Do motoring journalists actually drive the cars they review?

thescouselander

I got to drive quite a few different cars as a result of my work providing hire cars whenever I'm away on business. I've also noticed reviews of some of these cars in the motoring press but a lot of the time it seems these reviews must be written about a completely different car. Also I saw a review of my own car just the other day and even the most basic details given were incorrect - as would have been obvious from just sitting in the car or reading the sales brochure.

It got me thinking - do these journalists actually even see the cars they write about and are their reviews even worth the time it takes to read them?

peter12345678910

Maybe it is about how they imagine the car will drive.

thescouselander

I'm not just talking about how they describe the drive though. For example, in the review of my own car there was criticism of the satnav screen for being small at only 5". The problem is the screen is 7.5 " across the range and you can see it's bigger than 5" just by sitting in the car. They also got the engine specification wrong as well as a number of comments other features that are not present on the car.

peter12345678910

A lot of reviews in car magazines do seem very light, and vain. I would not be surprised if they were made up.

BeenThroughItAll

peter12345678910 wrote: »

BMW have their own style of naming, series, or M3 etc. This is attractive to managers. French cars called Picasso, a Cubist painter....may appeal to a more open minded but conformist individual.

**wibble**

poppasmurf_bewdley

I don't know what happens nowadays, but in the 1970's I was a journalist on several newspapers and I wrote road tests on a large number of cars.

All the manufacturers ran fleets of press cars that were available to loan out to journalists, usually for a week at a time. Other writers I knew all did actual write ups but we didn't have the technical gadgets that the motoring journals like Autocar used to measure acurate speeds, acceleration times, etc.

These days, many journalists don't seem to set foot out of the office, mainly relying on just rehashing press releases that are sent into them, so maybe they do the same for road tests.

BykerSands

Years ago I worked for a local news paper and the motoring editor wrote off a Rolls Royce he was testing.

DKLS

peter12345678910 wrote: »

A lot of reviews in car magazines do seem very light, and vain. I would not be surprised if they were made up.

I used to write reviews for a technology magazine, If I wrote a good review I wouldn't be asked to return it.

Horizon81

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

**wibble**

Agreed. Who is this guy?! I've never seen such poppycock randomly spouted on every post (apart from DM of course). Sounds like a non-native.

datostar

They seem to like to witter on about the softness or otherwise of the plastic used on the dash etc. Personally, I don't drive around stroking plastic surfaces so I couldn't care less. Very strange.

Horizon81

They'll be on backhanders to say how awesome certain cars are, then there's personal bias. Take it all with a pinch of salt.