Modified cars - sad or not?

DaithiSurfer

i think its a laugh though really.
I have a few mates into mods and each and every one of them says that a lot of mods are tacky and horrible and give the scene a bad name.
And none of these guys can see how crap looking they have made their own cars.
They think they are amazing.
Love is blind

kopijack

I don't have modified plates on my car, they are standard and will remain that way.

Your two questions are stupid and judgemental Andrew, we don't modify so that we can do things that are illegal, we aren't going out racing cops and robbing shops.

Modifying would make the car easier to identify if anything, I mean that would be obvious to any person because the car would stand out.......

Andrew Duffy

Why do you think so many cars have illegal plates? I mean the ones that are obviously intended to obstruct traffic police, not ones that don't have the county name in Irish on them.

If you can give me any reason other than to make it less likely the driver will be prosecuted for dangerous driving I'll be amazed.

darklite

While I dont agree with non-standard number plates, often the reason is that the smaller ones fit the body styling better.

kopijack

why do so many cars have illegal plates? have no idea, I don't have them so it doesn't bother me and I will let the law decide what's legal and what's not....

I don't agree with illegal plates or dirty plates where you can't read the number on them, doesn't mean im going to go out and complain about them.

Really has no direct link with car modifying and how good or bad it is.... if illegal plates are all that you have to go on then it's pretty much nothing.

ondafly

illegal plates are sad - and no modifier who has a bit of sense puts them on their car. Anytime I've seen illegal plates, have been on "Joe Standard" boring cars - especially when I'm outside Dublin.

It seems idiots with illegal plates are trying to be different - maybe they wanted to have 98 D 1234 in Gothic writing ? I don't know, and personally I don't get too worked up about it. Theres alot more serious problems on the road, than illegal plates.

-Uninsured drivers (I'm sure DaveD can comment on this)
-Cylcists who refuse to stop at red lights
-Cylcists who think the world can seen them in the middle of the night with no lights
-Joyriders
-non NCT'd deathtraps

I don't have illegal plates, never have - never will. In fact my car is fully insured and NCT'd (was NCT'd with all modifications on the car) - If someone ever crashes into my car - they'll get one hell of a big estimate from my Insurance company.

tunney

-Cylcists who think the world can seen them in the middle of the night with no lights

it doesn't matter how well illuminated a cyclist is, fact of the matter is the majority of motorists simply do not check for cyclists in their mirrors or blindspots.

Initally I only had one front light on my bike, after a few close calls with cars that didn't see me I added another. When after a few weeks these two front lights didn't seem to help, car drivers STILL didn't see me I added a hi-vis jacket. Another few weeks and still no-one saw me so I added a few lights hanging out of the high viz jacket. I'm now cycling around Dublin looking like a bloody christmas tree and still motorists don't see me. Why? because they don't look.

Seth Brundle

<continuing off topic>
Driving down Dublin's O'Connell st. just now I was waiting at a set of red lights when a man cycled into a crossing pedestrian. I guess with all his sweating as he pedalled those wheels he didn't notice the fact that he had a red. Still didn't stop him shouting abuse at the (innocent) woman.
My point is that all road user groups don't give a toss about the others!
ps yer man lifted the bike back up and cycled through the red light then
<end off topic>
Anyway, I guess we should stay on topic or the moderator will get cross at you

kayos

Originally posted by Andrew Duffy
The number plates are obviously a sticking point, and modified car drivers hate being called boy racers. Here's a few questions for you:
1. Why do you want to make your car go faster?
2. Why do you want to make it more difficult to identify?*
I doubt I am alone in seeing a correlation between 1 and 2 above.
* Illegally

1) Because I enjoy taking part in trackdays and as such want to make my car more powerful in order to be able to reduce lap times. For me it is a great feeling to go and race around a track and sometimes get to beat some big cars. It is a hobby plain and simple. I enjoy it a load of my friends enjoy it and if you go along to Mondello sometime there is a trackday on you will see that there is a lot of folks young and old that are into their cars in terms of preformance. Its not just the trackdays either their is clubs that meet up every now and again and you go for a spin some where stop have dinner and a chat and then head home. These types of days out are familly days and are not so we can all go speeding about in our shopping carts on wheels and think we're the best thing since sliced bread.. grow up you are talking about a very small sub section within the world of car enthusiasts so please dont paint us all with the same brush.

2) Strange you say that the first thing I did to my car was remove the plates that where on it (had a garage name on the plate) and guess what I put on bog standard plates. If you think that folks put on tiny or strange font plates to try and get away from the traffic cops you really dont have much faith in the traffic cops do you.

DaveD

Originally posted by steeo
He is right about not been able to tint your windscreen but because there is no law as such in this country regarding tints the garda use a law in england as a guide-line which states that the max tint allowed on the front side windows is 27% and the NCT also use this percentage aswell

The Gardai are not entitled to use the English law as a guideline - They go by Irish law and under that there is NO LAW regarding tinted windows in Ireland. Therefore Gardai cannot pull you over tell you to remove the tint or get a lighter one. There has never been a prosecution in Ireland regarding tinted windows on a car and until a law is passed theres nothing the Gardai can do !

Originally posted by ondafly
Theres alot more serious problems on the road, than illegal plates.

-Uninsured drivers (I'm sure DaveD can comment on this)
-

Don't get me started on that topic again

Capt'n Midnight

Don't get me started on Indicator Lights... Too many people driving around with flashing lights that DON'T flash ORANGE.

Wouldn't matter what colour the lens is IF the orange bulbs they sold stayed Orange. Since they don't stay orange long .....

smiling_time

its all a matter of taste isnt it? like the clothes you wear,it might look nice or it might not.nothing worse than seeing a ford fiesta with a set of airplane wings

Atomic Pineapple

personally think most modded cars look terrible, underbody neons and led windscreen washers being the lowest of the low, ****ty cars done up with thousands of euros worth of crap, why not buy a decent car in the first place!?

I do like some cars though, some people do it well and make the car look nice, factory bodykits that manufacters of the cars do, can be nice too. Or people who do subtle or performance mods, alloys, chips, filters, sports exhausts etc...

just a set of alloys, a nice exhaust and a bit of lowering can make a car look class.

oh and hate them clear lenses too, they look terrible!

Andrew Duffy

kayos, I'm more-or-less on your side. The second post I made defended genuine hotrodders, so long as they keep their speeding on the track. However, a whole load of people from the fibreglass brigade started banging on, so I just banged back. Unfortunately, I don't think that fibreglass racers are only a small section of the modified car enthusiast group. The ever-increasing presence of tarted-up, crap-looking starlets and the like on the roads leads to people who have a genuine admiration for someone with the mechanical knowledge and bank balance required to more than double the output of a car's engine without having it explode forgetting that such people exist.
Oh, and I do find the idea of an extraordinarily powerful car that looks ordinary quite interesting. Something like a Brabus E-class... That said, I can't really see the point of driving a car capable of that kind of speed on a public road; the fuel consumption and wear-and-tear would just cost too much.

zAbbo

sad

kopijack

Who here is banging on from the fibre-glass brigade?

kdevitt

personally think most modded cars look terrible, underbody neons and led windscreen washers being the lowest of the low, ****ty cars done up with thousands of euros worth of crap, why not buy a decent car in the first place!?

Most modified cars don't have underbody neons and led washer jets...theres a big difference between those who put alot of consideration into their mods and those who raid the local motor factors for as much stuff as possible to stick onto their car!

I've spent a fortune doing my car up, and to most people it doesn't look slightly more tarted up than standard. The money I spent probably would have covered the deposit for a house, but so what - don't smoke, and don't really drink (much), and I get quite a bit of satisfaction from the car so its all good. So for all people who modify their cars to get tarred with the same brush is slightly annoying. I'll slag the dodgy Corsa next door as much as the next man for looking crap, but I'd slag any new Nissan/Renault/Daewoo just as much for the same reason.