Anyone getting bored with their car since there are few performance mods?

[Tha_Ape]

You are missing the most important component - you can and SHOULD upgrade the nut behind the wheel!

Sign-up for DEs in your area (check you local SCCA, BMW, or Porsche car clubs), and participate in autoX and track events.
The amount of performance gains you can unlock with driver skill improvement will dwarf anything you can achieve by throwing $$$ at the parts.
Best of all, those performance and safety gains are fully transferrable across all cars you will ever own or drive!

HTH,
a

100% agree on this... and it follows you from car to car.

I stopped upgrading my cars after I started going to the track. I realized I wasn't able to drive the car to 100% even while it was stock. I wouldnt even be able to realize the minor performance gains I'd get from dropping money into the car. Dropping money on a track event makes a much more drastic improvement on how fast you can go around corners. Of course, once you're good enough, those mods do help. I just never got to that point in my CTS-V (got much closer in my miata).

Launching out of corners and braking from 140mph every minute or two really teaches you your cars handling and braking limits.

 

[Sukhshanti]

Simple, buy a weekend fun car, I am choosing between a ND Miata or a 124 Spider, manual of course. Seems like fun to rip around the streets and backroads without breaking too many laws.

 

[golfcart]

You are missing the most important component - you can and SHOULD upgrade the nut behind the wheel!

Sign-up for DEs in your area (check you local SCCA, BMW, or Porsche car clubs), and participate in autoX and track events.
The amount of performance gains you can unlock with driver skill improvement will dwarf anything you can achieve by throwing $$$ at the parts.
Best of all, those performance and safety gains are fully transferrable across all cars you will ever own or drive!

HTH,
a

I've done some SCCA events when I was younger. It was fun but I really don't want to put my daily driver through that while it is still under warranty. My buddies that do go to events regularly love it but they also spend a fortune between tires, track time, repairs, etc... especially the ones that frequent VIR. Plus I have a wife and small child that really don't want me gone all the time.

Modding the car was just more of a hobby for me, something I can do at home while still being around the family. I am probably just romanticizing it and forgetting about the bloody knuckles from breaking bolts and irritation of chasing down vacuum leaks.

 

[Whatstreet]

For speed, the obvious upgrade is a Model S Plaid or a Porsche Taycan. Someday the kit car thing could be fun but there isn't enough of that going on yet.

 

[golfcart]

For speed, the obvious upgrade is a Model S Plaid or a Porsche Taycan. Someday the kit car thing could be fun but there isn't enough of that going on yet.

Same issue for twice the price.

 

[TarmacSurfer]

That’s what motorcycles are for.

 

[M3_Performante]

I still think my P3D- is the greatest car I have ever owned, and I can't think of anything to replace it with, but lately I think I am getting bored with the car. Once I did PPF, tint, rims, and suspension there really isn't much left to do in terms of upgrades (I am not going to track the car so the race stuff would be a waste of money). There are really no performance gains to be had at this point in terms of acceleration or feel I just stomp it and it goes really fast over and over again.

When I worked on ICE cars there was always a new intake, exhaust, header, cams, bigger turbo, tune, short shifter, etc... out there to keep me interested in the project. It was obviously expensive and time consuming to do so but it was a hobby that I enjoyed. If you like to tinker with your car what do y'all do with your model 3 after basic mods have been done?

not really, I kinda like the fact there isn't much to do besides suspension, wheels and some cosmetics here and there and still stomp 97% of the cars on the road at stop lights bone stock

In fact, I hardly ever even drive my Porsche anymore and selling it....The M3P has ruined me when it comes to what a car should do when you smash the go pedal....besides, I still have my Jeep that has TONS of options when it comes to mods. Get yourself a project car to get your mod bug itch scratched

 

[TarmacSurfer]

For speed, the obvious upgrade is a Model S Plaid or a Porsche Taycan. Someday the kit car thing could be fun but there isn't enough of that going on yet.

I looked at the Taycan before deciding on the M3. It’s beautiful and it’s a Porsche, but the stats were inferior to the M3 across the board - range, charge time, acceleration, cost… and Tesla has its charging network. The higher end Taycans (“Turbo” or GTS) are different animals entirely but at their prices, you can have a plaid with money left over, and the Plaid still beats them.

I’ve been a longtime Porsche fan and have owned several (still have my mid-year 911 that I’ll never give up) but Tesla just flat-out beats them unless you’re talking 2-seater (or 2+2) convertibles or Targas (doubt Tesla will ever get into that market again - the “new roadster” is unlikely to ever happen IMO and at its price you’re in GT3 territory…)

Porsche has nicer styling IMO but… not worth that much more coin. And for a daily driver? Tesla wins handily.

 

[pikeman]

I still think my P3D- is the greatest car I have ever owned, and I can't think of anything to replace it with, but lately I think I am getting bored with the car. Once I did PPF, tint, rims, and suspension there really isn't much left to do in terms of upgrades (I am not going to track the car so the race stuff would be a waste of money). There are really no performance gains to be had at this point in terms of acceleration or feel I just stomp it and it goes really fast over and over again.

When I worked on ICE cars there was always a new intake, exhaust, header, cams, bigger turbo, tune, short shifter, etc... out there to keep me interested in the project. It was obviously expensive and time consuming to do so but it was a hobby that I enjoyed. If you like to tinker with your car what do y'all do with your model 3 after basic mods have been done?

Go back to your ICE car. This is too simple for you!

 

[DayTrippin]

Driver's school can be good as other mentioned.

If you want to still mod your 3, upgrade the crappy seats with some better materials.

I do get where you are coming from. At least the basic platform is good from the start but really not much to improve it. I've done many things to my 3 LR w/boost and I am pretty much at the end until I put nice ventilated leather seats in.

I am faced with the same dilemma with my Plaid. I don't want to go way off the deep end with all the suspension mods I could do there and I am calling it quits now that I got the track pack brakes and a set of wheels I like for them. It is pretty much done as well now.

Thankfully I still have a few motorcycles that will likely be never-ending projects to work on if I want.

 

[DriverOne]

If you're bored, that's OK. Happens with all hobbies eventually. Grow your brain & body by finding a new one, you can always use your car to get to and from... or pick up the cycling hobby (more $$$) and skip the car altogether.

 

[JM3P]

While I never got bored of the performance and handling, it never felt special when I saw dozens of identical looking cars on the road every day. I wish Tesla would differentiate their performance models like M and amg cars.

 

[golfcart]

While I never got bored of the performance and handling, it never felt special when I saw dozens of identical looking cars on the road every day. I wish Tesla would differentiate their performance models like M and amg cars.

It would be nice to have a special body kit or some additional badging but that doesn't seem their style. They are a dime a dozen these days, especially my white model 3. Before someone wrecked it I had a silver performance and that was pretty rare because they only made that color for 6 months. I did consider wrapping my car to be silver again but I just can't bring myself to drop a couple of grand on that...

 

[MarkoP]

Daily drivers are consumables.
I change car every 1-3 years, and found out long time ago that modifying the car may decrease the value and makes the "investment" even worse plus all of the work is wasted when changing to a new one.
Its not easy for a gear head to just change the hobby.. pick some old junk and you have a hobby for twenty years.
My never ending project gives plenty of doing, is something different to computer work and eats all the extra money. Perfect hobby.

 

[Don.Church]

Buy a wrecked, totalled Plaid that is still drivable. Then instead of modifying it with add-ons, put it on a weight reduction plan. Then you have to consider that it’s a track only vehicle. But it could be fun a the local strip.

 

[bobbyjae]

I'm getting bored because there are just too many of them on the street. The wow factor is gone. Everyone has the same shape, mostly the same colors, wheels, etc.

The only EVs that turn heads nowadays are the Lucids and Rivians, at least in my area.

 

[Sukhshanti]

I'm getting bored because there are just too many of them on the street. The wow factor is gone. Everyone has the same shape, mostly the same colors, wheels, etc.

The only EVs that turn heads nowadays are the Lucids and Rivians, at least in my area.

I break my neck every time I see a Taycan, hands down the best looking EV.

 

[85vett]

I'm getting bored because there are just too many of them on the street. The wow factor is gone. Everyone has the same shape, mostly the same colors, wheels, etc.

OP - I'm exactly like you with my previous cars (and some current ones). I buy the car and then start modding it. At the end of the day, I think you are modding the car to make it match more of your personality, than actual performance gains. Yes, some to be had with intake, exhaust, tune, etc but these days an exhaust that is still street legal on a car is more about the sound than actual performance gains, thus making it more like you.

As bobbyjae alludes to, fun of the car starts to fade for people like us because they are a dime a dozen now in metro cities (where we live) so we took to trying to make ours stand out from the crowd.

As such, I've taken that mentality to our M3P as well and gradually making changes to make it feel more like us (my wife and I share it). We started with a carbon fiber interior swap of the wood, then a carbon fiber front lip and rear valence that matches the style and look of the factory performance spoiler. Next I'm looking to replace the God awful cream color headliner and pillars (we have the black interior) with Alcantara/suede and then will probably have the seats redone with the inserts in Alcantara to match the door panels and new headliner. We call this car our "SpaceX" edition and it has kept myself and my wife engaged in the fun of the car. It also doesn't blend in with the other 15 model 3's at in the grocery store parking lot. Not going to be everyone's cup of tea but that's kind of the point.

In other words, just have fun making it your own but take your time. If you can afford to do it all at once, still break it out in stages as it elongates the fun of modding the car. That's why we are only doing one thing ever 4-6 months on our car. Once the new addition starts to fade, we do the next.

 

[heavyD]

People getting board with cars is nothing new as I'm sure I'm not the only person here that's fallen in and out of love with many cars over the decades. I just think it's something that may happen faster with EV's given the lack of meaningful modifications you can make to them compared to ICE vehicles. I'm just over a year into ownership and there's not really much I can still do the car after suspension and wheels. I'm still happy with the car and really the only ICE vehicles I may consider still have dealer admin issues which is something I simply refuse to pay.

 

[golfcart]

I break my neck every time I see a Taycan, hands down the best looking EV.

Yeah it’s a looker. I have a buddy with one and with the two cars side by side it’s hard to say mine looks better.