely-noticeable improvement in appearance.

In reply to Berck :

Going from 18s to 17s dramatically increased the visual appeal of my Volvo.  The 18s look Conestoga-ey.  The 17s, on the other hand..

The stock 235/40-18s limit the steering to two turns, and Volvo put metal grind pads on the fender liners for the tires to rub on.  Which they did.  A lot.  The 235/45-17s do not rub, and I could probably use thinner steering stops on the control arms to allow more steering.

I don't know how much genetics is shared between the 3rd gen Focus and the Volvo P2R, but P2R 18" wheels fit the FoRS and vice versa (330mm rotors allow 17s to fit the Volvo) and the steering is similarly limited.  The next generation S60 looks a lot like a Focus underneath...