$4,000 Well Spent... - Newbies Forum
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I know this is such a "newbie" question and it really irks me when people ask these questions...but even I must bite the bullet here...because I need some input from people who are experience at this and want to know if I'm on the right track....
Okay for anyone who's read a previous post of mine in a different thread should already know that I've been about and about most of the day getting estimates for some modifications that I want done to my Cavalier if I choose to keep it. I decided that I would take a small loan of $4,000 (using the 0% promotional rate) on my credit card in order to fund this little project. Either that, or I would use the $4,000 as a down payment towards a Mazda 3i or a special ordered Cobalt LS (both manuals). In any case, after running around for a long while today, I came up with a tally for the things I want done to my Cavalier. Here's a running estimate as it stands right now...
Andy's Auto Sport Summit Kit: $629.10 on sale/$699.00 regular price.
Price to ship kit: $160
Price for install: $150 (includes test fitting and final fitment once it's painted)
Price to paint kit: $400
Total price of final kit: $1339.10 with on sale price/$1409.00 with regular price
Exel RH-5 rims wrapped in Hankook Ventus HR II H405 (215/45/17): $856.00
Shipping, Mounting, Balancing, Installation on the vehicle and other accessories and extras associated with the tire package will done free of charge.
TYC Eurotails in either black finish ($149.81) or Carbon Fiber ($153.95)
Lowest prices I've found for these lights so far...on
Hyper Performance Auto. Plus the trunk bezel I'm which guessing will run me any where between $120 - $150 depending on the merchant.
Chrome Exhaust tip to existing muffler to accent rear bumper of body kit: $15 installed.
The price will be $125 if I need to get a new muffler if they are unable to work with the curved tip that's on my stock Cavalier.
This is all I have in mind thus far and the total has run me between (I've stop adding officially) $2480 and a little over $2600, so theoretically that would leave me about $1400 for anything else I would want to do...but I haven't gotten that far. So can anyone advise me if I'm on the right path, if there is any way I can lower the prices for some of the products I mentioned. I'm also thinking about some Eibach Pro Springs (I think that's the name of them) to lower it a little but I want to see how things go after I test drive the car around the usual spots I'm forced to travel almost daily.
I'm still thinking about taking that $4000 and investing in a Cobalt LS Coupe or 3i Sedan. The itch for a manual is growing more and more by the day (I even considered making a lateral move to a 5 speed LS Sport Cavalier) and since I've learned, all I've been doing is borrowing other people's cars.
I apologize if this thread went way too long, I just wanted some input from others who are more into this than I am and to get some advice.
if your getting 4000 dollars then get more for your exhaust than a chrome tip....talk about cheaping out
and andys auto sport kits suck
How is that cheaping out? look at the list of things he wants have you noticed its all apearance mods..... why spend the money for a full exhaust when all yo uwant is the looks of a nice tip
Have to agree with Darkstars. Sounds like he isn't interested in performance / handling upgrades out of the car as much as appearance. It's all in what you want to do.
If it's appearance you are after I'd suggest maybe a Carbon Fiber hood and Z3 Fenders to add to that body kit, might as well get it all installed and painted while you're at the body shop anyway.
As far as the springs I think I'd go with a coil over setup for it's adjustability and ride comfort from everything I've been hearing. I was just looking at the RKSport setup myself. I'm new to this stuff so I'll be having lots of questions once I start modding the car when I'm ready.
ya i suppose....just dont get a huge 5" tip lol
^^^^Darkstars Gets It^^^^
If I do this, it would strictly be for appearence only, at the present time anyway. I just want to do something to dress up my Cavalier so she looks a little better. I'm not looking to wow anyone or win any sponsorships...this would just be so that I don't have to walk out of my house and look at a bone stock Cavalier everytime. The chrome tip would just be something to accent the rear bumper of the kit...since I think having my currently rusty stock one, which points down, on the new kit would just look silly and out of place. I'm pretty sure if I do get into this and I start, some performance mods would be in the works in the future...but this is my daily driver (at the presence time) so I just want to do a little makeover to make her look better. Perhaps the next loan I take out on my credit card will all go straight for performance parts.
Oh don't worry about me getting me a 5" wide tip, I wouldn't do that. I can't stand seeing what I like to call "Coke Can Exhaust" on cars because it looks like they took a coke can (in case two) sawed off the ends, and welded it on as a tip. I never like those, so that would never go on my car. I'll do my best to try to get keep tasteful...which is why I made this thread, I want other people's opinions since they are more experienced at this than I am.
icee_smooth_cavalier wrote:I know this is such a "newbie" question and it really irks me when people ask these questions...but even I must bite the bullet here...because I need some input from people who are experience at this and want to know if I'm on the right track....
Okay for anyone who's read a previous post of mine in a different thread should already know that I've been about and about most of the day getting estimates for some modifications that I want done to my Cavalier if I choose to keep it. I decided that I would take a small loan of $4,000 (using the 0% promotional rate) on my credit card in order to fund this little project. Either that, or I would use the $4,000 as a down payment towards a Mazda 3i or a special ordered Cobalt LS (both manuals). In any case, after running around for a long while today, I came up with a tally for the things I want done to my Cavalier. Here's a running estimate as it stands right now...
Andy's Auto Sport Summit Kit: $629.10 on sale/$699.00 regular price.
Price to ship kit: $160
Price for install: $150 (includes test fitting and final fitment once it's painted)
Price to paint kit: $400
Total price of final kit: $1339.10 with on sale price/$1409.00 with regular price
Exel RH-5 rims wrapped in Hankook Ventus HR II H405 (215/45/17): $856.00
Shipping, Mounting, Balancing, Installation on the vehicle and other accessories and extras associated with the tire package will done free of charge.
TYC Eurotails in either black finish ($149.81) or Carbon Fiber ($153.95)
Lowest prices I've found for these lights so far...on Hyper Performance Auto. Plus the trunk bezel I'm which guessing will run me any where between $120 - $150 depending on the merchant.
Chrome Exhaust tip to existing muffler to accent rear bumper of body kit: $15 installed.
The price will be $125 if I need to get a new muffler if they are unable to work with the curved tip that's on my stock Cavalier.
This is all I have in mind thus far and the total has run me between (I've stop adding officially) $2480 and a little over $2600, so theoretically that would leave me about $1400 for anything else I would want to do...but I haven't gotten that far. So can anyone advise me if I'm on the right path, if there is any way I can lower the prices for some of the products I mentioned. I'm also thinking about some Eibach Pro Springs (I think that's the name of them) to lower it a little but I want to see how things go after I test drive the car around the usual spots I'm forced to travel almost daily.
I'm still thinking about taking that $4000 and investing in a Cobalt LS Coupe or 3i Sedan. The itch for a manual is growing more and more by the day (I even considered making a lateral move to a 5 speed LS Sport Cavalier) and since I've learned, all I've been doing is borrowing other people's cars.
I apologize if this thread went way too long, I just wanted some input from others who are more into this than I am and to get some advice.
If you do get the RH-5 wheels, let me suggest you spend the couple extra dollars and get the Falken 512's that wheelmax offers. (I know that's where youre getting em from) I have the falkens and love em. Haven't really heard much about the hankook tires.
If the shop tells you 125, tell to take a hike. If they have problems with the curved tip you have, they can just cut it off and weld on a new one. A friend of mine did that for me once. They are just trying to get you for more money. If nothing else, you might check a junkyard for an ls sport muffler because it has a small chrome tip on it already..
If you lower your car, please get new struts as well. It will do you no good to lower it to have the struts blow out on you.
Land Pirates sail the open roads
DISCLAIMER: If anything I say offends you, I don't care..wear a helmet. Also, the information
I post is what I know to the best of my knowledge. If I am wrong, please correct me so that
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Premium sinc 6-17-04
lol... a huge ricer tip from wal-mart ^_^ thats the way to go
.. lol sounds like a great set up so far IMO... i would forget the body kit and go for suspension
but thats just me, good luck ^^
ya, that is a way to get into debt. because you wil take the 4 grand spend it, then when you get some more money you will go get more stuff for your car instead of paying off that bill. You might say you won't do that but once you start moding your car you won't be able to help yourself.
just save money up then do the mods.
ide save teh 4k for a turbo or s/c kit...
see sig!
"There is no point in looking fast if your not."
If it was me, I would spend all that money on performance rather than appearance. However since that's what you wanna do, it sounds good to me.
Tim
in 1 year........value of credit card $8000.00 (because of interest)
value of cavalier $4,000.00.........now thats humor
ClassGlass / RkSport / Eibach / Motegi / Ractive / Borla / K&N
to quote redcavy "theres no point in looking fast if your not"
but thats just my .02
First of all, just my way of thinking, theres 2 classes of cars in "our world" the show cars and the performance cars. I know where hes coming from on wanting the car to look better. I have a 4 door 97 with a automatic trans. The potential for performance was not very good, due to the auto with a 2.2, so I choose to go the show route. And I have did just that. Cars with air ride do not handle well with racing, body kits get torn off, and all your money is gone. Why look fast if its not? Why not? Its a personal decision everyone makes. As far as lowering the car , I would stay as far away from coilovers as I could get,they truly suck in my opinion. In my opinion air is the only way to go. Thats the route I went after coilovers, but its expensive. If your into appearance ,go for it. I would invest the money in the car I have, before I bought something new. Payments last about 72 months, you can pay off a creit card at 4,000 quickly if you put your mind toit. Also, once you start modifying a new car, you void your warranty and what have you acheived there. Just my opinion.
boospinkleer wrote:First of all, just my way of thinking, theres 2 classes of cars in "our world" the show cars and the performance cars. I know where hes coming from on wanting the car to look better. I have a 4 door 97 with a automatic trans. The potential for performance was not very good, due to the auto with a 2.2, so I choose to go the show route. And I have did just that. Cars with air ride do not handle well with racing, body kits get torn off, and all your money is gone. Why look fast if its not? Why not? Its a personal decision everyone makes. As far as lowering the car , I would stay as far away from coilovers as I could get,they truly suck in my opinion. In my opinion air is the only way to go. Thats the route I went after coilovers, but its expensive. If your into appearance ,go for it. I would invest the money in the car I have, before I bought something new. Payments last about 72 months, you can pay off a creit card at 4,000 quickly if you put your mind toit. Also, once you start modifying a new car, you void your warranty and what have you acheived there. Just my opinion.
Actually airride does fairly well in performance applications if set up correctly. and depending on the type of racing your doing. And you can modify a car with out voiding your warranty. Anyways, you don't think that a body kit, and all that other visiual stuff won't void your warranty? Try explain to a mechanic that your water pump just blew and you weren;t racing it with a car with air ride and a body kit? Plus the people that modify thier cars and actaully know about them instead of just throwing visual things on there can probably fix a few things, granted they still have to pay for the part, but in my expieriance labors the bitch when it comes to cost. Most credible show cars I've seen are still decently fast, still.
well you plan sounds pretty good, i would suggest if at all possable to put your body kit on yourself saving you that $150 and putting that twords an exhaust shop making you a cat back exhaust insted of that $125 for a tip...that would save you $275 which should be enough for the cat back
Oh and just a heads up if you are going to drop it PLEASE saty away from e-bay and there crappy coil overs.
Thanks guys for the additional input you have given me thus far, and I am taking everyone's opinion into consideration. I made this post because I wanted the opinion of those, who are more experienced, on what to do to make my car look better, in the most cost effective manner, without breaking the bank, (not necessarily being cheap...because I realize that isn't the answer.)
At the present time, appearence is more valuable to me than performance. I'm not knocking performance in any way...but for me, appearence is key. I've had my Cavalier for close to 3 years now and it's just plain...just a straight up base model with sunroof and spoiler. No sport appearence package or anything...just your run of the mill basic Cavalier. I love my Cavalier, the only thing that would make it even better was if it was a 5 speed manual. I'm just tired of walking out of the door everyday and seeing it in it's current state. The plain-jane bumpers, lack of sideskirts, horrendus wheel gap, 14" steelies, among other things. I just wanted to do something to give her a little life...maybe to turn a few heads at the most but that's it. I can understand the people who think I should do some performance modifications before I even think about doing appearence. I actually thought about that and if i should do that first over looks...but where I live, having all those performance modifications wouldn't do me any good if I can't get any significant use out of them. There are no race tracks in my area (and I dare not street race) and while a turbocharger or supercharger sounds real nice, where would I get it as a benefit of having one on my daily driver? The only time I ever need to driver faster than the flow of traffic is when I need to pass someone on the interstate or highway which is no problem with the way my car is now. Being faster than a Civic, Neon, Focus, or any other small sport compact has no bearing on me because in my opinion, I have nothing to prove to those guys who pull up beside me at a traffic light, trying to egg me to race, or as it were last night when my bestfriend and I were in her Celica and we were approached by a late 90s, heavily modified Camaro to race. I know that's a pretty narrow minded way to look at performance, but when people speak of performance, I think they are usually looking for ways to get their car to go faster and at the moment, I have no reason to try to make my Cavalier one of the fastest in the Palmetto State, I would be much more satisified just making it look like one of the better externally modified Cavaliers in the Palmetto State.
land pirates cavalier, I will look into those falken 512s the next time I'm on wheelmax.com again.
96 cavillac, the $125 would only be if I needed to get a new muffler if the shop I am going to, to get this done is unable to work with my current stock muffler and put a chrome tip on. To just weld a tip on my existing muffler would just be $15 dollars. But there's a busted up '02 LS Sport Cavalier in one of these Mom & Pop salvage yards near my house, so I might just take the muffler and tip off that car and put it on my when the time comes.
Finally about the loan on the credit card...this is something that I actually took some time to consider before I wrote out a check and cashed it to my account. 0% for a year on my credit card is a pretty long time. I get pretty big incentive checks each quarter from my job... a loan for $4,000 I can have paid off in 8 - 10 months and still avoid ever having to pay any interest on borrowing against my credit card. I'm a pretty safe shopper and not an impulse buyer and even if the modding bug starts to hit me once I get started on my car, I know that I can stay in control of my urges until that loan is paid off completely and until I have the money or financial resources to do what I want to do next on my car. But for now, it's strictly appearence, like I said, the next go around will probably be geared more towards a few performance mods.
By the way, how difficult is it for an amateur like myself to put on a bodykit?
Oh yeah, one more thing, there is no warrenty on my car. My car has 48,125 miles or so, therefore, any warranty I had - I lost 12,000 miles ago. Which unlike my Accent, which my mom owns now, still has the full balance of a 100,000 mile warranty and it's at 65,000 miles...what's wrong with that picture??
First off I'm not stupid, yes of course adding visual things will void your warranty. Like the factory will warranty an aftermarket bumper. Secondly, your definition of credible differs from other peoples. And, most of all most people that do visual things like body kits etc, can work on there on cars, which all the work on our car was done by us,EVERYTHING, nothing was paid to be done. If the guy wants apperance mods, let him go for it, we all don't want the same things in a vehicle or we would all drive the same thing!
Wow, I didn't expect this to turn into a big debate...just wanted some opinions.
Just curious, are some of you saying that my car "wouldn't be credible" if I didn't do the labor myself? I honestly don't understand that logic. I am not adept (I'm all thumbs) at building, fabrication, or manipulating things with my hands, plus I have no area in my yard in which I could do these modifications myself. If I could, I would get a crew of 2 or 3 j-body owners in the area who could help me and teach me as we went along putting my car together. I know the phrase "You learn as you go along," but I would hate to try something and funk something up on my car as a result of inexperience that would render my car undriveable or something to that effect since this car will remain my daily driver. If I have to pay someone to do the work for me because I'm not confident enough to do it myself, I'm completely fine with that as long as I'm getting my money's worth for the work I expect that body shop, tuner shop or whomever, to do.
People have varying reasons as to why they modify their car and I won't knock their reason...however, I feel no one should knock mine...even if it's just to make mine look better with no other particular agenda. I'm not doing this to gain sponsorships, to win trophies/awards at car shows, or any kind of recognition like that. This is just a point of pride with me...everything will be purchased by me with no handouts from anyone else, even if I'm unable to do any of the work myself, at least I can time some kind of pride in knowing that products that are on my car came from my own hard earned money and my hard work through my job. I mean a sense of pride in someone's ride can be measured in different ways right. One may take pride in that they put together a $45,000 show car with their own bare heads...while the another person may be just as proud they purchased the parts for their $45,000 show car with their own hard earned money and hard work they put in through their job. As for me, I'm the latter.
This is all I will say on that particular matter...but I still am willing to listen to those who can give me tips and suggestions on what I can do to get the most bang for my buck when it comes to externally modifying my Cavalier.
hmm...just my .02, no one has said anything to you about Andy's Auto Sport Kits. I've seen first hand..as well as heard from numerous people about the poor fitment and crappy quality of their kits. It's cheap thin fiberglass and you end up cutting half of it off to make it fit right. You might want to see if anyone else makes a kit like that one, cuz you might be in for some dissapointment
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