Sprint magazine - Where are the 'How-To's'?

[chris watton]

After purchasing my second Tamora, one of the first things I did was to re-join the TVR Car Club, mostly because of future meets and partly because of the magazine.

I know that, back in the day, there were various rumblings on these forums about the content of the mag - mainly meet/road trip write ups that was interesting to those who participated but of little value to anyone else.

The magazine is still the same!

I was hoping there'd be more 'how-to's', now that the range is getting older and more people now carry out major works on their P&J themselves. My wife was in the MG car club, and their mag is chocked full of tit-bits and how to's, everything from engine/electrical to trim and bodywork. Hell, even the new BMW Mini mag has loads of fantastic 'how to' stuff - but Sprint still seem to shy away from it, favouring pretty pictures of TVR's.

I still like to read it, but if only for half and hour max before I've read all I need to.

Please - can we have more articles about fiddling with the cars -- replacing/upgrading parts etc.?

This is only my personal opinion, of course.

[scotty_d]

I suppose it is what the members put in to it.

[V8 GRF]

chris watton said:

Hell, even the new BMW Mini mag has loads of fantastic 'how to' stuff - but Sprint still seem to shy away from it, favouring pretty pictures of TVR's.

I still like to read it, but if only for half and hour max before I've read all I need to.

Please - can we have more articles about fiddling with the cars -- replacing/upgrading parts etc.?

Nothing to do with 'shying away' from it, in fact we'd love to run more articles about fiddling with the cars but 'pretty pictures' of TVRs are the majority of what we're sent. There have been several articles about restorations and projects and even the odd 'how to' in 2013 but equally we got complaints about the magazine being dull when we ran an very complete and detailed article about doing an ECU swap.

We'll never please all of the people all of the time and as Scotty_d says we depend on submissions from members.

Over to you...... (anybody)

[alex_gray255]

I usually try to do an article on my car and its changes once a year with some details.

However, like most things, articles do not write themselves. It needs people to do them.

And that needs the people who are doing the work to their cars to contribute

[chris watton]

Fair enough - it seems that TVR owners (me included, I guess..) are happier to pay the extra and have the professionals look after our cars, while other marques are more ready to get their hands dirty and tell others about their experiences.

I liked the article about the LS3 Cerb conversion, but they got the prices wrong (I know because I enquired as a result of that article, the actual cost is well over double that of what was printed!)

I do intend to contribute at some point, after I have done what I want to my car, and the experiences etc. I just wish there were more articles on oily stuff and trim upgrades, changing the carpets, replacing the ICE etc. - but if no-ones coming forward with the material for the articles, which would be beneficial to a great many more members rather than a few clique groups then I suppose we're all to blame..

[swisstoni]

Maybe the Mag should tap up a few famous names in the TVR service world and get them to give a few top tips or simple how-to's.
Obviously nothing to affect their business (we need them to thrive) but just some simple stuff an owner can do.

[V8 GRF]

swisstoni said:

Maybe the Mag should tap up a few famous names in the TVR service world and get them to give a few top tips or simple how-to's.
Obviously nothing to affect their business (we need them to thrive) but just some simple stuff an owner can do.

Tried that, blood and stone comes to mind.......

[peteA]

Good idea re tips - rather than actual servicing and jobs, maybe they could provide tips on faults - how to spot them, recognising them and what they could mean? Especially the ones where we should pull over!

I know there is the archives part of the website but I would like to read old road tests and comparisons - reprints from old car mags? Presumably they wouldn't object if they were old enough?

[RichB]

10-15 years ago I was told the club stopped printing technical advice because of liability issues, don't know if that's still true?

[Ant.]

As V8 says, getting input to the magazine is hard work.

There are really only two sources, the indies and the enthusiasts. The indies are obviously busy with there business( although I am part way through receiving some great input from one) and therefore articles for the magazine are not always at the front of their minds.

The enthusiasts ( US LOT !! ) are just as well placed to write articles, and articles are very welcome.

Please , feel free to have input to the magazine, it is your/our club !!!

[chris watton]

RichB said:

10-15 years ago I was told the club stopped printing technical advice because of liability issues, don't know if that's still true?

This argument was used about 10 years ago, when this issue was raised on these forums. Many (including me) argued that, if MG Magazines can dish out technical advice, and quite a lot of it, why can't TVR? Are there different rules for different marques? Surely if the usual disclaimers are added to the articles, there should be no comeback.

[Mark.]

RichB said:

10-15 years ago I was told the club stopped printing technical advice because of liability issues, don't know if that's still true?

I've not been a member for quite a few years (did have 1 article published) but when we spoke about 'how to' liability was exactly their worry. Even starting the article "This is how I did did and don't guarantee this works..etc." still didn't seem to satisfy the worries.

[Cerberus90]

chris watton said:

I was hoping there'd be more 'how-to's', now that the range is getting older and more people now carry out major works on their P&J themselves. My wife was in the MG car club, and their mag is chocked full of tit-bits and how to's, everything from engine/electrical to trim and bodywork. Hell, even the new BMW Mini mag has loads of fantastic 'how to' stuff - but Sprint still seem to shy away from it, favouring pretty pictures of TVR's.

Could it also possibly be that there's a damn site more MGs and BMW Minis than there are TVRs, so more owners who are fiddling?

[V8 GRF]

RichB said:

10-15 years ago I was told the club stopped printing technical advice because of liability issues, don't know if that's still true?

No it's not.

chris watton said:

This argument was used about 10 years ago, when this issue was raised on these forums. Many (including me) argued that, if MG Magazines can dish out technical advice, and quite a lot of it, why can't TVR? Are there different rules for different marques? Surely if the usual disclaimers are added to the articles, there should be no comeback.

We're not using potential liability as any excuse not to print technical tips or anything like that, that may have been teh case 10 years ago but not now. As I said we ran a piece last year on swapping out an ECU which is a pretty major project.

If anyone has any tech tips they want to share then please send them to me, decent photographs always help as we all know a picture is good as 1,000 words

(Not one's taken with mobile phones please as they tend to be too low resolution for print)

[V41LEY]

chris watton said:

Fair enough - it seems that TVR owners (me included, I guess..) are happier to pay the extra and have the professionals look after our cars, while other marques are more ready to get their hands dirty and tell others about their experiences.

Excellent point well made - so consequently restorations however minor or major they may be don't get covered in the magazine. I have to admit that my car always goes to
the 'specialist' to be fixed / serviced as I simply (sadly) do not have the expertise or time to do anything different.

[greymrj]

Got to come in on that in fairness to Sprint. When two of us S types did a lot of research into replacement servo's we were asked if our detailed work could be adapted into an article for Sprint, and it subsequently appeared. OK there was a caveat about not being the responsibility of the club as such, but I didn't detect a fear or publishing advice from members. As I understand the legal position, if the magazine is sharing the experiences of member A with members B-Z, it is acting as a members forum magazine, not issuing formal authoritative statements on behalf of the club.

The bigger issue is of course US! We typically lazy club members! I have been involved in voluntary work much of my life, and getting members to put themselves out for their club is a nightmare for almost all organisations. Nothing new. Just think, if every keen TVR member wrote one small piece just once a year, Sprint would have to be a lot bigger!

So, there is a challenge! I have made a firm entry in my diary to write one item, with a photo, over the next month. What about you? Yes, you, the person reading this post now I look forward to in Sprint!

[AutoAndy]

That's the Spirit Richard...we can always rely on the S team to lead the way...

Remember its YOUR club mag so YOU will have to write the articles...something to do on those long winter nights whilst you are waiting for the summer Tiv'ing fun to start

[tvrgit]

V8 GRF said:

RichB said:

10-15 years ago I was told the club stopped printing technical advice because of liability issues, don't know if that's still true?

No it's not.

It definitely is not - I have written a few "how to" articles on the S-Series, and they have all been published. A few others submitted articles as well - they were also all published.

So don't be put off, there's no excuse - if you want to write an article to help others, then get on and write it.

Edited by tvrgit on Wednesday 15th January 21:40

[MrChips]

For the benefit of asking the question on an open forum... What's the best way of going about submitting an article?
Email the editor/s with a few ideas and check what kind of stuff they would want in it? Or just write it and submit?

Having shared both a Chim and the Tuscan with my future father in law for 5yrs now, I was thinking about writing an article about car sharing and the various benefits/pitfalls, as well as telling the journey of going from a 450 Chim to now a 4.3 Tuscan and our various dealings with garages and cover shoots for magazines etc on the way.



Um... There.. Writen mine! What do I win?

[ctsdave]

On a slightly diffrrent note, when should I receive my January edition of sprint? Or has it been lost in the post??? :-(