When is too much, too much?

      Well, in order for us to be able to correctly answer this question, we must first find out what the "much" is consisting of.  For instance, what is too much bling for your car, or at what point is it socially assumed that your suspension compensating for other "shortcomings"?

      We all have that one friend that is into chrome, in order for you to know if he has a chrome problem or not... here are a few diagnostic tips for you.  Are there things that car chromed on their car that doesn't come available in a stock model of the car? For instance, it is one thing to have chromed mirrors or running boards, but when an entire A or B-pillar or a quarter panel of a car is chrome, then you may have a problem.  Does he have home-made or questionably constructed "rims" that seem like they don't exactly contribute to the performance of the car and possibly take performance away from it?   If he has other colors of chrome besides silver on totally unnecessary parts of the car like the hood, roof, etc... then your friend might be getting a little too close with chrome.

     We are all also familiar with the stereotype of lifted truck owners.  If he has a lift kit, then it's for a reason of "size compensation".  Now, there are functional reasons for people to do this to their trucks and sometimes cars.  If you were to be an off-road racer, for example a Baja truck racer, a lift kit or long travel suspension kit is absolutely necessary.  If you were to try and race any stock truck in a Baja race then ti would destroy itself almost immediately.  Another use for a lift kit is to allow for larger wheels and tires that can add much more versatility and off road capability on a day to day to day basis.  For instance, a truck that is used on a ranch every day is going to need big aftermarket tires to get around on a day to day basis to get around the rough terrain of his ranch.  These types of lift kits are for function.

      And now, we move to the people who overly modify their cars or trucks just to show off to the extreme.  One of the main forms of this can be found in lift kits.  You can almost always find a guy who drives a truck with am 8+ inch lift kit on his truck, that at the same time has never been off- roading in their life.  These people are a disgrace to the rest if the truck world, they spend all of this money just to not use their trucks for what they were built/ modified to do.

      Another type of excessive use that we find a lot comes in the form of speakers and sound systems.  If you have some aftermarket speakers and a new radio and an amplifier in your car, then good for you, you enjoy your music.  But it does get crazy when every available space in the back of your car is filled to the point of bursting with sub-woofers, tweeters and everything in between.  Let's just put it this way, the only reason I should hear your car before I see it, is if it has a really good exhaust and a big motor.  I should not be able to feel the bass from your 4 12-inch sub-woofers crammed in the trunk from the next area code.

      Now that you have read this, please remember that with great power of modification, comes great responsibility to not go overboard and end up looking like a complete and utter tool.  Thanks!