Stupid Car Accessories

One of the reasons that we love our cars so much is that we feel like they are an extension of who we are. We often become one with our vehicles so much so that we become that car and that car becomes us. Just like we dress ourselves each morning to make ourselves comfortable and to also perhaps make some kind of statement, we may also dress our cars with different things to make a statement. Sometimes people either don’t know better, or just have no taste when it comes to expressing themselves through automotive customization, or through personal dress for that matter.

While this list does not include everything it does represent the large variation that exists in tastelessness. The one thing that all of these items certainly have in common is the fact that many people at some point have applied these custom bits to their cars and trucks while saying to themselves, “This is going to look cool!” They couldn’t be more wrong and if they had and true friends, these friends would let them know.

So here is the list and the reason why each of these things is lame. If you have any of these things on your car or truck, please be advised that you ought to remove them if possible because there is a good chance that most people on the road think that you are crazy, stupid, or just have no taste. Many of these things apply to pickup trucks only and it is definitely possible to see many of these things on one truck at the same time. That truck is a book that you can go ahead judge by its cover.

Truck balls

While this list of tasteless accessories does not follow any particular ranking, if they were ranked, truck nuts or balls or testicles if you will, have to be the tackiest thing that you can put on a vehicle. This molded plastic pair of gonads are usually seen on 4WD pickup trucks, and are usually placed there by some hill billy that lacks manners and a sense of what’s appropriate, and certainly what looks cool. These truck nuts were certainly invented by a man rather than a woman because everyone knows that nobody is more obsessed with the male genitalia than men themselves, even straight men. Everything is a contest! Determining exactly what the thought is in purchasing and displaying such things is hard to determine, but it is quite easy to reach the conclusion that plastic truck balls are not cool and show a complete lack of fastidiousness on the part of the vehicle owner.

Tacky? I think a picture is worth a thousand words.

So you can match the color of your truck. Mismatched colors
would be in poor taste don't you think?

Calvin Urination Stickers

These are stickers that depict the comic strip character Calvin, from the Calvin and Hobbes comic, relieving himself on all sorts of different things. These stickers are often found in the back windows of the trucks that have the private parts dangling from the hitch. Calvin peeing on a Ford logo in the back window of a Chevy can be common; in fact Calvin relieving himself on Chevy logos and Dodge logos can be just as common and just as uncouth. Why would anyone feel the need to advertise their dislike for something as innocuous as a rival car company or sports team? I have even seen stickers of Calvin going potty on political figures or government entities. Every one of these stickers is tacky since human bodily functions displayed in cartoon depictions are never cool.

Take your pick. Either way you're lame.

Bras

This is the protective cover that goes over the grill and the front part of the hood to “protect” the paint, not the article of clothing worn by a woman to support her abilities. Car bras never protect the paint they actually destroy it by trapping dirt and moisture and every other body finish destroying agent against the paint. Even if none of that stuff does get under the bra, this useless contraption blocks UV rays from hitting the car evenly so you end up with two tone paint.
Clear bras just turn yellow and start to peel off so they are not much better.

Looks okay now but it will look bad soon.

Besides damaging the car’s finish, bras just look bad. They rarely fit properly for very long before they start to sag and bunch and the straps become stretched, and then the very thing that they are meant to cover or protect ends up looking terrible because of the sagging and hanging of it. I think this same thing happens to the bras of the female human type. Not only this, but they also cover up the front end of the car which is quite often the best looking part. When I was a kid I had a friend whose parents had put really fancy furniture in their living room but then always kept it covered with plastic. What is the point of having something beautiful to look at and cover it with something that is so ugly? I will not draw any analogy between this point and the female woman type bras, but others might.

Paint damage from wearing a bra.

Stick-On Vents

Little circles on the fender are not cool.

Most little decorative details that simply stick on the body panels with some kind of adhesive from the 3M Company are no good, but currently it seems very popular to stick fake vents along the top of the front fenders. For a long time the venti-port has been a design trademark for Buick as they used to put these on their cars decades ago and have recently started putting them on again. A few other models feature these ports as well. If the vehicle had such trim from the factory it’s a bit better but when the vents are fake, such as they are even on the Buicks, then it’s kind of silly. Anyone can go down to their local auto parts store and put these on their car any which way they want. I even saw a Cadillac Escalade the other day that had them all the way down the side of their vehicle, on the doors and on the rear quarter panels. Tacky, tacky, tacky!

Tailgate Nets

Once again what is the point? Are you trying to make your truck look like you are racing in the Paris Dakar rally? Somehow I doubt that your 1990 Ford Ranger could really look cool at all let alone with a silly plastic or vinyl net for a tailgate. Some say that the reason for using one of these is to improve fuel economy. Mythbusters actually tested this idea to see if it really did help and of course it did not. Sorry but this is another hill billy add on.

Woman Silhouettes

Okay we get it, you like the ladies but what is the point of these tasteless little silhouettes? Some of these are the classic style that has been around for a very long time, and some these have been somewhat newly popularized by a certain clothing brand. The devil woman on one side and the angel woman on the other side fall into this category. What is so cool about a buxom devil woman complete with a tail? Really?  

Is this cool? What is it trying to say?

Lewd References to Other Truck Brands

This is somewhat related to the issue of Calvin and his urination habits but what I am referring to here is so much worse. The statements made in a giant window sticker can be so offensive that I dare not repeat them here, but if you use your imagination you might be able to imagine how words like Cummins or Power Stroke could be turned into something dirty. How could anybody see one of these stickers and think that it will help them say something positive about themselves or the vehicle they drive. Besides, Chevy, Ford, and Dodge all have their respective weaknesses so disparaging the truck of someone else to their faces like this will just make you look even more stupid when your dirty sticker clad truck breaks down.

Stupid Exhaust Tips

When did it become cool to have a fat exhaust tip? These things have been showing up on lots of different cars for a while, but the ones that seem the most down-at-heel are those that are found on little sedans and hatchbacks, or those that are found on big pick-up trucks. I’m not sure if these are supposed to make the vehicle look like they have more power, or are somehow really fast. In reality more powerful engines have a fatter exhaust pipe but this starts at the engine and goes back from there, not just in the last 12 inches of the pipe. Once again an overly large exhaust tip is likely to be found on the back of the pick-up that is also sporting the plastic you know what’s mentioned above.

Other exhaust tips that are not cool are ones that have electric lights in them, or the ones that whistle like a turbo, the ones that are fake such as is found on the Lexus IS, although these are built that way in the factory, they are still lame and almost make the entire car lame. Sometimes a chrome exhaust tip will be added that is a normal diameter but it doesn’t fit right so it sticks out way too far. This makes the vehicle look worse than the stock the tailpipe does. All of these silly exhaust tips do nothing to enhance the vehicle and just look stupid.

Is the size of the exhaust tip compensation for something?

One more thing with exhaust pipes. Stacks are lame. I’m talking about routing the exhaust out at the front of the bed into one or two exhaust stacks. No matter what you do to your truck to make it look like a big rig, it will never actually be one. With stacks in the back of a truck you can’t have a shell or a truck box installed, and the pipes can get so hot that they can damage anything in the bed that might accidently touch them. And of course mixing stacks with overly big tips that light up would be really bad.

Why, why, why?

Aftermarket Spoilers

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 99% of these things look terrible. Most of the time, they are way too big, and make no sense from an aerodynamic standpoint. Racecars use a large spoiler over the rear wheels because these are the drive wheels, and the down force produced by the spoiler keeps them well connected to the road. Much of the time when you see one of these outrageous contraptions riding around on the trunk lid of some compact car, that car is nearly always front wheel drive. These cars really don’t even get going fast enough for the spoiler to even provide any kind of aerodynamic effect other than causing drag and thereby reducing fuel economy. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s many car manufacturers offered some kind of low profile spoiler as a dealer installed accessory. Most of these are tasteful enough that they look okay but they still don’t provide any benefit.

Doesn't that look sporty?

An ugly spoiler attached to a car that is actually something
worthwhile, other than the fact that it's pink.

Body Kits

Someone took the ugly stick to this Honda Civic.

These are the large plastic or fiber glass pieces that fit around the rocker panels, and replace the front and rear bumper covers, in order to give the vehicle a more aggressive or more performance oriented look. I would say about 95% of these body kits look terrible for a number of different reasons. The first is that they rarely fit properly, or they are not installed properly. This leaves theme flapping in the breeze with big gaps, sagginess, and the panels dragging on the ground. When they smack the concrete on every steep driveway approach they get scraped up and cracked, which of course makes them looking even worse. With body kits the only ones that look good are either dealer installed factory options, or ones that are understated. The way to guarantee a good body kit is to actually spend a lot of money on it. The cheap stuff looks bad every time.

How to ruin a perfectly good BMW 3 Series, add
an ugly body kit.

Some body kits are so bad that they actually don’t have spaces for things like the turn signals or marker lights. So when they are installed these lights just get unplugged and eliminated. I’m pretty sure that exterior lights are important, and why anyone would think it’s okay to eliminate one or two of them makes no sense.