Manufacturer Specific Magazines

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

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Total Vauxhall, Fast Ford, BMW Car, Performance BMW, etc.

Does anyone actually read these? Who buys them?

As you are all aware, I am a massively tedious and pathetic geek so I always end up spotting mistakes in all the 'guides' they write, but really, if they cant get things right whats the point in reading them? All they seem to be is a collection of news you could have found out last month on the internet, 'features' on modified cars and 'buyers guides' full of misleading, incorrect and often downright wrong information.

I almost bought BMW Car today as it looked shiney, glossy and informed but flicking through the 'E92 335i Buyers Guide' was an entire section about how you should get an E92 335i SE because the SE suspension is 'much better' than the M Sport suspension, which ruins the car'.

Clearly nobody had bothered to drive the cars they writing a 'buyers guide' for and they'd simply printed a load of random guff - all E92 335i's have identical suspension!

Are they all like this? Does anyone here buy them? Why? Is it too much to expect something you pay for to be accurate?

Why don't they all go bust?
 
[TW]Fox;16839609 said:
Total Vauxhall, Fast Ford, BMW Car, Performance BMW, etc.

Does anyone actually read these? Who buys them?

As you are all aware, I am a massively tedious and pathetic geek so I always end up spotting mistakes in all the 'guides' they write, but really, if they cant get things right whats the point in reading them? All they seem to be is a collection of news you could have found out last month on the internet, 'features' on modified cars and 'buyers guides' full of misleading, incorrect and often downright wrong information.

I almost bought BMW Car today as it looked shiney, glossy and informed but flicking through the 'E92 335i Buyers Guide' was an entire section about how you should get an E92 335i SE because the SE suspension is 'much better' than the M Sport suspension, which ruins the car'.

Clearly nobody had bothered to drive the cars they writing a 'buyers guide' for and they'd simply printed a load of random guff - all E92 335i's have identical suspension!

Are they all like this? Does anyone here buy them? Why? Is it too much to expect something you pay for to be accurate?

Why don't they all go bust?
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I used to buy the BMW car magazine when I was a car noob and knew nothing about BMW's , now I read them and laugh. I only buy evo these days.
 
loads of people on the VXR forums get total vauxhall

i suspect therefore they are bought by the sort of die hard marque enthusiast, that vehemently defends the position that one make forums should contain nothing but "yeah mate nice" posts and doesnt allow criticism or discussion and will actively report you to the moderator for attempting anything but.

I've seen some on the VXR forums, bought vauxhall after vauxhall after vauxhall. Some of them have bought like 17 + of the things.

If they owned 17 different types of graphics card by nvidia, we'd call them fanboys ...
 
Many years ago when i was still buying BMW's i used to get the occasional copy of one of those BMW magazines for the adverts.
 
It also went on about how 'extras like Sports suspension' (It isnt an extra, its standard) and 'M Sport styling' (It isnt an extra, it's standard on the M Sport and not available on the SE, though what you can get on the SE is an Aeropack which is different) 'increases the value of the car'. These are just the mistakes I spotted, if I found so many in one article these magazines must just be littered with them!
 
[TW]Fox;16839654 said:
It also went on about how 'extras like Sports suspension' (It isnt an extra, its standard) and 'M Sport styling' (It isnt an extra, it's standard on the M Sport and not available on the SE, though what you can get on the SE is an Aeropack which is different) 'increases the value of the car'. These are just the mistakes I spotted, if I found so many in one article these magazines must just be littered with them!
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The worst part of it is that people will actually go and buy a car following the advice of these articles.. :o
 
its because the people writing them took up journalism at college / uni - tried to get into one of the big national papers / magazines etc.. and ended up there.

It was never there lifelong dream to write for a BMW magazine because they are such amazing BMW fans - as such their knowledge is sketchy as best.

Total Vauxhall has similar production values - people spot stupid obvious mistakes every issue.
 
I buy BMWCar magazine, it beats reading endless geek posts on forums. :D

BMW also send me their glossy every few months.
 
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MrLOL said:
that makes sense to me

ride is harsh on runflats, so people swap to normal ones ? whats so lolwut about that ? :confused:
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The Z4M has no runflats - infact, no M power car does and BMW made a point of explaining that runflat is not compatible with the M brand (Possibly not with the X5M and X6M, mind).

Evo said:
There can be a problem with the electric steering system, leading to inconsistent response or a sticky feeling. There is a fix for this using the later steering ECU, but unfortunately it is an integral part of the steering rack and so the whole unit has to be replaced.
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Who writes this stuff?! They even went to the trouble of finding out what the fix for this non existent issue was!?

They are good at actual reviews where you are paying for informed opinion written by people with a breadth of experience in performance cars (One make excepted, it seems every new BMW gets 5 stars in the BMW magazines), but when it comes down to facts it seems they can't be bothered.
 
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I get Total Vauxhall as my ex is too stupid to change his subscription address and once told me I was allowed to open the mags if I wished to, so I do.

Anyway, I know 2 of the members of staff are die hard Vauxhall fans but it's still full of inaccuracies. It's interesting to read about things people have done to their cars but anything "factual" I tend to take with a pinch of salt.
 
My experience working in the motor industry, and with people from all aspects of that industry, is that they rarely have an actual passion for cars. It's just a job. I bet the majority of people in the fax machine industry couldn't give a toss about fax machines, and unfortunately the automotive industry is mostly no different.
 
PMKeates said:
My experience working in the motor industry, and with people from all aspects of that industry, is that they rarely have an actual passion for cars. It's just a job. I bet most people in the fax machine industry couldn't give a toss about fax machines, and unfortunately the automotive industry is mostly no different.
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You don't need to have a passion for cars to ensure that facts you sell to the public are accurate.
 
The biggest problem with Performance BMW, BMW Car etc, Fox, is that you didn't write them :p

I've bought the odd issue of Total Evolution, but I take it at face value, it's bog reading only.
 
I buy fast ford now and then, mainly to look at some of the epic track car builds (500bhp cossies, 4wd zetec turbo focus, maxi puma rally car etc). Some of the technical articles are good, very well written, and cover general topics such as transmissions or fuel injection technology so despite being a ford mag its a good reference - these articles are done by experts in their particular field though. Some articles are poor indeed, the comparisons of tuning companies packages e.g. the recent focus rs tuning shootout, in particular are thinly disguised adverts, with no critical comparison or comment when the claimed performance isn't reached on the rolling road. Overall i enjoy reading it but accept the bias and take many articles written with the 'help' of tuners who also have regular full page adverts with a big pinch of salt. I have never read anything in it that's as flawed as the bmw mag mentioned though!
 
I get the GTROC mag which is written by enthusiasts and pretty impressive for a club magazine. It's quarterly as well, so plenty of content, christ knows where the monthly marque mags get enough content to make a half decent read.
 
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