How to give your car a makeover on a budget

If you’re anything like us at Official Car Mats, your car is not just a tool to get from A to B. It’s your pride and joy, and an extension of your personality.

However, you may have gone down the rabbit hole of car customisation, and realised that many options to make your car more unique tend to also make your wallet significantly lighter. Wheels, lights, wraps: it seems like everything we want as car enthusiasts to make our vehicle more “us” has become prohibitively expensive!

So, what now? Are we stuck with our cookie-cutter car, in all of its grey, OEM glory? Well, not really. Let’s go into some ways you can make your car stand out from all the others, without spending a fortune.

Get your car detailed

This may seem minor, but the difference is clear. A good, full car detailing can cost from £80 to £200 depending on the size of your car and what you want to include in the service. Some specialists can charge thousands of pounds for a detail, but you can find good deals if you shop around and know what you need.

Remember, a shiny car is a good-looking car. If you have your vehicle detailed, its resale value can increase dramatically, and your car will feel as good as new again! 

Change your old bulbs

Still rocking the halogen lamps? Switching to HID or LED front lights is often a mod you can do yourself in a few minutes. Installing these types of lights rather than your standard halogen bulbs can increase the strength of your headlamps by up to 300%, and many retrofitting kits are around the £20 mark. Bargain.

If you switch out the halogen bulbs, consider realigning your front lights. The more powerful beam could mean that they need to be angled towards the ground more than your old ones.

New valve caps

What budget car mod list would be complete without valve caps? Dice, 8-Balls, spikes: you name it, someone’s made a valve cap out of it. Some online services even allow you to customise them, such as Brick Caps which sells personalised LEGO, Simpsons characters, or MCU superheroes faces with a valve thread at the bottom.

There are infinite possibilities when it comes to custom valve caps, and you’d be hard pressed to find a set for more than £20.

Personalise your interior

We spend a lot of time thinking about how our car looks from the outside, but we spend our time inside of it. Making your car’s interior luxurious and unique is an easy way to make it feel like a brand new car without even touching a screwdriver.

Getting a brand new set of custom car mats is easy, and you can personalise them to the extreme. Official Car Mats offers a huge selection of colours, trims, and materials.

Want to add your nickname on them? No problem. Need to show how much you love your club with customised football team car mats? Just pick yours in the configurator.

Official Car Mats allows you to choose how fancy you want your car mats: while you could go all-out, our mats start at £22.95, and we built countless gorgeous, complete sets for under £35.

Get some tech

If your car is a few years old, it’s normal to get a bit of “tech envy” when you get into someone else’s car. Backup cameras, Bluetooth, automatic electronic this-and-that. Don’t worry though: the truth is, you can likely add many tech accessories to your car for under £100.

A bluetooth FM transmitter can be found from £10 to £20 easily, allowing you to listen to your favourite tunes on the go, and even charging your phone from the centre console.

Backup cameras are now a requirement on new cars, but retrofit kits can be found for around £50, latching to your reverse lights and adding a little screen to your interior.

Dome or mood lighting for cars’ interiors is also relatively cheap, with simple LED strips selling for less than £20. You can control these with an app, allowing you to even make schedules and actions in some cases.

Making your car unique doesn’t have to be expensive. Details can really make the difference, and there are plenty of cheaper options to make your car stand out. You don’t need new wheels, a bodykit, or a custom paint job to impress: just personalise your car according to your style and taste, and take good care of it.

If you want to keep your interior pristine, your best option is a new set of mats from Official Car Mats: they are a perfect fit for your car, and they’re easy to wash when needed.