Ten Car Performance Fads That Need to Go Away

It’s smart to keep tabs on your engine. After all, the engine is the heart of the car. Honestly, though, most of the gauges needed to monitor the general workings of the car come straight from factory. If the engine has an aftermarket turbo system, it might be smart to add a boost gauge. But when some car builders modify their machines with a ridiculous row of gauges mounted up on the car’s A-pillar or enormous dials posted on top of the dash, it’s overkill. Unless you have something exotic under the hood, you don’t need an exhaust gas temperature gauge, a fuel pressure gauge, or an air-fuel ratio meter. A set of gauges like that are more distracting than helpful. Stick to the basics.

For decades, racing teams have been using side skirts and spoilers to accentuate downforce. This technology trickled down to high-performance street cars, as you well know if you’ve noticed the rising number of rockets souped up with gaudy spoilers and other ground effects kits. Of course, most of these aftermarket additions weren’t tested in any wind tunnel. If they have any effect at all, it’s to make the cars a little bit slower (besides, few street cars can even reach speeds where these parts would be useful). Worse yet, the skirts hang precariously close to the ground, so if the driver doesn’t slow down for that speed bump in the parking lot, these pieces could get torn off. Nevertheless, not only spoilers but also scoops, canards, mirror covers, and roll pans are still sold and installed in huge numbers.

Just about every luxury automaker has a high-performance line. Mercedes-Benz has its AMG badge. BMW has its M division. These top models cost a lot more than the basic cars, and sometimes, instead of paying a $25,000 premium for the real thing, people buy the “AMG” or “M” badge and slap it on the backs of their cars. While these guys deserve bonus points for initiative, I’m not sure who this is supposed to impress. The only people paying attention to badges are hardcore car enthusiasts—the people who are going to know right away that you have a Mercedes-Benz C350 with an AMG badge and not a real C63 AMG. To end this weird dance, I propose we adopt the European version of this fad. Instead of adding badges to premium cars, Europeans remove them altogether. It’s a good look.

Few performance fads are as goofy as those gargantuan exhaust stacks pointing toward the sky that some diesel truck owners insist on bolting to their trucks. But hey, at least they are real exhaust pipes. The same goes for those extra-loud oversized mufflers. Sure, they’re dumb, but at least those parts are connected to the real exhaust system. One of the lamest fads is when automakers themselves wrap their exhaust pipes in elaborate “finishers” molded into strange oblong oval or angular shapes. These tips make expensive performance cars look cheap. One of the worst offenders was the Lexus IS-F that launched in 2008. This car used a vertical quad tip setup that looked convincing from several feet away. But when you really examined the back of the car, it was clear that lower “pipe” was just a hole. It wasn’t expelling anything from the engine but rather fresh air from the rear of the car. Lame.

Some things just didn’t need to be fixed. Take the shifter. Like the steering wheel, a vehicle’s shifter should perform in a simple, self-explanatory way that doesn’t challenge or confuse the driver (recent shifter-related recalls in Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep vehicles prove the point). Because today’s transmissions don’t need a mechanical link to the shifter, automakers can use a wide variety of levers, knobs, and buttons to operate them. To save space, some shifters have become a small rotary knob on the center console. At least there’s a practical reason for that. What’s much worse is when engineers design a fancy shifter for its own sake and it works counterintuitively.

BMW is one of the worst culprits, with the range of oddly misshapen shifters it has used for more than a decade. BMW puts a button on the top for “Park” and a button on the side to allow the driver to pull it down into drive. To engage Reverse, you need to push the button again and slide it forward. But shifting into Neutral requires no button pushing. Forget all this. Bring back a simple lever with the traditional “PRNDL” pattern and manual shift controls if necessary. Cars are complicated enough. Shifting gears should be easy.

Lots of racers outfit their street cars with roll cages, deeply bolstered fixed position seats, and even racing harnesses instead of ordinary seat belts so their rides meet safety requirements for a track day session. No doubt, though, you’ve seen cars outfitted with fancy racing equipment that have probably never been driven around a racetrack. Okay, fine, the owner just wanted to look fast. But there are some serious drawbacks to outfitting a street car to look like a racer. A roll cage can seriously cut into a car’s interior space. Those seats and belts and four or six point belts aren’t comfortable or convenient on the commute to work. Plus, this equipment is all very expensive. I’m not going to tell you how to spend your money, but if you’re going to make your ride looks like a racer, then head to a track day and race the damn thing.

Yes, engines look cool. Those modified with big superchargers, turbos, and other shiny go-fast parts look even tougher. But driving around without a hood is a fad that needs to end. First, it is illegal in some states. And guess what? Even if it’s not technically illegal, it’s a good excuse for any cop to pull you over and make sure everything else is legal. Who wants the hassle? In addition, foul weather and road debris could seriously damage unprotected engine components.

Painted brake calipers originated back in the late 1980s. Back then, the top exotic cars with the most potent brakes often received Brembo calipers painted red. Because these cars had large-diameter wheels, those brakes were easy to see. The trend spread and now performance cars of all types wear calipers painted in a variety of hues. Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo S models come with huge calipers painted an outrageous lime green.

What goes for phony badges is also true for brakes—people want their cars to have the features of supercars they can’t afford, so some people simply paint their stock brakes. Of course, they usually don’t use the high-temperature caliper-specific paint a carmaker has at its disposal (even though brake painting kits are readily available on Amazon for around $40) so the paint job isn’t going to look great. Plus, many people do this to cars with ordinary tiny brakes, not the giant Bembros of a supercar. So by painting those calipers, the owners are drawing attention to the fact that their vehicle has small brakes. Probably not what they intended.