On a daily basis, I see beautiful cars all over campus. However, a disgusting amount of them have been horribly customized.

I’m not just talking about stick figure families on the backs of cars.

Lay off the big rims. Lay off the obnoxious paint jobs. Lay off the loud exhausts. Customizing your car is like people getting plastic surgery – how well does that tend to turn out?

From ultra-expensive supercars such as the Lamborghini and Porsche, to old Buick LaSabres, MSU students feel the urge to add their own personal touch to their vehicles.

On campus, the people who put their car under the knife usually fall into one of these three categories:

Cutesy Decorators

These drivers like to add accessories to their vehicle such as: cheetah print seat covers, “cute” stickers and the god-awful, preposterous headlight eyelashes. Carmakers have never put eyelashes on a car straight from the factory. Cars are not humans. You put gas in the fuel tank, not mascara on the headlights. Although it is unacceptable to put eyelashes on any vehicle, putting them on legendary vehicles such as the Jeep Wrangler should warrant arrest for car abuse.

Macho Men

These drivers on campus tend to drive big SUVs such as Ford Expeditions or pickup trucks like Dodge Rams. But to these drivers, the SUVs just aren’t masculine enough by themselves.

To make their trucks more butch, these drivers tend to raise the suspension, stick huge rims/tires on the truck and/or add obnoxiously large and loud exhaust systems. Just because you may be looking down on drivers doesn’t mean you are more powerful or more masculine. That loud exhaust that spews out pollution from those big tailpipes pointing up in the back just screams for attention. Maybe these drivers are trying to compensate for something.

Wannabe Racers

Huge spoilers, aftermarket rims and aggressive paint jobs are the typical traits of cars for this type of driver.

The roads around the majority of campus are packed with students and faculty and typically have a speed limit of 25 miles per hour. Obviously you won’t be taking your Mustang to the limit anywhere near campus, so what’s the purpose?

Aesthetically these vehicles tend to look like a 4-year-old child that decided to wear their parents’ clothes – they are too big and look humorous, not sporty.

All in all, customizing your car should be considered a sin. As a car enthusiast myself, it breaks my heart every time I see a beautiful car destroyed by its driver. Every car manufacturer puts out their vehicles with certain styling and engineering elements for a purpose – don’t mess with it.