GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

So, I've had this car for around a year now and gonna be keeping it for about a year more (or so) before I can buy my next car.

back to the Vibe, I've recently gotten bored with it's overall appearance (not the utility though) so I decided to change it. I found this site a little while ago and have been lurking it for about 2 weeks for ideas and right now I would say I'm half way done face lifting it. I'm just gonna write a check list of everything I'm doing to it and keep coming back to edit it off, Will also post plenty of before/after Photo's because who doesn't love those.

• Paint grill------------------------------------------Check
  Paint steelies------------------------------------------Check
  Paint Windshield Wippers Black.............Check
  Plasti-dip Exterior Parts.......................Check
  Swap out Interior dome with LED's.........Check
  Rota grids concave
  12mm spacers all around
  TRD rear sway
  lowering springs
  TRD air filter
  TRD brake pads
  oem s/c if i ever get the guts to attempt the wiring monstrosity i would have to do with AEM f/ic

Grill Before





Grill After

Rusty Stock Rims Before







Not so rusty Stock Rims After

Foggy 7 Year old Headlights Before






Still Scratched, but not that terrible Headlights After

I used toothpaste/window cleaner for this. worked pretty well all things considered.

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Awesome, great progress already! do something with the emblems, debadge them or get some grafxwerks.com overlays or paint them. many members here have some some cool things with them. A Psycho Martyr i believe did some cool paint jobs for his emblems, among other things, should check it out

Doug14 wrote:Awesome, great progress already! do something with the emblems, debadge them or get some grafxwerks.com overlays or paint them. many members here have some some cool things with them. A Psycho Martyr i believe did some cool paint jobs for his emblems, among other things, should check it out

Yea, i was thinking about wrapping my emblems and VIBE badge's in Black Carbon fiber vinyl as well as my roof cross bars/gas tank cover I'm doing soon once I get it. I think the wrapped look would still look good as long as the Pontiac vibe logo is still somewhat distinguishable and it would go good with the black/blue color scheme I'm doing. I was even thinking about painting my calipers and/or my back brake drums in Blue, but im not sure how well you could see it through the rim and wheel cover though.




Also, Didn't have much to do today so I painted my windshield wipers Black because they were pretty spotty and starting to chip and looked used.

BEFORE






After

Wipers came out great! Look better than mine did new

Plasti-diped certain parts of my car so far. thinking about doing my emblems/side thing thats raised.

Unbelievabrah wrote:Plasti-diped certain parts of my car so far. thinking about doing my emblems/side thing thats raised.

Side molding!

Looks really good! Maybe do the vinyl wrap around the windows as well? That stuff's faded on my car.

Blanco_Diablo wrote:Wipers came out great! Look better than mine did new

Thanks and yeah, its like one of those little things that you don't really notice until you look at it and now whenever I look at a car I always seem to look at little things like that. lol.

lannvouivre wrote:

Unbelievabrah wrote:Plasti-diped certain parts of my car so far. thinking about doing my emblems/side thing thats raised.

Side molding!

Looks really good! Maybe do the vinyl wrap around the windows as well? That stuff's faded on my car.

Yeah, Surprisingly Enough there isn't hardly much fading on the side black door trims. but underneath the handles there is a little thing that stretches about a meter in length that Im thinking about plasti-dipping black. I just dont want to do too much black if there is such a thing. haha.

Looks good so far, and those wheels came out really nice! I was going to plasti-dip the side emblems, but in the end I think I'm just gonna de-badge them instead

edit

Side Rails Before....









Side Rails After....

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Unbelievabrah wrote:Swapping out License plate lights with bright blue LED's. Also spraypainted the bolts blaaack.

Blaaaaack! hahaha MCM.

Doug14 wrote:

Unbelievabrah wrote:Swapping out License plate lights with bright blue LED's. Also spraypainted the bolts blaaack.

Blaaaaack! hahaha MCM.

haha, yeah. Brb, painting my calipers red for more HP.

Front Badge






Driver door Badge






Rear Badges

aren't the blue license plate LED's illegal?

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Vibe is looking really good, love what you've done with it so far! As for the license plate LED's, up where I live a friend of mine had them blue for about a year and nobody ever gave him a hard time with it, even when he'd gotten pulled over for speeding. He eventually changed them to white because he wanted to change the look of his car, but if your cops are anything like ours you should be alright. They've got more important things to pull people over for up here in Canada .

Got anything else planned? Once you start changing the little things, it's very hard to stop, lol.

MrHatchWagon wrote:Vibe is looking really good, love what you've done with it so far! As for the license plate LED's, up where I live a friend of mine had them blue for about a year and nobody ever gave him a hard time with it, even when he'd gotten pulled over for speeding. He eventually changed them to white because he wanted to change the look of his car, but if your cops are anything like ours you should be alright. They've got more important things to pull people over for up here in Canada .

Got anything else planned? Once you start changing the little things, it's very hard to stop, lol.

the'ye not bad where i live.. atleast i dont think so. I really dont get pulled over though. and im thinking about either just plati-diping the roof lip and thats it or plasti-diping the entire roof and the lip and spray painting the plasti-dip a Glossy black so dirt doesnt show up so much because it always seems to collect up there. I Also thought about buying lowering springs to lower it like 2inchs or so but I kinda dont really wanna do that cause it will be a pain to swap em all out in addition to removing the utility of the Vibe if I go off road, which I do occasionally, but its more like a dirt road that isnt exactly even than off roading in the brush.

I'd maybe just do the roof lip, and use vinyl for the rest of the roof. It might have a better finish than the plasti-dip on such a large surface, but you can always peel it off if you don't like it, or gloss it up. If you're looking into lowering, Thebarber here had a used set he was selling, I think they gave it a nice drop while still making it practical to drive. It's worth looking into if you've got the time and resources to get it done.

they are horrible where i live. "You have blue LED's, let me pull you over and fine you for it."
only white and amber are allowed for any lighting and or glow. headlights and fog lights are a different story.

new Progress pic, re did my headlight properly since i didnt seal them properly last time and they came out worse after a few months

month old photo at the snake on mulholland. Glad im lowering it soon to get rid of that rally-height

Got new tires today, Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3's. Really psyched how sticky these are combined with their long tread life of around 50k miles?

washed, clayed and waxed today. its been a while since ive done that last part. looks way better imo, just need to get around to dropping it.