Customizing Your Car and the Problems That Arise

People in America love their cars. They love them so much that often times, you will come across people who have taken it the extra step by customizing their car to their liking. Customizing your car can include things from getting an after-market stereo system to changing out the tail lights. Perhaps the most common item that you see on customized cars involves people putting on different wheels or rims to draw attention to that particular area.

But not all is well that ends well when it comes to customized vehicles. Often, when you customize a vehicle, you are making yourself a target for thieves. There is a difference between customizing your car when you buy it from the dealership versus customizing it yourself after you bring it home from the dealership. When you are at the dealership, you can choose certain features that you want your vehicle to come with. Another thing that you should know about customizing your car after you've brought it home from the dealership is that when you customize it yourself, you are actually lowering the value of your vehicle.

People will pay more money for cars that had the features come with it to begin with versus the ones that you paid to have put in after the fact. This is why is generally recommended that you have factory-issued customized options added to your car prior to you purchasing it. Thieves are attracted to customized cars because, often, the customized parts are easy to remove. For example, Honda vehicles are the most often customized because the parts are easy to buy for it. As a result of this, you will often hear of a person's car being broken into and the stereo system stolen. On a factory issued stereo, the stereo system sits flush against the dashboard, which makes it incredibly difficult for a thief to dislodge it.

There are instances where thieves will target cars that are not customized but which have certain things that are in hot demand. For example, when my father purchased his brand new Nissan Maxima a couple of years ago, his car was fully loaded and included the sports sized wheels. If you know anything about sports-sized wheels, then you will know that these types of wheels are typically bigger and have a wider grip on the road surface. One morning after going out to his car to leave for work, my father discovered that someone had stolen all of the tires off of his car. When he purchased his car, he had the option of getting something called wheels that "lock" which makes it impossible for thieves to get the wheels off of your car unless they have specialized custom key. However, when he purchased the car initially, he didn't see the need for this. Having lived in a good neighborhood with no crime at all, he was duly shocked. As it turned out, there were a bunch of targeted crimes regarding stealing the wheels off of the Nissan Maximas throughout New York because the wheels were in high demand.

If you want to customize your car, make sure you know the rules and laws for the area that you live in. Know that you can't just change out your headlights to shine green instead of white without first checking with the rules!