Car accessories: the changes of appearance between beauty and safety / Amer Ikmal Hisham Zulkarnain

The words such as sport rims, spoiler, fender, grille and many more are synonyms to the road users, in particular, the car drivers. As for today, material technology has given contribution to the designer and manufacturer by creating various designs of car accessories that fit the cars to fulfill the customer’s need and satisfaction. Therefore, car accessories have changed the lifestyle of the car owner. However, majority of the customers tend to search accessories based on its beauty but neglecting the safety. This situation happened because most customers installed accessories for beauty and pleasure. The safety issues created problems for them as the safety issues have not become the priority. In addition, the installation of car accessories is not approved by the Malaysian Road Transport Department. This can cause danger to other oncoming vehicles as well as the general public. Extreme modifications can result in major changes in terms of safety features. Mix method is used in this research to balance the opinion between the different methods. Mixed method research takes advantage of using multiple ways to explore a research problem. The outcome found that the customers are more interested in satisfying their modifying desire regardless of the price and safety. Therefore, proper and quality car accessories with consideration of safety issues should be approved by the authorities. This research is very important because it can bring awareness and knowledge on the appropriate use of car accessories to be installed in the car.