So, I've already let my Motor Trend subscription lapse, which is too bad because I have every back issue dating back to 1979...but hey, Angus Mackenzie can kiss my white ***...

Anyhoot, now I'm beginning to get ready to let C&D lapse too, of which I've been a subscriber since 1992 or so. Did anyone else catch the "24 Hours of LeMons" in the Sport section this month? Basically, the idea is to buy a $500 car and run it for 13 hours straight around a track...not actually 24. Sounds like a fun idea. So, C&D picks up a 175k mile, crash-damaged '95 Aurora off eBay for $500. In one spot in the article, they say "we've set out to prove the old edict that GM cars run bad longer than most cars run."

At the end of the article, there's a picture of the Aurora again, after it was flipped over (long story), racing around the track, with the caption: "Aurora is proof that GM cars run bad longer than most cars run at all."

I've officially had it...this is bullsh!t. Rather than complementing the fact that the idiots ran it into 2 tire barriers and it still performed respectably with a screwed up alignment, lets trash the company that built the car twice in the article. I know its meant to be funny, but its still a completely backhanded slap.

I think I can let C&D lapse now, too...

 

BTW, does anyone else have the opinion that if the thing was a $500 Toyota Corolla, they'd be marveling how they beat the crap out of it, and it still performed comendably?

 

Ah, you have seen the light, Grasshoppah.

As tempted as I am to take advantage of those deals where you can get Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and Road & Track (or something like that combo) for $7.00 for a year, it is hard for me to want to give them any money at all, knowing that it elevates my blood pressure to read some of their crap.

At least C&D can be witty at times, and they tend to give pretty good test data (though the new format is a little weird to me). I haven't had an ounce of use for MT for years and years, and I have even less use for it now that Angus whatshisname runs it with the newer format. Pure juvenile crap, that magazine.

The only one worth a damn is Road & Track; I just wish the "Track" part got a lot less weight so they'd have more room in each issue to cover the road part. Their accel times are typically the lowest of the three, but they don't do the weather corrections like the others do. Plus, they tend to have the best photography and data page layouts.

 

I will agree that R&T is now the best, least-biased source. They actually had a pretty nice review of the G6 GTP coupe about 8-9 months ago...I was shocked. No one else has even bothered to give that particular car the time of day.

Its sad for me personally because I grew up with those 2 magazines, and remember when Motor Trend actually gave a crap, and was more about informing than bashing. I saw the light a long time ago, but kept subscribing because it was something to read that kept me up on all the new stuff. Now? I just don't care...I figure R&T can keep me up to speed on what I need.

Besides, it isn't like I don't get other rags...Automobile (for now...it hasn't lapsed yet, either), Hemmings Muscle Machines (my favorite magazine by far...ever...) and GMHTP...

The above was just too blatant for words...and then to bash the Aura for its cheap interior in the same issue???? I sat in one at the Boston Auto Show, and listened to actual consumers talk about it. People were RAVING about the inside of that car...a Camry owner told me he was pissed he bought an '07, because he would have bought the Aura instead, saying "its the best deal at this whole show."

But hey, at least C&D ranked it above the Camry...I wonder what MT thinks about that, since they called it Car of the Year???

 

I usually take everything C/D says with a grain of salt, but in some circumstances they are right on the nose with their opinions. I agree that the statements they made in that article were low blows but I don't believe that. For example yesterday I had my car at the dealership getting some work done and when they were through they sent a porter to pick me up. He was driving a Suburban and mind you I don't really pay attention to trucks that much but I noticed it was used, it was mint, and it looked like it had really low miles on it. When i looked at the odometer I noticed that it had 149,000 miles on it. I was in shock. The first thing that popped into my mind was that C/D article and I thought those f-ckers should see this truck.

 

I hear y'all - loud and clear. Although I have never subscribed to either MT or C&D, I bought them more months than not between 88 and the year before last. I haven't bothered to buy one of either since about that time and have only picked up the odd issue off the rack to flip through. I won't say it's anti-GM bias but I have read of things noted in reviews that they forgive imports for that they would otherwise crucify a domestic for committing - be it assembly quality, or some electrical or mechanical malfunction that just happened to occur while testing. Another nail in the MT coffin has been the change in artistic direction there, I just don't care for the layouts and pictorials - period.

I do have to agree with the points about R&T. Of the three "big" mags, R&T is the best read and usually without the back-handed bashing that the other two mags take such delight in.

As far as print mags go, I had since moved on to GMHTP. Unfortunately, the shine there has worn somewhat for me as well - they seem so desperate to publish Camaro news - any news, that they jump the gun and print some assinine things - such as the cover shot and announcement that the Camaro was approved for production (don't recall the month off hand) when the actual announcement from GM came a couple of months later. While not necessarily major gaffes, their integrity took a hit as far as I was concerned.

This site has consistently been so much more "accurate" and reliable as a source of not only Camaro, but new car news in general that none of the mags compare. I just come here now instead of shilling out the cash for "hot" news that was printed a month ago but was wrong anyway and dismissed before the ink even hit the pages for consumption by the mags.

I suppose my point is that this site just plain rules!! Screw the mags. I may not post much, but I've been here every day since mid 2001 - months before I even officially joined. Sure, there are slow news days here, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't always entertaining....

 

You paid newsstand prices for them? You can subscribe for $10-$12 (USD) per year. Isn't the newsstand price ~$5.00/issue? Shoulda subscribed if you were buying that often, man. Amen to that. That magazine just looks horrible now (a friend has/had a subscription).

 

I know, but I just never took the time to fill out the subscription cards. It was something that I just kept putting off and the years rolled by. I suppose part of my logic was that I bought the issues I wanted without having to deal with issues that didn't interest me and they didn't get folded or otherwise mangled by the postal service. Besides, I don't really have any vices that suck money out of my existence (other than cars), so paying full pop for magazines wasn't really an issue.

 

I am not bothered by the bias so much as the completely banal content - especially in Motor Trend. Top Gear is the most digustingly biased auto related program in the business, but I love every second of it.

In contrast, what real content do we get from MT? American sportscar showdown!!! SUV desert death match!! Hybrid roundup! Add to that some car "news" that would be hopelessly outdated even if it weren't made up, and you have a waste of $4.00.
It's sad because there really is hard to make cars uninteresting. They miss a lot of angles. Where were the auto rags during the whole GM crisis? There was coverage from the Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, and every autoblog on the planet, but I don't recall one piece from any auto publication. They also could have some more tech.

I would love to read about simple, common jobs that people still do on their own - brake work, suspension fixes, etc.

Oh well, it's only a matter of time before the whole auto magazine business crumbles before the GMInsidenews.com's and Camaross.com's of the world.

 

I've actually become a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Hot Rod again!!!

They are covering good old American Iron - new and old, but mostly old.
Loving it for the last 2 years, and keepin' it going another one.

My last C&D arrived around October of 2000, and I haven't missed it a bit.



BTW - nice post. Honesty is tough to swallow sometimes.
Do us all a favor though... don't just "not renew", take a monent and send them a letter explaining WHY. You'll feel great when you drop it in the box or hit the send button!

 

Top Gear's extreme bias toward European cars and against American cars just about drives me up the wall. I mean they go beyond bias and enter the realm of deceit if that's what it takes to make a Euro car look good next to an American car. Granted, they don't always have to do that - but when they do I want to scream at the screen... and I'm sure the guys in Europe are just eating that crap right on up, along with a lot of people here.

If it's possible to exaggerate any more dramatically or frequently than Clarkson does on that show - I'd like to see how.

And yet... I still can't stop watching the show. It's just damn good entertainment. He's always doing something great and manly on that show - destroying cars with high level military weapons, catapulting them off cliffs, running them into barriers with a driver inside, racing them up winding mountain roads against mountain climbers, towing widebody jets... all the things I always wished a car review show would do for the sake of entertainment, he has done, and them some things I didn't even realize I wanted to see.

 

Bitch all you want about media bias but the sad truth here is that GM's only saving grace is the cars last. When new they were, for the most part, unspectacular, or good but with gaping flaws, and fewer and fewer people care(d). This is great if you're buying used like I will be in the spring for a simple vehicle, but I have absolutely no reason right now to look at a new GM product.

 

Yeah the cars do last, they just don't do it gracefully.

You go drive a 10 year old Honda with 200k miles on it and I mean, it'll have some decent wear on it, some rattles... but it still seems like a relatively fine tuned machine that should keep running for quite some time. Will it keep running? Maybe, maybe not. But it at least is PERCEIVED that you have little to worry about despite the mileage because it feels and drives that way.

You go drive a 10 year old GM vehicle with 200k miles and all you can think is 'good grief, this thing feels like it is going to fall apart in the middle of the road, I wonder how long it will keep going like this?'
Now granted depending on the car in question is very likely may outlast that Honda before encountering expensive repairs. But it just doesn't FEEL that way - it feels like every bolt and nut holding the car together is one speed bump away from falling out.

I think that's why despite a lot of older GM cars really surviving the test of time - nobody really seems impressed by it.

 

Rubbish.