My daily is a 2006 scion xa which was purchased brand new with the intent of keeping it stock and as my commuter. Black exterior with matching black interior, I was happy with my 5-speed hatch for its first few years of life.
The stock life lasted for so long until I realized that this car has been good to me and has gotten me out of some serious situations. We survived a crazy accident on I90 that sent me across all three lanes of the highway in a crazy death spin, that finally came to a holt in a ditch on the side of the road.
Out with the old and in with the new. A few choice modifications in the right areas to essentially enhance my everyday driving feel and to give a whole new look to this daily commuter. After all she deserved it.
I came across these 17x7 TRD wheels on craigslist. The seller turned out to be an Xa enthusiast and was in the process of acquiring some new shoes for his whip. The multi-spoke design reminds me of dtm touring cars, the clean sporty look compliments the body lines well.
Once the parts arrived at my house I loaded up and dropped my car off at MXPI Tuning. The rear suspension on these Xa's are a bit tricky and me not having the right tool to get this particular job done, I felt comfortable leaving this in the hands of the guys at MXPI Tuning. Raceland coilovers handle the suspension duties while new pads and rotors take care of the stopping duties.
A TRD short shifter in addition to a set of solid shifter bushings add to the driver feel when engaging into and going through the gears. A few other TRD dress up goodies(some ebay & some legit) for the engine bay round out the modification list. While also debadging the xa and blacking out any exterior scion emblem.
I also had MXPI install my new junction produce curtains after I had my tints done. I conveniently purchased the curtains in the city at Fizz autosports. My buddy Jon with a bagged G35 on vossen's and I took a cruise to the city and made a day of it.
The car looked great and completely something new when it came out of MXPI Tuning. How a little stance, with some classy looking rims and some H.I.D's can impact the appearance to a vehicle.
How the redemption song was shortly sang for not long after this transformation I was rear ended. The driver took off into the midst of the rainy night. I took the loss on the chin and formulated a game plan. There were some other areas of paint that needed some TLC. I used the resources at my disposal and a solution was found.
A new bumper was sourced off of ebay along with a carbon fiber hood, while the paint supplies were sourced locally. My childhood friend happens to be a bodyman/painter and he helped me on this endeavor. We had to fix some cracking in the clear coat that was located on the fender and door area. Along with repainting the front bumper to fix the bundle of rock chips and also the new rear bumper. So needless to say it was an early morning with a lot of sanding on my part that lasted to the later part of the afternoon but we did finish the job in one day.
Couldn't be happier with the results of this tiny project and thank all those involved that made it come to fruition. Be sure to check out MXPI Tuning.
