I'm a student with a limited budget and a 2003 Kia Spectra. It's not the fastest or most luxurious car by far, but it gets pretty good gas mileage, has a pretty decent cd player, it's never broken down on me, and I keep it clean and in good order. I plan on keeping it as nice as I can so that I can driving it as long as I can.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions for relatively inexpensive things that one can do to improve the look or performance of our automobiles?

(My serious suggestion is to save any money you'd want to invest in that car until you get something a little more worth investing in performance parts for. Please don't try to rice your Kia.)

tint windows

Mentat- Well Played

Darth- I'm not a huge gear-head, so I'm just wondering if there's anything cheap I can do to get a little more out of my car that I don't know about. Something... subtle. Or cosmetic like new floor mats.

Zanardi- Already have them. I live in Florida, so without tinted windows the inside of my car would get as hot as the sun.

Go get an oil change, man.

Ah yes, lucky. In Ohio we have pretty stupid window tint laws and some suburb cops can be dicks about it.

This was my next advice. Just keep up on regular maintenance and remember it's just transportation. If you want something that is fun or looks good get a 2nd vehicle for that.

Yep, just got an oil change and replaced my spark plugs.

Small changes like floor mats and stuff like that are about all you're going to be able to work with in a car like that. There's not really all that much you can do on the inside that would be worth the trouble I don't think, and I don't see much point in changing the outside. On the performance side, just keep it maintained well.

Wait until you're out of college and hopefully have a nice financially secure job, then get something awesome. I think the biggest change I made to my first car was to add new wiper blades to it. On my current car I just recently put new exhaust on it, and I'm debating adding a supercharger at some point. While I was in school though, I just worried about getting from point A to point B.

Racing stripes. Boosts performance by at least 10% on the cheap.

Just keep the outside clean and waxed, and the inside clean and vacuumed and devoid of any garbage, loose papers, wrappers, or other stuff that makes you look like a slob.

A fancy car is no good if a girl gets in and has to touch greasy door handles and kick empty water bottles at her feet.

Ugh, I hate it when people treat their cars as a garbage can and/or a suitcase. At least amongst my friends it seems to only be the ones driving cheaper econoboxes though. The ones with sports cars or just nicer cars in general tend to keep them clean and tidy on the inside.

I secretly judge people when I have to ride in their car and they have to move a pile of **** out of the seat before I can sit down.

I would just like to add that you can probably combine that blow-up doll & those bumper nuts to create an even more ultimate car mod. I would honestly suggest that you spend your money on something more interesting than a car (like blow-up dolls & ice cream). Car people are really annoying.

I'll take the hint and just keep it clean and running then. Apparently I could buy a Spectra Turbo kit for ~$1,600 though, which is hilarious to me.

I wish I could get away that cheap. I'm looking at $6k+ easy for a decent turbo or supercharger setup for my car. I may just leave it NA though and invest money elsewhere in it.

Junkyard turbo kit's ftw

Put some speed holes into your hood/bonnet.

A gun or pix-ax will be sufficient for installing them.

i say go crazy and attempt to convert it into a 4WD and take it to your nearest jeep trail