RANT: car comparos

[madfast]

after reading tons of comparos i've always thought to myself that these things just arent fair. i always think to myself if i was the editor of the magazine, i'd do things this way, or that way, etc.

well here's my list of things i'd do differently.

1.) Tires.

this is the SINGLE most contentious aspect of comparos that is ALWAYS overlooked. car comparo dogma is this: if it comes from the factory, that's what we test. Fine. i get it. and yes we should test the car with OEM tires... but then there are times, there are certain comparos, where i simply look at the cars that "lost" and say to myself, if only they put better rubber on it from the factory, i bet that car woulda, coulda, shoulda, won.... so why not test it? and this isn't some radical idea as well. back when i used to subscribe to motorcyclist magazine, whenever they had a comparo, they would fit EVERY bike with the latest and greatest rubber. sure it's no longer "stock" but why cant you test it both ways? day 1: OEM, overnight: swap rubber on all cars, day 2: the real comparo...

2.) multiple winners/multiple picks

different people want different things. its a simple idea huh? but when they rank cars in a comparo based off of a bunch of journalists' OPINIONS, it just leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. in other product comparisons, it's not uncommon to see "best value" picks and "best overall" picks, etc. im not against ranking cars in comparos, but sometimes car #5 is the car i want and it's shortcomings mean little to me and my lifestyle. so car #5 may be #5 overall, but if it's the sportiest car there, maybe they should recognize that with the "enthusiast's pick" or whatever.

3.) judging criteria

there simply is no standard by which they judge cars. a lot of the times its assumed, but i say they should outline each and every time what exactly will they look at, how much it's weighed, and what aspects will they intentionally overlook. its the classic case of sports car comparos where they talk about the interior, etc. case in point: every corvette comparo in the last decade

4.) NO price based only criteria

i agree price is one of, if not the best, way to establish who gets included in a comparo. BUT there are other ways to look at it besides price. sometimes cars are priced similarly but they just are so different than everything else, you wonder why its even included. other times, options are excluded because it would put it over the price limit, but lets be honest, most of us wouldnt care if its $500 over the limit but has a huge impact on the car. other times, cars are loaded with every option and then it gets points taken off for being so expensive. or likewise they use the most expensive trim and then talk about how its too expensive, making NO mention that you can have 99% of the car in a cheaper trim. then there are times where cars in that class are obviously missing in the comparo and no mention of why. if its unavailable, then its unavailable. say so. dont act like it doesnt exist. this is especially painful when the car that's missing is a benchmark kinda car or a new/heavily revised car.

5.) price DOES mean something

sometimes price DOES affect the car's performance, by a LOT. especially when you test cars with vastly different prices, everything should be RELATIVE. this point is NOT emphasized enough imo. oftentimes the cheapest cars without the most exotic hardware loses simply due to economics. they should make it a point to drill it into the reader's head that for they money, this car performs great. instead they give it very little attention and talk for hours about the 300k ferrari or whatever...

6.) tuning potential

ok i dont really expect mainstream publications to talk about this, but still it'd be cool to see. funny thing is almost all mainstream mags "review" tuner cars like saleen mustangs.

7.) MORE technical articles

there's too much fluff, not enough science. i almost never read the stupid articles where they drive X car across the US on some stupid trip. i have travel channel for that shit, fucking talk about cars in a car magazine goddammit! on the flipside, there are sooo few technical articles about how these cars actually work. there are a lot of "tech" sidebars, but you cannot condense the raw awesomeness of some of these cars into a one paragraph sidebar. no way.

rant over, for now... add your own ideas for the ultimate enthusiast comapro!

[Farred]

Honda tuning normally has a section on technical. The copy i have now goes over pistons.

[n2oinferno]

As you said, car comparisons are ultimately opinions. The best way to go into anything where an opinion is presented is expect something different than you think. Otherwise you set yourself up for disappointment when your chosen vehicle doesn't take the win.

I guess we should test all cars on DOT race slicks now, since they're a factory option on some vehicles.

It really sounds like you want a niche magazine for enthusiasts, and unfortunately Sport Compact Car is gone.

[Neutral_Eyes]

I miss SCC. But I didn't really like when it started going downhill with all the ads and multiple USCC articles. GRM is pretty decent, but I just can't be arsed to read a magazine anymore. I still get Motor Trend because they forgot to cancel my subscription or something (I haven't paid in 3 years or something ridiculous).

[madfast]

LOL i loved SCC!

i'd just like to see the mainstream magazines be more like the enthusiast magazines. im not saying get rid of the minivan reviews. but would it kill them to actually devote an article to something like the GT-R's ATTESA awd system when the GT-R came out? heck even a whole article on the Volt's powertrain would be cool. i seem to remember a lot of sidebars about it, but never a whole article with big pictures and diagrams, etc.

as for the comparos, i just feel they dont have enough perspective. the enthusiast voice is not loud enough. sure on minivan comparos i couldnt give half a shit, i dont read them. but on the sporty car comparos? they just dont do a good enough job representing the people that actually buy those cars. guys like you and me. some sportyish cars come with all season tires only. people like us are gonna swap out the tires once we buy the car. it then becomes a whole new car and nobody besides us gets to see how big a difference it makes because no mainstream media reports it. its a shame really...

[n2oinferno]

Originally Posted by madfast

some sportyish cars come with all season tires only. people like us are gonna swap out the tires once we buy the car. it then becomes a whole new car and nobody besides us gets to see how big a difference it makes because no mainstream media reports it. its a shame really...

That's the problem though. Do you broadcast to a large market and make the majority happy, or do you broadcast to a small market and make the enthusiasts (like us) happy? Magazine revenue is already way down because of the digital age. This just keeps them in business for the most part, really.

I don't buy magazines anymore because everything is online. Of course, I get a free sub to Motor Trend every year I go to the auto show here, so I scan through that, but that's all.

[madfast]

Originally Posted by n2oinferno

That's the problem though. Do you broadcast to a large market and make the majority happy, or do you broadcast to a small market and make the enthusiasts (like us) happy? Magazine revenue is already way down because of the digital age. This just keeps them in business for the most part, really.

I don't buy magazines anymore because everything is online. Of course, I get a free sub to Motor Trend every year I go to the auto show here, so I scan through that, but that's all.

why cant they do both? they already track test the cars waaaay more than the recent past. track testing isnt mainstream at all. so the jump to a performance test with performance rubber all around isnt that big a jump.

[Dave-ROR]

I agree with most of your points however I also see the need for the magazine to review the car as delivered, not with a spec tire for a specific category of car.. (which may be impossible due to varying sizes, etc anyways). You wouldn't be able to select a tire just for one comparison because it has to be a standard for every test of X category as you've pointed out (more or less).

Plus a lot of people drive cars as delivered so you can't easily expect non-enthusiast magazines to do much more than that.

Of course, I would never consider purchasing (or conversely, not purchasing) a car based on a magazine's review. Their opinions and wants/needs don't match mine (with the possible exception of Excellence magazine).

I do find magazines to be a good resource for general comparisons of features and some technical data on the cars. I throw out all of the subjective material as it doesn't reflect my own opinions. I've often liked cars that didn't win over cars that won, simply because I didn't care about a higher NVH score, etc.

I find GRM and Excellence lately to be the most interesting reads (it probably helps that I often agree with their opinions). Some of the classic car magazines can be decent as well. I find the writing and (generally speaking) the content of the import mags to be woefully lacking. SCC (old SCC, not the later shit SCC before it died) was pretty good. Modified magazine is pure crap every time I've looked at it. I buy Honda Tuning only for the ITR Expo articles (so once a year).

A real enthusiast based magazine like GRM that is mixed with enthusiast reviews of new cars as well would be a great magazine (Excellence usually has a mix or old and new car P-car info/reviews, but I mean something a lot less specific than that).

[Dimman]

Grassroots Motorsports magazine. Read it.

They do performance tire comparos, handling progression testing, dyno test and tune etc... Plus tech stuff that varies from suspension theory to fabrication tips. Their focus is more to auto-x than most but it is a FANTASTIC magazine.

(And they tend to do much better testing (better methods) than the old SCC used to.)

For import stuff, there is Project Car, which has a lot of step-by-step projects like auto to manual swaps, engine swaps, junk-yard turbo installs, etc... They might not be around anymore though, seemed to have a bit of a shaky start, and weren't out every month. It's kind of introductory DIY stuff.

As for the mainstream mags, I hardly read them anymore. It used to be that Motor Trend seemed to be the most 'optimistic' in their performance results, and for Car and Driver and Road and Track no comparo with a BMW was unbiased.

[Streetice]

Madfast you and I are on the same page
n2oinferno said about tires that its majority rule but the thing is factory tires dont last forever and we know that better than anyone (burn out!)
So your going to need new tires and it just so happens that tires help and or kill you gas milage as well your lap times so it means tires are a key compnet.

Price is a major part of a car, spending a tone on a car means nothing if you cant do nothing with it bacause its no longer a car its cash on four wheels.
A 911 turbo with 4WD can easily keeb up and even out do a ferrari in nearly every feld not just proformance but in ever day use.

Too much fluff and not enough science
AGREED!
Ive seen some companys build car that are just godly and even as prototypes there road worthly as well price tag and yet they dont make them and there reason is allways the same "we want to prove we can do this" well then do it and well buy it!

Going all out and come up half ass is not a good idea for anything and thinking about just aiming for 3rd place in overall drives me nuts.

Heres what i mean there are three thing a car must meat for it to sell: Price, style and power/science

Price: if its half a mill only ten peoples are going to buy and the rest will just drull and buy something else.

Stye: no one wants to buy a prius or a smart car but its so freeking cheep they have no choice.

Power/science: A good car needs the power to move with a 0-60 7 sec or less and the brains to keep you on the road happy you bought it.

Id keep going but I have to get going, got to pic my brother up from work because hes to broke to buy a car but not desperate for a p.o.s. haha!

[madfast]

im not talking about enthusiast magazines like GRM. GRM is great, but its far from mainstream. my hope is that the mainstream mags become more and more enthusiast oriented, at least in the articles that enthusiasts might read...

i guess my main point is... perspective. there are a lot of great points on any issue, such as you'd see on boards like this. all great discussion. valid points aplenty. but when you read a mag article, it offers one point and that's it. that's not good enough for me. when they do comparos there are a bunch of journalists present. there MUST be more than one opinion right? but when it comes down to it, only one opinion shows up in print. WTF?

one reason i rather love Top gear UK. their banter is actually an intelligent discussion in disguise... i also like the 0-60 portion of The Car Show. some quick, pretty spot on discussion from real enthusiasts.

oh and as for websites: edmunds insideline is exactly what im talking about. a perfect mix of a mundane and an enthusiast magazine. if the mainstream magazines turn into a print version of insideline? i'd actually give a crap about what they have to say...

[blur]

BMI did good in the sport car comparos when they put them head to head on tsukuba with GT drivers. One stark difference to regular comparos I noticed is in their review of the GTR, it was proven to be fast initially but after some laps the tires quickly give way. Tsuchiya actually disliked it for the weight, understeer and the electronic aids, which all contributed to a lack of control. No other reviewer has mentioned not-liking the GTR. The lack of proper testing with skilled drivers contributes to this difference in review. Tsuchiya (who was a nissan factory driver for the R32) said it like it is, while everyone else was proclaiming the 0-60 times and the track performance for the price. You could say these reviews are unprofessional for the seasoned enthusiast. What I look for in a car is durability as well as speed, balance and comfort (on the track). Although is it clear enthusiasts are dying out =( it's important to test cars in this manner. A car proclaimed to be fast should be driven like it is.