"As mentioned elsewhere, the tests are based on handling, handling and handling. "
Very true. You have to remember that the testers are nearly all young men who think the job is all about testing cars to the extreme. It is, but only partly. They also need to give a car credit for being good at everyday driving.
Invariably they prefer BMWs to Audis - they have a particular down on Audis at the moment, and always for the same predictable reason - lack of 'drivability', whatever that is suppsoed to mean (I think it means it's not like a BMW). For all their many virtues, BMWs don't suit every style of driving, or every driver. I love my old Z3, but a 320d didn't suit me for everyday driving.
Autocar, from the same publisher, is as good as it's ever been (and I've been reading it since I was 13, in 1961 !): Steve Cropley is of course of an older generation, but his enthusiasm for cars is undimmed, and the younger writers on there seem to be much more knowledgeable and broad-minded than their colleagues on What Car. This week Steve Sutcliffe, a lover of supercars, writes about how much he's enjoyed a month with the long-term Skoda Superb. He and others on Autocar are prepared to judge a car on how well it does the job it was designed to do.
|
I agree most car mags I buy seem to put emphasis on handling and the more 'extreme' forms of driving but lets face it, when you and I drive to work bleary eyed and sitting going nowhere fast in a queue of traffic, who cares that the car hasn't got razor sharp handling and tends to 'squirm with lift-off oversteer' or whatever that rubbish means.
I'd be more interested to know many decibels it produces at 60mph or how comfy the seats are or whether I might bang my arm on the centre console when I change gear or have no room for a map in the glovebox, but I guess that form of boring practical motoring journalism wouldn't sell mags thinking about it.
|
Hear! Hear! MS. Two Excellent posts!
When you live with a car day-in, day-out, those things are up there with fuel consumption and boot size.
I am getting old, it is true, but I am only interested in performance in terms of whether a car is sluggish in key situations, e.g. joining a motorway from a slip-road, or needing to drop a gear when climbing a moderate hill.
Just about the only time that performance and handling are not vitally important to "What Car" is when they are doing the annual judging of cars for towing caravans. I don't have a van, but maybe some of the folks in the BR who do have one can comment on how useful this feature is.
|
|
I am not really a fan of BMW's as they always seem overpriced to me. But I am intrigued by this obsession that car mag writers seem to have with them - this 'they are a driver's car' stuff, I mean. I often wonder if I would really be able to tell the difference between a 3 series and other quality saloons if I didn't know what I was driving. All the car mags seem obsessed with BMW handling and as others have said it is to the detriment of a balanced review.
Edited by tintin01 on 06/10/2009 at 18:10
|
I often wonder if I would really be able to tell the difference between a 3 series and other quality saloons if I didn't know what I was driving.
I can, and I'm not an expert. They steer a particular way. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I think it's the way BMW stick the front wheels right out towards the corners of the car (virtually zero front overhang) which somehow gives an impression of being sat "in" the car a lot more. I don't know, I'm struggling to express it, but they do drive a certain way. Steering is always well weighted and gives good feedback, and the whole car feels well balanced, with both ends of the car seeming to work together through a fast corner. I like them very much (and no, I have never owned one!).
The 6 speed manual gearboxes on the newer models are dreadful though. I can't believe that BMW make such a polished drivers car, that feels "just so" in almost every way, and then attach a gearbox with a change quality reminiscent of a 1970's Austin Maxi. I have driven two E90's now and both of them had the most baulky, obstructive, notchy gearchanges I can remember in years.
|
Just looking at a conveniently parked 318d out in the car park, next to a 51 reg Golf TDI.
If you look, the drivers seat squab is almost bang in the middle of the car, and the "wheel at each corner" stance means the driver sits almost central in the wheelbase. The contrast to the Golf was marked, with the VW sitting the driver much more towards the front of the car, and the front half of the wheelbase.
This, I suspect, is what gives that feeling I was trying so appallingly to articulate above. There's a sense in a BMW that you sit well behind the front wheels, and you "point" the car accordingly. It's also not hard to see how they achieve their claimed 50/50 weight distribution. Look at the position of the wheel arches in the front wing compared to most cars. Stuck well forward, with a decent portion of sill between the rear of the arch and the front edge of the doors. Combine this with engines stuffed well back in the engine bay, on or behind the axle line, and it's quite clear.
I'm not a fan of the BMW image, but I do appreciate this kind of thing, particularly in an age where dynamics seem to play second fiddle to all manner of other more practical and sensible things.
Edited by DP on 07/10/2009 at 18:25
|
One of the things that is most noticable about driving my BM is the directness of the steering.
I've seen it written that the car seems to "pivot around the driver", and this is not a bad description.
Other posters have rightly praised the steering and weight distribution. It's more than that, though. The suspension does a very good job of containing body roll when cornering, and this increases the sense of precision and control that the driver gets.
You flow smoothly through corners seemingly glued to the road - the overused cliche of "cornering on rails" seems too crude a description.
Then of course, it snows - and you park in a ditch. :-)
|
|
|
|
But as others have said, how many of us are even going to get close to the limits of handling?... And because you are sitting further back you will have less room, in proportion to the length of the car, for you and your luggage in the BM to the VW... Issigonis got a lot right, and one of them was that for the everyman car the priority was for maximum space for the occupants, not the mechanicals...
|
>>... And because you are sitting further back you will haveless room in proportion to the length of the car for you and your luggage in the BM to the VW... Issigonis got a lot right and one of them was that for the everyman car the priority was for maximum space for the occupants not the mechanicals...
Excellent point, b308!
It all depends what you want out of a car, though. At the time I bought my car, I was seduced by the performance and handling. Now that the novelty has worn off, I have come round to your way of thinking. (And for some reason the various products of VAG are becoming increasingly attractive)
|
Well said b308!
The top two priorities for me when I was looking for a new car were space/practicality and reliability. These were key factors because I only have the one car and it has to fit SWMBO and the 4 kids :)
I got very tired of reading car reviews where the only things that seemed to matter to the reviewers were performance & handling. It could be a painful chore trying to discover if the car had 7 seats and plenty of room for the passengers...
|
|
|
|
|
>> I can and I'm not an expert. They steer a particular way.
I couldn't agree more, after an A4 B7 I can really tell the difference, despite doing a relatively high mileage I always enjoy driving my 330d - even slowly. I even find myself with strange feelings of 'fondness' for what is a company car.... In fairness SWMBO's 2004 MK1 Focus we had a few years back elicited similar feelings in me.
The 6 speed manual gearboxes on the newer models are dreadful though - a gearbox with a change quality reminiscent of a 1970's Austin Maxi.
This I can't agree with, I ordered a manual 330d (latest engine) and the dealers told me that everyone gets an auto, I'd admit that for the first 1000 miles or so it was notchy and I questioned my decision, but now (at 10,000 miles) it's smooth, light and very accurate. I've also driven a Maxi many years ago so can compare albeit with a rather distant memory.
Edited by idle_chatterer on 07/10/2009 at 22:46
|
|
I think that the type of car dicates its "layout"... I'd expect a two seater sports car, for instance, to have more room for mechanicals than passenger space (the E Type!!), but a family car like a Golf I'd expect the Issy layout... so the BMW 1 series rather puzzles me, as I don't know what its supposed to be doing.... and its an ugly soab...
|
Whilst I agree that BMW may have 'cornered' the market (sorry!) in sweet handling machines, it doesn't mean that everyother car out there handles like an empty bin bag on a windy day!
If everything else was rubbish we'd all be sitting in fields and hedgerows in a steaming heap.
The point is for the average everyday drive to work, 50-50 weight distribution ain't really gonna make a big difference in the grand scheme of things and this is what many car mags seem to forget.
|
that's the way thew world has gone.
So they keep saying HJ.
But how on earth does one make a living out of the internet, except by inventing a business? Obviously you can become as rich as Croesus in a virtual way, but virtual isn't really what I'm used to.
|
..But how on earth does one make a living out of the internet...
Lud,
In publishing terms, the income comes from advertising on the website.
Web users have proved very resistant to paying for content - apart from porn - so the best analogy is that of a free newspaper.
The cost of gathering the information - the journalism - is the same.
I suspect the cost of publishing material on the internet is much lower than publishing it in paper form.
Paid-for newspapers have always received significanltly more revenue from advertising than from the cover price.
I've a few shares in a newspaper group and the directors say their websites are turning a small profit.
If What Car? could ever afford to shut the magazine and rely entirely on web income is another matter.
|
Thanks ifithelps. Of course I realised it must be something like that, and we have the advertising material on this site to prove it (although I am not assailed by animated ads flashing all over the screen as some seem to be). And I was aware of course of the role of advertising in print journalism.
Are there though journalists who are paid for work that appears essentially online and not in print? For example, does HJ pay Martin Gurdon to test cars for this website?
(I don't expect an answer to that by the way. Just an example).
|
...Are there though journalists who are paid for work that appears essentially online and not in print?...
Yes, I' ve wondered the same thing.
When Michael Jackson died, I heard a radio interview with a guy described as 'the editor of online showbiz gossip magazine....'
The impression given that he was being paid to do that.
I think some of the paper magazines may now have a very small staff, most of the content coming from contributors to an editor who may not even be full-time.
In the case of Gurdon's tests, I'm sure I've seen his work in print elsewhere.
I imagine it would be very hard for a journalist to make a living exclusively online.
|
|
|
|
