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5 Car Modifications That Will Improve Your Car’s Resale Value

Unusual paint jobs and wonky wheels might be car mods you’re dreaming of, but they could lower your car’s value or invalidate the insurance. Car accessories come in all shapes and sizes, some will add value, and some will erode it.

By
18 May 2022

Some designs are fine as they are and tampering with them only makes them an oddity (remember Lady Gaga’s no-heel stilettos??) or decreases their value. But sometimes, a little tinkering can improve value. What’s true in fashion is also true of car modifications, some car mods will bump up the price of your wheels.

We’ve sifted through the good, the bad and the just plain dangerous to bring you the best car modifications to boost the resale price of your wheels.

Car modifications to get your hands on – gadgets

Convenience is one thing we all love with our wheels. If you’re looking for car modifications that will improve the value of your car, this is the track you should take.

Parking sensors – Parking is one of the most difficult manoeuvres you can make. Adding parking sensors is a great idea if you want to make driving and parking easier and boost the value of your wheels. This car modification will cost you anywhere between £50 and £550 to purchase as a kit. You’ll then need to fit them or pay someone else for the trouble.

Parking sensor kits vary in price according to the features and quality. Front and rear sensors with an onscreen display are the most expensive kind. Of course, you can also opt for simple rear sensors with beeping to indicate looming obstacles. The fancier you go, the more value you add. In terms of adding value, this is one of the best car modifications you can choose.

Sat nav – Even if your car already has this, upgrading yours to a transparent GPS screen, or even better, windscreen projected map, can improve your car’s value. If your wheels are without an integrated Sat Nav, installing one can be expensive. However, the trade-off is that you’ll never get lost again and when it’s time to say goodbye to your baby, you’ll get a little more for her with this car mod.

Better connections – Nearly everyone has a smartphone these days. When you’re driving, you want to be able to charge your phone and listen to your tunes. That means a USB port and Bluetooth connectivity are essential! The good news is that a hands-free kit for your car is likely to have both of these features. Some kits come with connectivity, GPS, dash-mounted microphones for hands-free phone calls, dash cams and DAB radios.

You’ll be looking at around £250 for a complete singing and dancing set-up, but you’ll be ticking nearly all of the must-have gadget needs of drivers. If you’re thinking about car modifications purely for improving resale value, this is one worth considering carefully.

Car modifications for comfort

If convenience is king, comfort is definitely queen. The next best car modifications are all about personal well-being. If you’ve ever been stuck on the M5 in summer or waited for your windows to deice in winter, you’ll love these!

Air conditioning – The UK’s summer may leave a lot to be desired, but when it heats up you want a cool blast of air. Air conditioning has almost become standard equipment on cars. More expensive cars have climate zone controls too, so you can be cool in the back and warm in the front, or vice versa.

This aftermarket modification is not the cheapest to install, but it is worthwhile. For a start, you’ll enjoy driving in summer a whole lot more! Secondly, this is the number one of all car modifications that buyers want. Even if you have a classic or vintage car, getting it retro-fitted with aircon is likely to improve its value.

Do your homework before moving ahead with this one. Installing aircon is almost always possible, but there are a bunch of different systems and ways to go about it.

Heated seats – This is one luxury you will not want to do without in the depths of winter. Once you have them, heated seats become a necessity rather than a car accessory. Despite the technology being fairly simple – it’s just a heated pad inserted into a seat – it’s not so easy to do this yourself.

If you’re considering having heated seats installed as a car modification for any kind of vehicle, we’d recommend getting a professional to do it. If the job goes wrong you could damage your seats or burn a hole in your pocket (literally). Prices start at around £350 for this mod, but they’ll improve the resale value and make it easier to shift your car in winter.

Car modifications you should avoid

Car modifications that change the way your car looks or feels on the road are dicey choices. Sometimes car mods can invalidate your insurance and other times they’ll just make it nigh on impossible to sell your car. These car mods should be avoided at all costs.

Wonky wheels – Alloy wheels improve the value of your car, wonky wheels decrease it – drastically. These wheels have an extreme tilt – in at the top and out at the bottom. Whether or not you think they look cool (the OWO team are still divided on this ‘feature’), they can cause an issue with safety, invalidate your insurance and in some regions, make your car unsaleable. Better to skip this car mod.

Modified exhausts – Modifying your car’s exhaust system can improve performance or it can just make your car louder. Depending on the type of exhaust modification you go for, it could also invalidate any warranties or insurance policy you have. UK drivers, on the whole, aren’t keen on exhaust modifications, making it likely that it will be harder to sell your car when the time comes. Unless your improving emissions and engine performance, this one is best left alone.

Eyelashes – Novelty car accessories such as eyelashes on headlights, reindeer horns at Christmas and flags are some of the most hated car modifications in the UK. The upside of these is that they are usually easy to remove – which you should do if you are planning to sell your car! Leaving them on could cost you as much as £190 when it comes to negotiating the price.