When would you be ok with drilling holes in the body of your car?

Just curious.  At what age/mileage/both would you be ok drilling holes in your car for something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM8uuZrw8RM

Generally,  any time. I rarely hesitate to drill holes in anything. 

I was wiring a 60 Corvette. Every time i picked up the drill, i said "$100 less" out loud as a way to remind myself of the value of what i was working on. 

Day 2

I drilled 3/4" holes in the new hood of my 2 year old mustang the day I got it back from the body shop. 
 

of course, I attacked the bumper vents with a dremel tool before I made the first payment the year I bought it new. 
 

it's not yours till you drill a hole in it

I just drilled the berkeley out of the q45's trunk for a spoiler.  I will not drill holes in the roof

Probably never.

I'd owned my Miata just under a year when I drilled holes in it for the roll bar. :)  About 14K miles.

I never used to be, but now that I own "nice" cars in the rust belt I'm a bit more hesitant.

ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) said:

 

it's not yours till you drill a hole in it

You're still talking about cars - right?

eastpark said:

ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) said:

 

it's not yours till you drill a hole in it

You're still talking about cars - right?

Actually no!

Boats, it's even more true with boats. 

Its not a age thing. It's a use thing. 

For what it's worth, the roof of our Yukon was absolutely covered in holes for antennae/lights/etc.  I sealed them all with 3M Window Weld and never had any water intrusion over 3 or 4 years of it living outside.

When it's a truck. Or a rally car. Or it makes you go faster. 

It seems like roof racks have become a cosmetic accessory.  I see a lot of young guys put them on their cars but never actually use them for anything.

They do look cool. No different than lifting jeeps that only go to the mall. 
 

I find that they're useful on mid size suvs for hauling bikes and camping gear but it's a narrow window. Full size trucks and suvs have more room and are too tall for the rack to be easy to use. Most cars do better with a hitch rack for bikes and are too small for hauling much camping gear. 
 

Wagons, I could see a roof rack being useful depending on what you do with it. 

For a roof rack? Never, I always have trucks so I don't need one. Beyond that also never since I can't think of anything I would mount to vehicles that would require body holes. Maybe some extra light in the front bumper or a bed light or something like that.

bgkast (Forum Supporter) said:

Probably never.

I'm solidly in this camp. 

And it goes even further:  I don't want the manufacturer putting holes in the car either--hence my general disdain for sunroofs.  Why intentionally put a hole in a perfectly good roof?

Rust adds enough holes to my cars, I don't need to add any more.

Never, unless it is an early step in doing body repair that will end with being painted.

so... never.

For a roof rack I probably would. The Mazda already had the mounts so I just had to drill holes in the covers for the gutters. The wife's new Wagoon already has front to back rails, so all I had to do was order crossbars for it. But we like to kayak so roof racks are very helpful

I drilled holes in the roof of my Superduty for the lightbar and CB antenna three days after I picked it up from the dealer. I would have done it the day I brought it home but I slid the bar back and fourth on the roof for a couple of days trying to decide exactly where to put it.  That truck now has over 300k miles on it and the roof still doesn't leak.

Back in the day I was pretty big into CB radios.  Every truck or van I got had a hole drilled in the roof.  Sure, there were magnet mount or mirror mount versions, but at the wattage I was using, I could get an extra 2 miles out of making the ground plane and the mounting plane the same.  When I sold them, I just took the coil and mast off and left the mount in place.  Buy a new mount for the new truck, drill a hole, keep trucking.

Drilling holes is a last resort.

If it's going to see salt, hell no. 
otherwise....

WillG80 said:

When it's a truck. Or a rally car. Or it makes you go faster. 

The correct answer . . .