Common Modification Mistakes With Your Custom Audi
When creating your custom Audi, BMW, or Mercedes-Benz, is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Well, unless you’re hitting the drag strip or a hot rod show on the way to the office every morning, the answer is probably yes. By over-modifying your everyday family sedan, you can easily end up with something impractical and which attracts unwanted attention when popping in at the grocery store.
If you’re an Audi driver, you’ll know that this manufacturer even plays it safe on their high-performance RS models when it comes to exterior design. The goal is to remain classy, but to add just enough of a sporty edge to your vehicle to boost its appeal at the traffic lights. Before heading all guns blazing into the car modification wilderness, our performance and styling department have rounded up a list of some car modification mistakes to avoid.
Settling For A Mediocre Audi Tint Job
The right window tint not only looks smart, it also helps to keep your car’s interior cool in humid, sunny Florida. Most manufacturers choose either to not tint side windows as standard, or to tint them so subtly that the effect isn’t noticeable enough. By not taking the time to find a reputable window tinting shop, you could end up with a cheap tint that bubbles up after as little as a year or two. As with faded, yellowing headlamp covers, a peeling tint can spoil the whole look of your car, even if the rest of the bodywork is in top shape.
Custom Audi Rims: Picking The Wrong Size, Color, Or Design
Your choice of wheels not only has a dramatic effect on how your car looks, but also on how it performs. Your wheels should never be chosen in isolation (i.e. viewing them on display at a wheel center and simply picking the design that appeals most); rather, they should be compared with your car’s size (An Audi Q7 SUV will naturally be able to pull off larger rims than an A4) and your car’s color (black and chrome work well on most cars, but bright colors like blues and reds need careful consideration). As a final note, the best wheel designs complement your car’s proportions and bodywork, and should not overwhelm them.
Faux Audi Spoilers And Scoops
When Audi first launched the R8 supercar, one of its distinguishing styling features were the dramatic ‘sideblade’ air deflectors in the doors. These weren’t just for show, as they assisted in providing the mid-engined motor air for better cooling. This philosophy (form following function) is why those fancy sideblades don’t look silly or tacked on. It’s also why the array of diffusers, scoops, and vents fitted to high-performance German cars generally work well stylistically. By sticking on fake spoilers, scoops, fins, and more to your businesslike Audi, the car’s inherent style is lost. Of course, this is not to say that every single bodywork addition needs to have a purpose beyond style, but there’s a fine line between sporty and garish.
Lowering Your Audi SUV
The very point of your Audi SUV and its basic architecture is to be able to use its increased ride height to get over obstacles that your A6 exec couldn’t. By lowering an SUV, you not only end up with something that looks more than a little odd, but you risk a lower resale value and a SUV that can’t perform as it was designed to in the first place.
Beyond SUVs, your goal with styling modifications should always be to enhance the basic characteristics of the vehicle you own. If it’s an Audi A4, you’re probably not going to be prepping your car for the drag strip. If you’ve got an RS7, you already drive one of Audi’s most extroverted models, so going a bit wild with the mods wouldn’t be at odds with the car itself.
Whatever you do, make sure that you consult the services of professional technicians who understand the ins and outs of car modification. At Foreign Affairs Motorsport, we can help you modify your Audi and ensure that you end up with a final product you can be proud of!