Is it just me ? Car reviews

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Fri 5 Aug 2016 21:23
Is it just me ? Car reviews - scot22

Some of the vocabulary and expressions used in car reviews baffles me. Just read one which said gear changes were 'notchy'. What does that mean in practice ?

Some cars are referred to as 'fun' to drive. If you have to ask what that means does it mean you won't get it ?

I occasionally wonder if a glossary of what is meant by certain terms would be helpful for a simpleton like me.

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Fri 5 Aug 2016 22:15
Is it just me ? Car reviews - corax

Notchy gearchange means it's like stirring a bucket of coal. Does that make it clearer :)

I think 'fun to drive' will mean different things to different people, but yes, I think you should know if you're enjoying yourself driving the car.

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Fri 5 Aug 2016 22:54
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Metropolis.

I agree. Another annoying habit is the overuse of exaggerated metaphors. Only Clarkson can genuinely pull that off and even he pushes it a bit far sometimes..

Sometimes I think car journalists (not Honest John) really have no clue what they are talking about. For instance some websites when reviewing a Land Cruiser and say it is not "refined" on the road because of an "old fashioned" and "crude" separate chassis when in actual fact a separate chassis provides much greater opportunity for isolation especially with all those bushes etc. Or when they go on about 'poor fuel economy' and it being a 'gas guzzler' when a car gets over 30mpg. In my book if a car gets over 20mpg it is not a 'gas guzzler'.

Or websites describing the Mitsubishi Shogun as a traditional old fashioned 4x4 despite it having a a monocoque and independent suspension all round.

Worst of all was the trend to criticise carmakers for giving cars a soft ride. The focus on handling made it the fashion to have 'sporty' suspension, totally impractical on a run of the mill family car, especially on British roads. Fortunately this last trend seems to be coming to an end!

Hope that rant was somehow relevant..

Edited by PCharlton on 05/08/2016 at 22:55

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Fri 5 Aug 2016 23:23
Is it just me ? Car reviews - scot22

Thanks both for your helpful posts.

PCharlton your 'rant' is very relevant. Just wonder if there is a similarity between food critics and car critics.

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 07:22
Is it just me ? Car reviews - madf

Thanks both for your helpful posts.

PCharlton your 'rant' is very relevant. Just wonder if there is a similarity between food critics and car critics.

Those that can't cook, criticise.

Those that cannot drive, review.

? :-)

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 08:37
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Bracket

I think there's a lot of hyperbole and opinion masquerading as fact in many reviews. And there are plenty of inaccuracies.

HJ moaned in a review of the Suzuki Grand Vitara that the dash lights weren't dimmable, when two minutes with the user manual would have shown him that they were. Again, in a recent review of a Dacia, he complained that the MediaNav didn't show traffic incidents, despite displaying a photo showing the Sat-Nav providing just that.

www.honestjohn.co.uk/road-tests/dacia/dacia-duster.../

Stuff like 'notchy' gear shifts, 'soft' suspension, 'noisy' cabins are rarely backed up with any facts, and so the credibility of the review and reviewer suffers.

Car manufacturers must weep at some the reviews published by the motoring press.

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 09:40
Is it just me ? Car reviews - DirtyDieselDogg

"boring" , I imagine is an attempt to make reliable sound undesirable.

I also find it b***** odd that they rarely if ever mention ease or difficulty of access or egress.

Nor wide exposed cills catching the clabber from wet rural road verges, after a single brief journey, specially to catch the backs of ones legs or coat when getting out.

My Uncle Arthur Morton was making these comments about car reviewers 50 years ago, and then being in his middle/old age, was probably making them 20 or 30 years prior to my observations.

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 18:15
Is it just me ? Car reviews - concrete

Couldn't agree more with general comments. Motoring journalist seem to fall into two catagories, one large and one small. The small one being being the likes of HJ et al who at least provide some real world experience to reviewing a car. The large being the overgrown schoolboy cum petrolhead who has a job playing with cars for a living. You don't get much sense from the latter group.

For instance, I had the first three marques of Honda Accords as company cars, before we went the diesel route. Fabulous machines, utterly reliable and every bell and whistle you could wish for. The motoring press of the time described them in scathing terms. Presumably because they could not drive it round a sharp bend at 60mph and do 'wheelies' in the car park. The fact the steering did not 'talk' to you completely escaped them as a positive for family car drivers who want smooth, effective, reliable motoring, not a rallying machine to go to Tesco. The number of times I have being cool and comfortable in my air conditioned Honda (in 1986) and been in a traffic jam alongside sweaty, discomforted drivers in their 'driving machines'. I think I got the last laugh. The other thing of course is that most reviews seem to be of vehicles the vast majority of the public would not or could not buy anyway. What is the point of that?

Well that's my twopennyworth, off to lie down in a dark room!!

Cheers Concrete

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 19:35
Is it just me ? Car reviews - madf

I grew up - in motoring terms - on George Bishop and LJK Setright in CAR in the 1960s.

Comapred to them , most modern journalists are incoherent and write illogical ill-thought out bad Englsih with no flair.

After all, if we drove like thses journalists appear to test their cars the deaths on teh roads would be ten times higher.

Written by muppets for the gullible. (I saw one recent one - Autocar or Autosoemthing) which compared real mpg with EU mpg for competitors- and damned the car they were testing as "having poor fuel economy".

m****ic. Or just thick?

Edited by madf on 06/08/2016 at 19:38

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 20:22
Is it just me ? Car reviews - hillman

Sadly, I missed the best of L J K Setright because I was out of the UK when he was writing. UK motoring magazines were not available where I was domiciled. I only read one article of his, after his death, and it was superbly written. I don’t think that the readers would understand him now.

I remember the car magazines from South Africa that I used to read. The road test included finding the speed at which the suspension ‘floated’ over corrugations. For those who have never driven on dirt roads the surface forms into washboard like corrugations about a handwidth peak to peak. (Who does not know what a washboard is ? – shades of the old skiffle groups !). When driving over that type of surface it made your teeth rattle until the car reached the speed that the suspension was tuned for. That in most cases was 50 mph; quite fast enough. In one case the test was aborted when the car didn’t reach the ‘floating’ speed within the speed limit. Not being able ‘blame and shame’ prevents me from giving the model.

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 20:34
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Metropolis.

Very interesting, love hearing about that kind of stuff! Were certain cars preferred over others in those conditions at the time? I heard that Peugoet were known to be quite rugged. Hard to believe looking at them now!

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 20:38
Is it just me ? Car reviews - gordonbennet

The idiocy of so many programs has seen me shy away from almost all vehicle related media, i content myself here and at one of two other older car and lorry related sites.

The trio of schoolboys on TG became caricatures, and 5th gears episode with the ex racing driver blasting round a track trying to push the tyres off the likes of a first gen Kia Rio and Suzuki WagonR and others...to compare them presumably for potential owners had me cringing, never again, there's more than enough stupid in the world without volunteering.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 10:25
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Engineer Andy

The problem is that Top Gear et al of TV are these days purely entertainment shows, and have very little/no serious journalism in them. Many of us over 40 will still remember 'old Top Gear' with Woollard, Goffey etc, who actually gave a reasonable review of cars and motoring issues of the day.

It was 'new TG' that changed the way motoring journalism was done, though the magazines/newpapers were slowly inching that way for years as you stated - TG just finished the job. As I've complained on a few occasions, even some of the HJ staffers are prone to aping Clarkson & Co, presumably (in my opinion) to attract the attention of the main car mags, newspapers and even TV producers for a higher-paid/celebrity position.

I'm just glad HJ and this website/forum exists, as if it weren't, making my choice for each next car would be far more difficult and lengthy.

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 21:47
Is it just me ? Car reviews - galileo

I remember the car magazines from South Africa that I used to read. The road test included finding the speed at which the suspension ‘floated’ over corrugations. For those who have never driven on dirt roads the surface forms into washboard like corrugations about a handwidth peak to peak. (Who does not know what a washboard is ? – shades of the old skiffle groups !). When driving over that type of surface it made your teeth rattle until the car reached the speed that the suspension was tuned for. That in most cases was 50 mph; quite fast enough.

If anyone saw the original black and white version of The Wages of Fear, you'd remember a sequence where they had to maintain 'floating' speed over undulating road in old trucks loaded with nitroglycerine.

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Sat 6 Aug 2016 22:47
Is it just me ? Car reviews - scot22

Thanks for all of the interesting posts. Pleased to know its not just me.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 01:01
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Avant

No, it certainly isn't just you, Scot - it's most of us. The root of the issue is that most motoring writers (or muttering rotters as they sometimes call themselves) want different things from cars from the average motorist - even keen motorists. They generally set much greater store on a car's ability to handle when driven fast on twisty B-roads, which is why a BMW will nearly always win a group test over an Audi.

Magazine journalists don't listen to readers' views nearly as much as they should; which is why our own site is so useful, as you can read owners' reviews alongside the road tests.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 11:34
Is it just me ? Car reviews - oldroverboy.

I'm just glad HJ and this website/forum exists,

And all of us should hope that HJ "doesn't retire and sell out"

Edited by oldroverboy. on 07/08/2016 at 11:36

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 14:46
Is it just me ? Car reviews - hillman

PCCharlton "Very interesting, love hearing about that kind of stuff! Were certain cars preferred over others in those conditions at the time? I heard that Peugoet were known to be quite rugged. Hard to believe looking at them now."

During the 1970s the one model most suitable for thrashing in Central African conditions was the Peugeot 404 estate. It was used as a taxi and that meant the driver waiting until nobody else could fit into the car before setting off. The car had half elliptical rear springs and a different axle. The springs were generally down on the axle by the time the driver set off. The driver then drove to the next town at the maximum speed that the car would do.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 14:58
Is it just me ? Car reviews - expat

It would be useful if the car reviews could give the cost of servicing over three years and the cost of common spare parts. It would also be interesting to know whether you could change a headlight globe without having to remove air cleaners, battery etc.

They never tell you whether the touch screen gadget means that you have to take your eyes off the road to change the radio station and whether you can adjust the air conditioner/heater/demister by feel or whether you need to go through a series of menus to do so. Not too good if you are doing 70 on a motorway when you find that your windscreen is misting up.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 18:27
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Engineer Andy

Also worth mentioning whether changing 'simple' parts like lights is a simple 5-10 minute job or as some have been over the past 10 years or so, an hour's job at the dealership opening up the wheel-well and taking several unrelated parts out just to get to it!

That sort of thing makes a mockery of the rules in many EU countries that you must have spare bulbs etc when driving! Personally speaking, I think cars should get VED penalties for such poor designs (more likely done to boost profits at dealerships).

The problem with getting servicing costs is that they vary so much from region to region, sometimes even from town to town, despite the garages being main delerships. Also, many so-called fixed pricing plans for several years' services don't include many items or reduce the level of items serviced to artificially make them look cheaper than just paying for an annual service.

We just need some transparency - maybe garages should be forced to display (at least on their websites and on the wall at the dealerships [as some used to do]) the servicing prices and what they include for...

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 18:52
Is it just me ? Car reviews - gordonbennet

There's only so much that can be learned weighed up and priced up via a website like this or it would be huge, though i have no doubt if people require more in depth information then HJ's team could come up with a more detailed index for those prepared to pay fees for the service.

Just using HJ it's easy enough to make a short list of possibles then a visit to the service desks of the makes, niftly bypassing the crusing sharks in sales, with a short list of questions and you'd have it all sewn up.

It irks and amazes me when people buy cars then complain about servicing or other costs months or years later, when a 5 minute chat with the service manager before signing on the dotted line would have revealed all.

Good points Engineer Andy, an oil change is not a service, it never has been and it never will be.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 19:50
Is it just me ? Car reviews - hillman

GB "It irks and amazes me when people buy cars then complain about servicing or other costs months or years later, when a 5 minute chat with the service manager before signing on the dotted line would have revealed all."

Only occasionally is the new owner experienced enough to ask that kind of question.

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Sun 7 Aug 2016 20:10
Is it just me ? Car reviews - gordonbennet

Only occasionally is the new owner experienced enough to ask that kind of question.

They should be experienced enough next time when their pants have been pulled down, turned upside down and their pockets emptied..:-)

Oh the cambelt sir, yes that's been brought forward form the 500 million miles and 25 years we told you, not in writing you understand, it would need changing at, its now 4 years and 40k miles, that'll be £895 sir, thankyou, would sir like a complimentary coffee from our machine of poison?

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Mon 8 Aug 2016 18:22
Is it just me ? Car reviews - concrete

Sums it up very well Avant. Who needs a comfortable car for ferrying the family around the country in staid comfort? We all do!!!!!!!!!!!!

I worked in North Africa for many years. We had two main workhorses. Land Rover Defenders and Peugeot pick ups, based on the 403/4. Both were tough and received some harsh treatment but performed well. Those Pugs were a nightmare on rough roads though, unless fully loded. No chance of achieving 'floating' speed. Those eliptical springs could certainly bounce you around. We were actually 2 hours drive across country to reach a road so those vehicles earned their corn alright.

Cheers Concrete

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Mon 8 Aug 2016 22:38
Is it just me ? Car reviews - argybargy

I take absolutely no notice of car reviews.

Overblown, overused rhetoric, polluted by a heavy dose of subjectivity and coated in smarm.

No, I swear by those TV adverts where some smug-looking young thing sits alongside her equally smug-looking passenger, hurling the car around the back streets of some Tuscan village, turning hairpins without losing a single rev and screwing clouds of dust into the faces of smiling locals as they step off the kerb and try to sell her local produce.

THAT'S the kind of car I want, but it'll only be affordable when I'm too b***** old to appreciate anything except the shopping capacity of the boot.

Edited by argybargy on 08/08/2016 at 22:39

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Tue 9 Aug 2016 08:29
Is it just me ? Car reviews - Steveieb
I saw a simple car review on the back of a Renault the other day. It said Built in France fell apart in Britain!
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Tue 9 Aug 2016 12:25
Is it just me ? Car reviews - barney100

These days..and I am as guilty as anyone... we research and research and tie ourselves in knots. One car change I read this and that, took in all the blurb and was totally confused. SWMBO said there's a car she thought we should get because she liked the number plate...it turned out a good car.

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Wed 10 Aug 2016 11:25
Is it just me ? Car reviews - FoxyJukebox

I suppose some of the initial spec stuff is useful--but more information re actually living with the car would be more useful, (users proper day to day experiences) and the key question of all-will it last?

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