Hey all. Just stumbled upon this site a few days ago and have been reading through a ton of threads. I've been wanting to start doing some minor things to my '05 GT for a while now but I literally know next to nothing about vehicles and electronic hardware. I was hoping people could suggest some practical, easy and cheap ideas for improvement to my vehicle (performance improvements are welcome too, although i don't care about performance related to power or speed - only fuel efficiency, comfort, etc.).
First, the backstory:
I'm a 21 year old kid going to school. My first car, a '96 white ford taurus inherited from my mom, lasted as long as it could, with the radiator blowing my freshman year of college and warping the engine. My next car was a '99 neon, which had engine trouble of it's own 3 years down the road (hopefully my GP breaks my current 3-year trend, especially since i have a loan over 4), so I was searching for a new vehicle last July. Long story short, my uncle in law was getting rid of his 2005 Grand Prix (don't know the letter code, but it's the most base model around). I bought it with 105k almost all highway miles for $5,000 almost a year ago. Only picture I have of it at the moment is here:
I'm a delivery driver off and on and put about 21,000 on it so far this first year, and have had a number of minor problems, including a dirty throttle bore, filthy transmission fluid, bad heater motor, a few flats and etc. It was a rough year, but it's been being great to me lately and I want to take care of it really well for as long as I can keep it.
A few things I was thinking about doing to it... I saw a lot of stuff on here about LED lights, inside and out. How much do these kinds of things cost (for interior lights, front headlights/rear headlights/etc.)? I love the look of almost all of them! I'm planning on installing a new deck and one or two subs sometime this summer (probably going to get a cheap double-din deck to fit that big radio space, was thinking about this one, which can change colors ). I also wanted to get two transformers autobot emblems to put on my front quarterpanels :P call me a nerd but i've been a transformers nut pretty much all my life. I was thinking about debadging (don't really know how to do this/how easy it is), getting inserts for my rear bumper and was thinking about putting the car's name, 'Stacy', on there but I'm not sure if I could find the Pontiac "font" anywhere.
I also might have to wait to do most of that stuff until I repaint it. I don't know if that's necessary, and will try uploading pictures for your opinions. Basically, there's a few chips and a lot of scratches all over, and if you look close you can see that the front bumper is uh..i don't know, worn or something (that's not dirt), and even when i scrub it pretty good it still doesn't have a great shine when you look close, I don't know how much of this could be fixed with different products? Maybe using some clay, wax and etc. would help, I'm not really sure.
Anyways, my to do list for the summer includes getting all the upholstery inside cleaned really well (can I do this myself?), replacing at least the interior lights if not the exterior as well, getting a stereo and sub(s), possibly replacing the grille, getting the autobots and letter emblems and inserts and either giving the car and tires a really, really good cleaning or getting it repainted.
What do you guys think I should do to my car? Thanks in advance for any replies!![]()