A Whoorls Review

[blueSup]

I’ve been reading Wheels for a while. I would religiously buy Wheels, Car Australia, Modern Motor, and Street Machine. The articles were informative, broad, and well written. Phil Scott had done wonders with Street Machine and then he moved to Wheels to do the same. After a while Car disappeared into the sunset, and Modern Motor became Motor. Street Machine lost its polish and Wheels… Well Wheels became a brochure. A two page article on a car is now a two page spread, with the top half and one side devoted to pictures, leaving four columns of text.

To put this change into words I tried writing partial reviews, both as I remember them, and as they are now.


1966 Whoorls
The windscreen wipers cleared a huge amount of the screen, as can be seen in the picture. They were also capable of clearing the screen of streaming water using the second of the two speeds on offer.
The unusual tyre size (235/40 R19) makes them smaller than those fitted to the home grown locals, yet more expensive. You might like to factor this into your purchase decision.
Night time testing of the headlights showed excellent penetration for both low and high beam, reaching a considerable distance both ahead of and to the left of the vehicle.


2016 Whoorls

The cafe was full of bustling coffee addicts pushing huge wheeled prams. In my day, the wheels on prams were only 12 or so inches but the ones I am seeing now must be 20 or more. I hope Junior appreciates the extra comfort that a larger wheel size brings. I can see the cafe owners needing to increase the space between tables to allow for the prams if they’d like to keep the bustling pram pushers happy.
The Superb didn’t really fit in to the vibe or the parking spots. But then that’s my personal biases toward my inner-city breeding and lack of parking ability. This car is almost as big as a Commodore and no one buys those so Skoda has a battle on it’s hands to sell them. Of course, stories such as this won’t help sales at all.
Some people stopped to admire the car and a few even asked me what it was. How they knew I was driving it is beyond me.
Whilst drinking my latte I flicked through the Media Briefing folder, boldly emblazoned with the Skoda logo. The media briefing mentioned 9 air bags as standard equipment so the safety aspect of the car rates highly. Mum’s car had only one airbag and grand-dad’s didn’t even have seatbelts!
Externally, the Superb is all creases and sharp lines. It’s very now and on trend but I can’t put my finger on why I want to disparage it. It looks like an Audi (and some people have asked if it is) but it’s not, so maybe that’s the problem?
The higher up the range, the larger the wheels. If you’re looking for comfort, stick to the smaller wheel sizes.

Moving to the interior there’s lots of room in the back seat area. The seats look quite comfortable because they are dished into the backrest. There is a large transmission tunnel so the middle seat occupant suffers.
The front seats aren’t Recaros. My iPhone plugged into the infotainment unit and extended my world to the interior of the car. Just seeing the green Messages icon on screen reduced my anxiety about missing a message. I can also colour match some parts of the interior lighting to my mood. Todays colour is self-absorbed.
Although the centre console has room for an iPad (only a Mini) there wasn’t one provided with the vehicle. That meant I had to use the Owners Manual to try and find information about the self-parking system. That was too hard so I gave up.
From memory there’s an umbrella in the rear door so that should be useful on wet days.




Harsh? A little. An indicator of how I interpret local motoring journalism? Spot on. Will I be continuing my subscription to Wheels come the end of October? No.
If I want pricing and figures I’ll get them from Redbook. If I want pictures there’s the web. If I want puff pieces and personal opinion I’ll look at Youtube. If I want poorly researched journalism I have Fairfax and News.

[woofy]

Yep I occasionally think about buying one to see if it might be worth getting a digital subscription and then your article above sums up my experience. My Dad still has the late 70s Wheels that had the review of the Renault wagon they bought then and it's exactly like you described.

[Jondalar]

I also subscribed to Wheels back in the day, gave up about 10 years ago, the subscribed to Top Gear mag when it had the UK content but gave up on that too eventually. Clarkson's humour can only carry a whole magazine for so long..

It's a shame really, but I guess that's the modern world.

[Lucas_R]

I used to buy Wheels and Motor each month (actually i had a subscription for many years). But over the last 3-4 years their content was getting worse and worse (far too many ad's, to much fluff in the stories, too many damn Commodore VS Falcon stories) so i stopped buying. Nowadays the only time i will buy a magazine is if we are going on a holiday and i want something to read while lazying around the pool

There are so many good reviews these days on YouTube that the magazine is becoming obsolete in my opinion. Chris Harris is someone i have been watching for 3-4 years now, and although he tests only very special high end cars - he is a good driver, and his enthusiasm and passion is addictive.

[Gerrycan]

The caradvice site (recently sold to channel 9) have been getting additional non-journalist feature items and I have to say I enjoy them more than the usual hacks that seem roll out the same sort of rubbish that you are complaining about.
Chris Atkins (the rally driver) occasional foray gives a different viewpoint, often at variance to the pro journos.
There is one scribe whose main goal with his reviews is to write as much complimentary stuff in as possible so he gets quoted by the manufacturer and used as salespersons handouts. I swear he moonlights in marketing.

The carpoint site reviews seem more balanced and sometimes they really pull their fingers out and do worthwhile comparisons with independently measured accelerations, lap times and achieved consumption rather than just personal opinion and bum on seat measurements. Very infrequently they put the car on a dyno (gasp)!

Honest accurate reviews are not welcomed by the car industry, those journos that do often find themselves on the out.

@blueSup should collect his Superb today and I cannot wait to read about it in his entertaining thread "A Superb purchase experience".

[JPBJK]

It's getting harder to find independent reviews.

http://www.carconversation.com.au/reviews

[JPBJK]

Honest accurate reviews are not welcomed by the car industry, those journos that do often find themselves on the out.

these people are motoring writers - not journos

[blueSup]

Woohoo! A Sportline review with only a few inaccuracies.

[pologti18t]

It's getting harder to find independent reviews.

http://www.carconversation.com.au/reviews

Are you spruiking your site? Judging by the hits no one is reading the reviews.

[Ozsko]

Ah! The days of actually telling whether the car could stop without brake fade, if you needed to light a match to see if the headlights were on, if fitted did the heater work etc etc. Mind you, the cars are so loaded with tech the journo would have to take a crash course in how to work it all these days.