2 posts tagged “opinion”

 
I am going to be doing some banners to promote Autocade soon. It’s still very much in beta with only a few dozen cars on it, but I have been thinking about the reasons I started it.

• There are a few, but not many, car sites out there with geographically unbiased information. I believe that German cars, for example, should be written with the point of view that the German market is the domestic one and others are export ones. Wikipedia is not one of them. It tends to take the American view on a lot of topics, but 80 per cent of the internet audience is not Stateside. Some of the better car wikis out there also have this bias, though they do not claim to be international—Wikipedia does.
• The Wikipedia layout is boring.
• I want basic information, not long stories, and I should be able to trace the global lineages of car models relatively simply. I’m fine with the long stuff appearing at specialist sites, but there should be one place where I can get the basics, including info on model changes and even a little opinion on the vehicle.
• I am more passionate about cars than many other things in life.

   When I began researching some of the Autocade entries, I was surprised to note how much incorrect information exists on Wikipedia about various models—and that I was absolutely right to have doubts about it. (I realized that I could go and edit Wikipedia myself, but why bother, if the actual editorial approach differs?) I also noticed how many references I have that take the brief format—Michael Sedgwick’s work, the first issues of Your Classic with buyers’ guides, and The Complete Car Guide five-week supplement in Autocar & Motor in 1988. This worked with readers like me then, and I can’t see why it wouldn’t work now in 2008.
   The way Wikipedia and some other sites is organized isn’t to my liking. For example, one of the Autocade entries is on the Holden Belmont. There is no such entry at Wikipedia: searching for the car name takes you to a forwarded page on the Holden Kingswood.
   But if I wanted information on the Holden Kingswood, I would type in Holden Kingswood. Specifically, I wanted information on the Belmont, to cross-check the information I had. There is a lineage there, and the way the engine options differed between series is interesting to car nuts.
   I took Sedgwick’s approach and recorded the Belmont separately of the Kingswood, just as he did in the same circumstances.
   And I have been using non-digital sources to confirm a lot of the info.
   Most of the work is still mine, but I’d welcome extra pairs of hands once the marketing gets under way, provided that senior editors take the approach that I have above.
   My work isn’t perfect and I am sure I have made my share of mistakes, but I hope I have made fewer, relative to the number of pages on Autocade, than many generous writers of Wikipedia have. Then again, there is less to go wrong at Autocade. It looks like too many cooks spoiling the broth at Wikipedia (i.e. you can’t bank on the Wales)—something we need to be careful with as Autocade goes out of beta later this year. 

It’s no secret that I hate the Daewoo Tosca (a.k.a. Chevrolet Epica or Holden Epica): a car that may be less safe relative to the competition and utterly outclassed even by a second-hand 2002 Japanese or European car. It has replaced the Australian-market Toyota Avalon in that part of my brain, and comes close to the Ssangyong Rodent Odious (Rodius for short; called Stavic in countries where they can work out the original two words).
  It seems the Irish press, as with the New Zealand Automobile Association, agrees with me, as I read this at RTÉ about the six-cylinder model:

Compared to the new Mondeo, Epica is years behind in the handling stakes. Chevrolet is quick to stress that Epica is targeted at a different buyer. Fans of the old V6 Nissan Maxima are in the sights of the multinational brand—I must rush and dust off the cardigan!
   Prices kick off at €26,995, which is way more than the entry level Ford Mondeo, which is a better car! …
   So is Epica, which was born out of the ashes of the incredibly dull Daewoo Leganza, worth the cash? 
   Eh... no.

   An Australian mechanic writes, saying caveat emptor:

Speaking from a mechanics point of view, nothing that came out of the Daewoo factory before 2005 looked like it would stand the test of time. I am not qualified to offer an opinion on post-2005 cars as I haven’t picked up a spanner in two years due to a back injury and shut-up shop in early 2006. Some of the common problems that we saw were timing belt failure due to a plastic tensioner pulley, twice in 30,000km on one vehicle and Holden refused a warranty claim as the car was older than three years but had travelled only 68,000km when the second belt failed. On both occasions the repairs were done at a Holden dealership yet they wouldn’t honour their repair guarantee. Admitting a design fault was out of the question I guess!
   Horribly soft brake rotors was another issue we encountered. It was not unusual for the rotors to need machining at every service due to being out of round causing pedal and steering wheel vibrations. Holden’s answer to this one—the car must have been driven through water when the discs were hot. More than likely this was the case, so what are you supposed to do? Not drive the car if there is any water on the road?! Disc rotors are not made as well as they used to be, but this is just ridiculous!

   I may be in the market for a Vectra D or a new Laguna, or even the new Mondeo. I now won’t automatically consider renting from Avis in case I get landed with a Tosca, despite being one of its Platinum customers. I just won’t jeopardize my life in a car that might not score better than three stars at NCAP (we don’t know yet, but its immediate predecessors were relatively unsafe cars). It is probably the dullest car on Earth, too, and I might be tempted to smash it to (a) get a thrill or (b) improve its looks.