Mods that you wouldn't do again, and why..

[cisco]

I'll start:

Aftermarket gear knob: They are usually too lightweight and can make the shifter rattle more easily. The factory one is solid heavy rubber for a very good reason!

Tinted tail lights: Thought it looked good at the time. Now looking back I can't believe I did it. The tinting I used on the blue monster when I first got it was terrible, ugly purple and matt kind of. Plus is badly dulled out the brightness of the lights.

Painting bumpers leaving the black strips in them on my first micra: Thought this looked good at the time. Now I think it looks terrible and much prefer just painting the entire bumpers all the single body colour looks much better. Also doing this left a seam of paint that always seemed to crack and peel away. I went back to the bodyshop 3 times and ended up having them resprayed all the single colour anyway!

Short Shifter: I'm still mixed about this one, but now I think that even though the throw is shorter, it puts more strain on your syncros and it makes the pressure and smoothness into each gear a fraction worse. So I have gone back to the factory shifter and am very happy with it. You can change gears with that thing extremely fast anyway, and the looser leverage ratio gives you a better feel of what load or strain your putting on the syncros while trying to get it into gear.

Aftermarket steering wheel: The factory ones are soft and cushy and padded for a very good reason - to protecty your head in an accident they crumble and collapse. I won't ever install a hard faced wooden or metal steering wheel ever again. They look great, but its the worst thing for your head in the unfortunate event of an accident. I have my big chunky factory super s one back in now.

16" wheels: Slows the car down terribly. Even though I only had 6" wide ones and they looked reasonable, it was by far not worth the loss.

What about you?

 

[CMF_Yom]

Short shifter - yeh the extra wear on the synchros is definately there. Some gearboxes go really well with them, some don't. My old SR20 Pulsar's gearbox was lovely with a ss (mine halved the gear throw). Every micra I have driven with a short shifter feels weird. That is one thing I really miss about the pulsar - the gearbox is easily one of the best shifting FWD gearboxes of the 90's.

It sucks because I hate the micra's standard gearthrow too. And the shifter feels like a dead stick. There's no life in it.

Apart from that there's not much I'd ever do again. Standard cars are nice. They just work, and its nice when things work.

On the steering wheels though... I wouldnt mind a nice airbag equipped momo - most of them are ADR compliant and behave in the same way a standard steering wheel does in an accident which is what matters. But I know thats not going to happen any time soon, but its nice to dream about it.

I'm a pretty conservative person so theres not really much I would never do again. I usually think things through for quite some time before I do anything.

 

[CMF_Urban]

Short shifter: Thinking of taking it out next weekend... Just feel to weird... Just go back to stock for the time being, seems as though the micra is stock

 

[CMF_kneival]

Strange as my short shifter is spot on with the gearbox, It doesnt like being slammed into first sometimes but otherwise its fine :-]

 

[CMF_Toma]

The short shifter i got off cisco isnt too bad, 2nd gear is a bit tight to get into but other than that its fine. Still no metal shards in my gearbox oil when i change it either so i guess thats ok

Worst mod i did was installing an in-car TV stand. Its a total give away that you have an in-car TV just sitting there in your car. About as effective as a "Rob Me" sticker. Now i realise, loudest alarm system ever, THEN get the blingbling bits for the in-car fun.