Does your car feel like it’s run its course? It can be hard to like your car if it feels old and beat up. However, there are a number of things you can do to give it a fresh clean look.
There are dozens of cheap car upgrades you can do to make your car feel like new. Read on to discover what they are and how you can make your car shiny and new, even if it really isn’t.
1. Vanity Plates
How would you like to tell everyone about the personality of the person behind the wheel? You can do that with vanity plates.
You can have standard plates that have a message, like a term for your favorite sports team or have special plates that give money for a cause. You can have plates with your alma mater or to support local wildlife.
It’s a relatively simple car upgrade. You just have to go to your local DMV to check out the requirements.
2. Get Really Nerdy
“Alexa, check the traffic for me!”
Let’s face it, we all want to geek out and have a co-pilot along for the ride with us. You can have that by connecting an assistant like Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant to your car.
For example, you can pick up an Amazon Echo Auto for your car, which costs about $50. You can have it play music, audiobooks, give you directions, or just keep you company while you’re on the road.
The Amazon Echo Auto isn’t fully released to the public yet. The device isn’t compatible with all cars and phones. You’ll want to check to make sure your car is compatible before you buy it.
3. Steering Covers
Does your steering wheel look worn and dated? There’s a quick fix for that. Just get a steering wheel cover that will take care of that.
The great thing about steering wheel covers is that they’re very cheap and come in a huge variety of styles. You can spend $10 – $25 and give your car a look that matches your personality.
4. Window Tinting
You can make your car look mysterious or super-important with a little bit of window tinting. Window tinting also has a practical purpose.
There are a lot of advantages to window tinting. It can block U/V rays to protect the other upgrades you got for your car. It’s also energy-efficient and provides extra security.
There are different types of window tinting and each one has its own benefits. Read more now to learn what they are.
5. Replace the Shift Knob
What’s the simplest car upgrade you can do? You can easily argue that replacing the shift knob is the one thing that you can upgrade.
A simple mod like this can make your car fun and you can do it for manual and automatic transmission cars. There are shift knobs shaped like the Death Star and there are others that give your car a racing feel.
These can range in price depending on what you want and need. Some knobs can be purchased for $10 and there are custom knobs that can cost hundreds of dollars.
6. Add a New Grille
For trucks and 4×4 vehicles, replacing the grille is a simple and cheap way to upgrade your car. You can get grill inserts for standard-sized cars, but you do have to be careful with them.
In many cases, you’re giving your car a new look, but grill inserts sometimes don’t look right on standard cars. You may want to try to test a grill insert on the front of your car and see if it works or not.
7. Get New Floor Mats
There’s a very good chance that your floor and floor mats are beat up. No matter how many times you detail your car and clean the floors, they just look awful.
An easy and cheap car upgrade can be to get new floor mats. They’ll protect the floors and refresh the look of the interior of your car.
8. Restore Your Headlights
One of the easiest ways to refresh the look of your car is to clean your headlights. Dirt and debris can obscure the headlights over time, and it can make them dim or weak.
Just by cleaning the interior of the headlight covers and replacing your bulbs, your lights will function like new again. That’s a very cheap car upgrade that doesn’t take much effort.
9. Brand New Seat Covers
There’s a pretty good chance that your seats have taken a beating over the length of time you’ve had your car. You can constantly detail and vacuum the seats, but there’s not much that will bring them back to life.
Instead of trying to bring them back from the dead, you can do something else. Get a new set of seat covers for the car. They can reflect your style and completely transform the inside of your car.
Seat covers are a cheap car upgrade and there are so many styles and options available. You may want to get a couple of sets and change them out for different seasons or according to your mood.
Cheap Car Upgrades to Make Your Car Like New
There’s a big difference from the moment we buy a car and we have the car for years. The new car small fades, the car seems to need more attention, and it’s not as much fun to drive around anymore.
You can fall in love with your car all over again and get that excitement back. It doesn’t take a whole lot of money or a new car to do that.
All you have to do is get some cheap car upgrades like replacing the seat covers or getting window tinting. These are minor things that will make a big difference in the enjoyment of your car.
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