Add-ons can add fines

Boston Auto Design on Blue Hill Avenue is car-bling heaven. Designer plate covers, designer lights, designer everything. For about $300 you can make your car's undercarriage glow like a neon firefly. For $12,000 you can pop on hot rims -- the same spinners that former New England Patriot Bethel Johnson slapped on his Cadillac Escalade.

A set of faux diamond, ruby, and amethyst lug nuts will set you back $200. But personally, I could not imagine driving without them.

"You got some nice fancy wheels, and you want to put diamonds on them," says Gabriel Hernandez, nephew of store owner Ivan "Ike" Montes, in explaining the lug nuts' appeal.

Last week I reported on my humbling experience at the car inspection station, where I failed because of bad brakes (since fixed). The theme of that column was mandatory car equipment. This week, we shift to optional add-ons. Crazy lighting, movie-star tinting, extra-loud mufflers, and the like. You can dress up your wheels with just about anything , but are all these decorations legal? Are there regulations or restrictions as to how far you can go?

Lighting accessories are among the hotter items at Boston Auto Design, but most of them are sold with warnings that they are for off-road use only, says employee Jose Ruiz. "We sell them because most people dress up their cars and go to car shows or meetings with all their friends at a parking lot. If it's parked and you're not moving, you shouldn't have a problem."

But if you want to cruise down your block with, for example, green light-emitting diodes glowing under your Mustang, you're asking for a ticket.

"You can't do it. They're aftermarket lights ," says Paul Cardalino, a retired Wareham police captain who teaches motor vehicle law at the South Suburban Police Institute in Foxborough.

That goes for everything from aftermarket high-intensity headlights to red-light message boards with programmable sayings that wrap around your license plate.

The specific law is Code of Massachusetts Regulations Chapter 540, Section 22, which lists fines for "aftermarket lighting, noncompliant," at $35 for the first offense, $75 for the second offense, and $150 for a third offense. If your specialty lights are red or blue, and you're not an authorized emergency responder, you could be fined up to $300 under a separate state law.

Like sunglasses, dark window tinting is cool. Factory-installed window tinting is legal no matter how dark it is, says licensed car inspector Giorgio Petruzziello. But if you're adding tint to a window, the tint can't block more than 65 percent of incoming light. If it does -- officials have light-reading meters to check on this -- it's a $250 fine, according to state law.

Ruiz says his shop installs window tinting that lets in as little as 5 percent of light -- "which is like a limousine" -- with the warning that such tinting isn't legal.

"People keep stuff in their car, in their back seat. They don't want someone just walking by and glancing at what they have back there. Most people use it for that -- privacy," he says.

A loud muffler gets as much attention as anything you can put on a car. People who like their wheels to sound "beefy" will remove the exhaust system's catalytic converter, also known as driving with "straight pipes," Ruiz says. As you might expect, that's illegal, both for noise and environmental reasons.

Some people like extra-fat tires, like those on a dune buggy. While that may be acceptable on the beach, it's a $100 fine when on the road, police say.

"With extra-wide tires, rain or snow isn't staying under the car. It's coming out and impacting other drivers," says Lieutenant Dana Pagley, commander of the State Police's traffic section.

It's also fashionable, Ruiz says, to raise or lower the height of your car with "lift kits" that attach to its suspension. "You can go a 3- or 4-inch lift kit, or a 6-inch lift kit, the more extreme." The law, however, prohibits any car from being raised higher than 2 inches.

Your pickup truck "was made to line up with the bumpers of other cars in collisions," Pagley says. "If it's too high, you're probably going to drive right over the bumper into the trunk."

Kits that allow you to lower your vehicle height are also illegal (modified-height violation, $35). They invite other problems, too.

"There's people out there who can take out the springs," Ruiz says, and their car "will go all the way to the ground. They'll just take them to shows and spank them on the ground. I've seen a lot of people break their oil pans once or twice and almost lose their engine. It looks hot, though."

Even an add-on as innocuous as a license plate frame can be illegal if it's too stylish. The law says your rear plate has to be visible from 200 feet, and if an officer deems it isn't because of a decorative frame or a plastic covering, he can fine you $35.

"A lot of cops now are cracking down on the frame plates because they sometimes cover the 'Spirit of Massachusetts' " logo, says Ruiz. "If it covers even just a little of the plate, they say it's illegal."