Car Mechanics April 2005

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Jon

Car Mechanics April 2005

Post by Jon »

"Ear to the Ground" p60. Parts Prices for Older Citroens.
Now see http://www.bxclub.co.uk/roundup/
I never knew I was so highly read! [:I]
ralph
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Post by ralph »

Ear to the ground? It should be ear to the websites.
No disrespect to your website Jon, but as a reader of Car Mechanics you'd think this column was put together by journalists talking to reliable contacts in the trade.
I know a lot of members of this forum, me included, read Car Mechanics, but every month I get left with the feeling it's a cheap and nasty load of cr*p.
I'm going to save my £3.30 and read your BX site instead.
Stuart McB
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Post by Stuart McB »

I don't know about the feeling cheap bit, but latley I thought that CMM was re-addressing the balance on used French motors. What with the Xantia programme and the samll adds containing CX stuff.
ralph
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Post by ralph »

What drives me nuts is how they fill pages with waffle. Take that first Xantia piece - three pages of "I used to have a Scooby, some racing driver says Xantias are good, here's what we'll be doing to it for the next five weeks, but there'll be no technical stuff this week".
Then there was a page recently about how editor Simpson had driven to his inlaws over Christmas and had blown a hose off his Range Rover engine. AA man 'fixes' it, but fails to bleed system, engine nearly cooks, editor Simpson says "job well done AA man" and has nothing but praise. What's he on??.
A bit more thought and a lot less waffle and it would be a far better mag. (In my humble opinion)
Jon

Post by Jon »

I still buy it every month though! Even just to read Ted Connolly's ramblings!
bxbodger
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Post by bxbodger »

The mag has gone downhill a bit lately, and for the first time in years I have stopped buying it. I find much of the mag now is either very generalist info on modding, which is much better done in more detail in other mags, or on buying and selling, the auctions, etc, which is all very interesting but not really what most of us do all the time or buy the mag for, and they have their home trader mag for that, anyway!
The practical content is going rapidly down. Most of the 'Help' page answers tend to be of the "I really haven't got a clue so here's a waffly generalism" or "go and see a main dealer" I have issues going back years, and the practical content was certainly a lot higher.I think because so few people now do DIY on their cars they are trying to get away from the DIY side- cars are now a lot more complicated than they were in the days when the market could support two DIY car mags, and also, of course, they don't break down like they used to. I think that really they are unsure of what direction to take the mag in now.
After all, how many times can you recycle articles on getting through the MOT, getting your car sorted for winter, that sort of thing, and I dont believe Ted Connolly really exists- I think he's an amalgam of various contributors!!!
I have read this mag for a long time and he/it/they appear to be recycling articles from early mags as his own life-one thing that stuck in my mind was his story of a 'friend' who cut a hole in the bulkhead of his Avenger to do a core plug- that story was in an article they did about banger buying years ago, I only remembered it as I had an Avenger at the time, and it stuck in my mind. Someone had done it to the Avenger they looked at, and how many other old stories and articles have they raided?
Stuart McB
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Post by Stuart McB »

Could be worse. Could be like the webb site.
tomsheppard
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Post by tomsheppard »

'Ang on. The editor of Car Mechanics maintains his 4x4 so badly that it pops a hose. he then calls out the AA. He lets them cock it up and then he praises them?
This man should, indeed, must be sacked.
With those standards, you'd expect them to be getting their articles by grubbing around the net. The trade wouldn't touch them with a barge pole!
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