Car Reviews and Websites

I don't consider myself a car guy but I like reading about cars. Just like any guy who knows how to drive and is somewhat into cars BBC's Top Gear would probably come to mind as the best car review show ever. The the show with its original hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May were very creative when doing their car reviews. The show set a bar that no other show can reach. Those with car shows or sites with much less resources should not even try to emulate the program. The number of cars to review and their British wit and creativity can never be matched. But others should not be faulted for trying but those who follow must find a better angle and not just follow some of the commentaries you hear from the show.

The term "plasticy" comes to mind when describing car interiors. Jeremy Carkson often used this term but he had a wide array of cars which he reviewed and when he comes across a high end car with "plasticy" interiors it would be proper to critical of the car where you'd expect better. But locally with sub 1M cars or even some sub 2M SUVs this is par for the course. I daresay majority of these cars would have interiors made of such materials. I think it's just a nice way for local car journalists to critique a car since almost 90% of the time they will not say a bad thing on a car review.

That being said though, after reading a couple of car sites it would be difficult for writers to indulge the senses of the readers in describing how a car drives. Aside from the shock being stiff and the engine giving a lot of pull it would be hard to me to imagine how a car steers outside of the cars I normally drive or have driven.

But what would I like to see on a new car review? The writer will give his nice intro and I'll tolerate and often it will include the price but there are things they omit in the basic details which I'd like to see:

For new cars
1. Price and cost of each variant - maybe pros and cons of getting each
2. Gas mileage - unless it's a company car or you're really rich this matters
3. Maintenance costs and after sales service reputation (I doubt writers would write about the after sales though but it's part of ownership) - I saw a Facebook post which complained about the cost of the repair of a Peugeot, buy a high end car expect high end maintenance costs.


Value for money used cars should also be featured. Given the limited roads in the country, readers should be encouraged to buy second hand cars instead of new cars given how efficient cars are made. Cars are now more durable and reliable compared to years past. I'd given go as far as suggest a new buyer buying a low end car to get a better second hand car at the same price.

This last suggestion of mine should be given a lot of focus. Aside from the sheer number of cars, I feel one of the biggest reason for the traffic is the lack of discipline of our drivers. Top Gear Philippines, AutoIndustriya, James Deakin should make more of an effort to promote road courtesy. It's quite obvious that some of these site lack content given they recycle old car reviews regularly.They should instead write about the proper road rules and driving courtesy to help improve our traffic mess.

Just look at some of the comments on on those dash cam Facebook Pages and you'd see how some (if not most) are ignorant of basic road rules and driving courtesy.