ideas to improve the "my garage" function

[rob.e]

I just responded to a thread where someone's rightly pointing out that the "my garage" section of the site is really under used.

Reason behind this I think its that it's pretty difficult to use and the good content that is posted there is really difficult to access.

I've been using the facilitiy since it was created and although I enjoy writing about my cars i can see why many people don't bother or even know the facility exists.

Rather than just moan i've put some thought into what you guys could do to improve this:


- make the add/edit interface easier to use; bigger text box to enter blog details, easier formatting tool and make it easier to add url links or pictures
- add different types of activity (meeting, event, trackday etc.) rather than just repairs and breakdowns.
- give the viewer the option to view all types of activity or filter for say, servicing costs, or tyres etc.
- allow readers to tag or rate their favorite blogs, and then view updates to their favorites (i hate to say it but a facebooky "like" funtion might work here?)
- allow some filtereing to show most recent updates where there are more then x entries in total (the current filter by "most recent" shows all the vehicles that have no history at all, which is of no interest usually).
- by default only load say, most recent 50 blog posts. if you have a lot of info on the blog it ends up being a massive page to load..
- you could use some of the good updates to be "news" stories on the main ph splash page.

As I've said on the other thread, this could be a great source of info if it was easier to use and search, plus it could be a free souce of front page PH stories if there were enough interesting things posted.

For reference, David Yu's auto-journals site basically makes a full business model out of just this functionality - if we had something similar that was integrated with the rest of the PH community/site it would be awesome IMO.

[Craikeybaby]

I agree, it is a great, but underused feature, the problem is there is quite a lot of overlap with the "Readers' cars" section of the forum.

[NiceCupOfTea]

I agree that it needs a shakeup, nothing's changed in years. Would her good to be able to "subscribe" to as car, user, or even all cars of as type for updates...

[TVRJAS]

I am a new member on PH just purchasing my 3rd TVR and thought I would try using this function to track costs and have to say I stumped on how to calculate the MPG bit.

I so far entered the mileage section and I can see price per litre but surely there should be a how many litres or how much you money you put in section.

I did my own calculation which was 20 litres at 1.30 and covered 130 miles which gives 29mpg so I manually entered 29 in the box. Is this the way to do it?

I then went to my summary on the Chimaera and it shows my insurance costs and tax only... nothing related to a fuel cost.

Please if anyone can help point out if i am going wrong somewhere would be kindly appreciated