Why are car reviews the opposite of reality?

[Smint]

If they told the truth about reliability, and likely aftersales unsupport, they might find they were no longer welcome at testing days.

[2xChevrons]

Scott-R said:

The buzzword bingo I like to look out for are powertrain developments which are claimed to eliminate turbo lag when compared to a previous generation. First it was twin turbos that would eliminate lag, then variable vane turbos, then BMW did some little and large turbos, now we are at electrically driven turbos, every development of which claimed to eliminate lag compared to before…

That and reviews which claim that an EV would have much more range if it weighed less. I don’t expect car reviews to be detailed technical analysis, but getting the basics right of how a powertrain works in the real world would be nice

Not so prevalent in these days of hybrids and EVs, but there was a similar round-and-round going on with "can't really tell it's a diesel" engines. Right back to the 1960s you can read testers declaring that old Merc and Peugeot IDI naturally-aspirated units are 'practically indistinguishable' from petrol units. Then every single development in automotive diesels - turbos, intercoolers, direct injection, OHCs, alloy cylinder heads, multi-valve, electronic fuel control, common rail, VGTs etc. etc. are proclaimed to "finally produce a diesel engine that's indistinguishable from a petrol engine." I've read reviews of the original LR Discovery with the 200Tdi, which is a fine engine in many ways but is absolutely, resolutely 'old school diesel' in its sound, power delivery, starting and character. And yet "you couldn't really tell it isn't a petrol unit."

More specifically and recently, my Skoda Superb is an excellent car in many ways, but it's interesting how not a single print or digital review or road test I've encountered has ever mentioned the appalling damping and wheel control. The reviews all praise the Superb's ride quality and soft springing - which is true - but never mention that this good ride quality is so often undermined by the appalling wheel and body control because VAG fitted the cheapest dampers Monroe could provide. You only have to drive over any road surface that isn't billiard-table smooth (i.e any in the UK) at between 30 and 65mph to feel, hear and see that the feeble damping is having a negative impact on the refinement and composure. This is a widely-reported characteristic of the car when you go to owner's forums etc. and it is solved by fitting upgraded dampers, but the professional tests will only ever praise the ride quality in all respects.

It does make you wonder what proportions of the following mix is going on: 1) Testers not getting long enough with the cars/not driving them on a sufficient variety of real-world roads and real-world traffic conditions to pick this stuff up 2) Testers not being knowledgable/experienced enough to pick out the subtleties between primary and secondary ride quality or shock absorption and wheel control 3) Testers not feeling able to point out shortcomings for commercial reasons.

[Matt_T]

Smint said:

If they told the truth about reliability, and likely aftersales unsupport, they might find they were no longer welcome at testing days.

Good point, I imagine that for journos the Land Rover test days are the most fun.

[ChocolateFrog]

Which are probably better at that sort of stuff but reading their car reviews as someone who takes an interest in cars is toe curling.

They'll also tell you to actively avoid a car because it doesn't have lane assist and that sort of thing so you can't really win either way.

[GeniusOfLove]

2xChevrons said:

Not so prevalent in these days of hybrids and EVs, but there was a similar round-and-round going on with "can't really tell it's a diesel" engines. Right back to the 1960s you can read testers declaring that old Merc and Peugeot IDI naturally-aspirated units are 'practically indistinguishable' from petrol units. Then every single development in automotive diesels - turbos, intercoolers, direct injection, OHCs, alloy cylinder heads, multi-valve, electronic fuel control, common rail, VGTs etc. etc. are proclaimed to "finally produce a diesel engine that's indistinguishable from a petrol engine." I've read reviews of the original LR Discovery with the 200Tdi, which is a fine engine in many ways but is absolutely, resolutely 'old school diesel' in its sound, power delivery, starting and character. And yet "you couldn't really tell it isn't a petrol unit."

More specifically and recently, my Skoda Superb is an excellent car in many ways, but it's interesting how not a single print or digital review or road test I've encountered has ever mentioned the appalling damping and wheel control. The reviews all praise the Superb's ride quality and soft springing - which is true - but never mention that this good ride quality is so often undermined by the appalling wheel and body control because VAG fitted the cheapest dampers Monroe could provide. You only have to drive over any road surface that isn't billiard-table smooth (i.e any in the UK) at between 30 and 65mph to feel, hear and see that the feeble damping is having a negative impact on the refinement and composure. This is a widely-reported characteristic of the car when you go to owner's forums etc. and it is solved by fitting upgraded dampers, but the professional tests will only ever praise the ride quality in all respects.

It does make you wonder what proportions of the following mix is going on: 1) Testers not getting long enough with the cars/not driving them on a sufficient variety of real-world roads and real-world traffic conditions to pick this stuff up 2) Testers not being knowledgable/experienced enough to pick out the subtleties between primary and secondary ride quality or shock absorption and wheel control 3) Testers not feeling able to point out shortcomings for commercial reasons.

I've joked about exactly that point with diesels before, and you're absolutely right. Every generation of miserable rattler has been hailed as only identifiable as a diesel at idle, which has always been patently false.

Also agree about turbos, engines they praised as feeling exactly like a large NASP engine previously now being derided for their lag and obnoxious boost threshold in reviews of a car that they claim solves this problem, but oddly enough I find even the very latest turbo cars have lag and obnoxious boost thresholds.

[2xChevrons]

GeniusOfLove said:

I've joked about exactly that point with diesels before, and you're absolutely right. Every generation of miserable rattler has been hailed as only identifiable as a diesel at idle, which has always been patently false.

Also agree about turbos, engines they praised as feeling exactly like a large NASP engine previously now being derided for their lag and obnoxious boost threshold in reviews of a car that they claim solves this problem, but oddly enough I find even the very latest turbo cars have lag and obnoxious boost thresholds.

In both cases (to try and be fair) there is an element of realigning expectations. If you're a journo in the 1980s and you're given the keys to a Peugeot 405 D Turbo and your previous experience with diesel engines are Perkins-engined taxis and Mercedes OM616s then a turbo-intercooled XUD will seem much more 'petrol-like' than any diesel car you've driven before. And a VW Golf with a 2.0 PD TDI is as big a step towards 'petrol-like' again.

Same with turbo lag. If you drive a turbo-boosted engine that has only a fifth as much of the lag as an Escort RS Turbo, then it probably does seem like the manufacturer has 'eliminated lag', even if the lag is still measurable with a stopwatch.

But the continual, circular hyperbole just makes the journos look like they don't know what they're talking about. I speak as someone who positively likes diesel engines when I say that there has never been one that drives, sounds or feels like an equivalent petrol engine. Even my 2020 Skoda with what will probably end up being the peak of diesel technology blatantly sounds like a diesel when it's cold or when it's idling, and for all its 16 valves and balancer shafts and variable-geo turbo etc. it still has a very 'diesel-y' power delivery. Never mind its PD ancestors, the lorry-like churning of a BMW M51, the ball-bearings-in-a-washing-machine rattle of a Prima or the gurgling sounds and sulphurous pong of an XUD.

[havoc]

2xChevrons said:

More specifically and recently, my Skoda Superb is an excellent car in many ways, but it's interesting how not a single print or digital review or road test I've encountered has ever mentioned the appalling damping and wheel control.

I took delivery of a 2016 Octavia vRS230 on lease, at least in part because it came with a diff up front, and I knew from experience how useful a diff is in a fast fwd car.

I rejected it within 2 weeks, ostensibly because the claimed economy was anything but, but also because the diff (allegedly the same unit as fitted to the limited-run Cupras and Golfs) was almost unnoticeable in operation, and the car still understeered freely with none of the noticeable hooking-up that you should get from a good ATB diff.

...and yet all the reviews talked about the diff and praised it. Clearly the reviews had been written off the back of the press release, not off the back of a detailed test-drive.

[Stick Legs]

GeniusOfLove said:

2xChevrons said:

Not so prevalent in these days of hybrids and EVs, but there was a similar round-and-round going on with "can't really tell it's a diesel" engines. Right back to the 1960s you can read testers declaring that old Merc and Peugeot IDI naturally-aspirated units are 'practically indistinguishable' from petrol units. Then every single development in automotive diesels - turbos, intercoolers, direct injection, OHCs, alloy cylinder heads, multi-valve, electronic fuel control, common rail, VGTs etc. etc. are proclaimed to "finally produce a diesel engine that's indistinguishable from a petrol engine." I've read reviews of the original LR Discovery with the 200Tdi, which is a fine engine in many ways but is absolutely, resolutely 'old school diesel' in its sound, power delivery, starting and character. And yet "you couldn't really tell it isn't a petrol unit."

More specifically and recently, my Skoda Superb is an excellent car in many ways, but it's interesting how not a single print or digital review or road test I've encountered has ever mentioned the appalling damping and wheel control. The reviews all praise the Superb's ride quality and soft springing - which is true - but never mention that this good ride quality is so often undermined by the appalling wheel and body control because VAG fitted the cheapest dampers Monroe could provide. You only have to drive over any road surface that isn't billiard-table smooth (i.e any in the UK) at between 30 and 65mph to feel, hear and see that the feeble damping is having a negative impact on the refinement and composure. This is a widely-reported characteristic of the car when you go to owner's forums etc. and it is solved by fitting upgraded dampers, but the professional tests will only ever praise the ride quality in all respects.

It does make you wonder what proportions of the following mix is going on: 1) Testers not getting long enough with the cars/not driving them on a sufficient variety of real-world roads and real-world traffic conditions to pick this stuff up 2) Testers not being knowledgable/experienced enough to pick out the subtleties between primary and secondary ride quality or shock absorption and wheel control 3) Testers not feeling able to point out shortcomings for commercial reasons.

I've joked about exactly that point with diesels before, and you're absolutely right. Every generation of miserable rattler has been hailed as only identifiable as a diesel at idle, which has always been patently false.

Also agree about turbos, engines they praised as feeling exactly like a large NASP engine previously now being derided for their lag and obnoxious boost threshold in reviews of a car that they claim solves this problem, but oddly enough I find even the very latest turbo cars have lag and obnoxious boost thresholds.

It's the 'I can't believe it's not butter' problem.

Diesels are fantastic when you need what a diesel can do, but in 90% of road car's it isn't actually what people want. Diesels were for a long time sold as what was good for you, then the cost effective alternative, and now it turns out that petrol wasn't as bad as we thought all along.

Automotive Margarine.

[Gericho]

A review is like a test drive. You take a run out in a car for about 10 minutes, its all new to you, and you probably have a salesman chatting away so you can't truly understand what the car would be like everyday. I've had a guy buy a new BMW M3 and come back in the next month saying its not for them because the of the pedal offset. This isn't mentioned in any reviews and he even didn't notice it on a test drive but the pedal offset being wrong when converting from LHD to RHD is a common problem.

[cerb4.5lee]

Gericho said:

A review is like a test drive. You take a run out in a car for about 10 minutes, its all new to you, and you probably have a salesman chatting away so you can't truly understand what the car would be like everyday. I've had a guy buy a new BMW M3 and come back in the next month saying its not for them because the of the pedal offset. This isn't mentioned in any reviews and he even didn't notice it on a test drive but the pedal offset being wrong when converting from LHD to RHD is a common problem.

That was similar to me with the E92 M3. I'd test drove one 4 years before actually buying one, and I adored it on the test drive to be fair. However I went off it quite quickly when I lived with it everyday though in comparison.

[wyson]

I wouldn’t put Whatcar in the same boat as the others. Out of all the mags, they are the most focused on the ownership experience of normal people. I think they made the Lexus LBX their car of the year for example. Can you imagine Evo or Autocar doing that?

Of course they are hobbled by short test times, but I’ve found what they say generally accurate. They frequently quote their reliability reports too. As far as I can tell they are the only ones trumpeting the MG4 as the 2nd most unreliable car in the UK and that MG don’t honour their warranties properly for example. All other mags, just talk about how it’s remarkable value for money.

I was buying a family SUV. Could totally see the truth in what they were saying for the cars I test drove and the car I ‘purchased’ on a lease.

But you can’t rely on one source. There is a youtube channel called babydrive. Really like that for their practicality testing because I have little terrors.

Of course there are forums talking about ownership experiences too.

An extended test drive also helps.

As does ownership and general experience across different cars. If a magazine like Autocar says a car is competent but uninvolving and the petrolhead reviewer is a bit down on that car, I know it’s probably going to be decent for a daily driver.

Put it all together…

Edited by wyson on Saturday 30th November 17:20

[CG2020UK]

In some ways I find this is where certain YouTubers are better.

No car is perfect but I follow people and channels who I know sort of align with what I look for in a car.

I actually find some of the more performance car reviews worse in some regards. They always rave about the most hardcore version with the best handling and grip then you test drive it and you know that it would drive you nuts to live with. GT cars generally don’t do as well on tests for example but are far better to live with.

[AC43]

2xChevrons said:

In both cases (to try and be fair) there is an element of realigning expectations. If you're a journo in the 1980s and you're given the keys to a Peugeot 405 D Turbo and your previous experience with diesel engines are Perkins-engined taxis and Mercedes OM616s then a turbo-intercooled XUD will seem much more 'petrol-like' than any diesel car you've driven before. And a VW Golf with a 2.0 PD TDI is as big a step towards 'petrol-like' again.

Still a horrific experience, though, compared to a petrol.

2xChevrons said:

Same with turbo lag. If you drive a turbo-boosted engine that has only a fifth as much of the lag as an Escort RS Turbo, then it probably does seem like the manufacturer has 'eliminated lag', even if the lag is still measurable with a stopwatch.

The fat that turbos have lag has always been a thing. And, most of the time, a deeply irritating thing.

[Stick Legs]

wyson said:

There is a youtube...

...forums talking about ownership experiences too.

IMHO this has been the death knell for magazines in general, if I want to find out about a car why wait for the magazine road test to come along when the internet has it for free in mins. The best YouTube channels are effectively magazines anyway.
I look forward to Harry's Garage, Tyrell's Classic Workshop or JayEmm on cars' videos in the same way you used to open a car magazine and turn straight to your preferred columnist's column.

wyson said:

As does ownership and general experience across different cars. If a magazine like Autocar says a car is competent but uninvolving and the petrolhead reviewer is a bit down on that car, I know it’s probably going to be decent for a daily driver.

This is exactly the kind of thing Richard Porter parodied so well with Troy Queef.

https://sniffpetrol.com/2015/10/22/as-crisp-as-a-p...

TroyQueef said:

I press the power pedal as if squishing a sizeable spider and the 1.3-litre four flamer responds in an instant, reaching for revs like a floundering frogman and unleashing the meat of momentum as if to prove it’s all torque. Slamming through the H-gate in search of ever more vigorous velocities, the hearty Hon seems to thrive on coming alive, the well-set suspension soaking up ruts like a tightly tuned towel as the tortured tyres squeeze into the surface with a tenacious tone that says we can take it and the screaming soul of its Type-R gene pool echoes in the whirling wake of its relentless rush down this wheelwright’s wake-up call.

Speeding into a spicy switchback at a full five-fifths, I snapped shut the gas tap and felt the tall tail come into play. I simply caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Honda Jazz 1.3 i-VTEC SE Navi is a bh. And I spanked it.

Edited by Stick Legs on Saturday 30th November 17:58

[wyson]

Stick Legs said:

https://sniffpetrol.com/2015/10/22/as-crisp-as-a-p...

[Mr Tidy]

Because they get virtually new cars under warranty!

BMW put the N47 diesel engine in the facelift 1 Series in March 2007, then stuck a 2nd turbo on it in September 2007 that got good reviews for having 201 bhp so I bought a pre-registered one in January 2008 to work with Business Use mileage rates.

Then 4 or 5 years later I read about the chocolate cam-chains that got dealt with by BMW as a "Quality Enhancement" for a while.

I sold it in 2014 before it broke!

[Lester H]

[quote=grudas]they're all paid by the manufacturers or don't consider running costs as part of the rating. RR Sport is great SUV but great when it works and is new, under warranty. When that expires its a different planet.

[/quote Agree on RRs generally. The thing is, they must get bored or blasé about the general run of new cars, so that when something new comes along such as the Fiat Twin Air, they enthuse about it, and the lesser motor noters copy , say, Autocar. Then, a couple of years later, instead of its being the greatest thing since sliced bread, we read on here that it’s thirsty, noisy and less reliable than the FIRE engine which was deemed to be old hat.].