I am a car guy in my 30s, I have been in the scene since the early 2000s and anyone else that was around back then knows what I am talking about with forums. Forums used to be THE place to find everything car related. Whatever car you had, you could find a forum for it with hundreds of active users any time of the day. For sale threads, regional meet ups, anything you wanted was there. It was like an online mecca for whatever car you had. If you had a BMW, there were huge BMW forums with hundreds of posts and discussions happening every day. Fast forward to now, almost all automotive forums are dead, like dead dead. For sale sections dried up, regional sections with the last posts being 6 months old. It’s a ghost town.
So what happened? My guess, is Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube divided the community so hard, and gave everyone their “own” little pages, that this is all people do now. I joined a few Facebook groups and found those to be just as dead as the forums. It’s really not the same. We used to be able to post in a regional section and by nightfall have a whole meet arranged with locals from your area. Now, that’s a no go. I miss it, and I would love to know if there is a place everyone is at now, but I am also scared that maybe that era of online car culture is lost forever. r/cars seems to be the only place I can find that has constant activity with other gearheads, but that’s only because it serves as a “hub” for car guys on reddit, which is another “hub”, and all other hubs have been abandoned. I am trying to get involved on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, but it’s not the same, how do you arrange a meet in an Instagram comment section? It’s just not the same.
The volvo community still has a couple active forums
I’ll pour one out for Hondatech. It’s still active, but only a shadow of its former self. Thanks InternetBrands for killing the classifieds, the street racing forum, ebeer Friday and making every third post an advertisement.
I feel you. Car forums used to be one of the genuinely great parts of the internet. True community. I miss those days
Facebook and Reddit seem to be the move now, unfortunately.
I will forever have an immeasurable amount of nostalgia for LS1tech. I learned so damn much on that website.
Its easier to record video & post than type everything and upload pictures. My 2 cents
Forums like VW Vortex are still very active and useful. I think it’s more brand specific.
Miata forums are still popping off
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but as we enter an era of “waking up” to what social media does to us and how endless scrolling doesn’t feel good…
maybe, just maybe people will go back to the forums for deeper knowledge, conversation, and community. No battling for high scores, achievements, or likes/follows.
It’s actually quite sickening if you step back and compare the two.
I have completely lost interest in cars having been a car but for half my life. A lot of it is how expensive all cars have gotten, but it’s also the lack of community, especially in a city like Austin. There seems to be just a few pockets of closer friends in Porsche, Honda, Muscle car clubs but nothing like it was in Virginia circa 2007-2016.
I try to get excited about them and subscribe to this sub, but find myself essentially looking at headlines of new/unreleased cars just to see some photos or spy shots out of curiosity since I have a design background. That’s the extent of my enthusiasm now.
Just my own experience, with Miata. Car forums (miata.net) used to be the catchall but now things are more dispersed.
Regional/Meetup/for sale - Facebook
Showing off pictures and personal rides - IG
Reddit - “main” discussion and random shit
Forums - Technical and specific discussions, long repair guides etc (miata.net, turbo miata etc)
The car scene in general is ass now. It’s just a bunch of dumb kids staging takeovers and talking shit to each other and then equally as dumb boomers that get absolutely triggered when they see an EV then cry when young people aren’t picking up the hobby. Gearheads are upset that tracks all across the country are closing but fail to realize that THEY are the reason they’re closing. Call me old (35) but people just don’t know how to act anymore. The fact that Mustangs, Chargers/Challengers and Camaros are now banned at Cars and Coffee events should tell you all you need to know about the state of hobby.
Which Cars & Coffee banned Mustangs and Chargers?
People these days rather post and ask for help than doing their own research based on previous people’s experiences (which is what forums are)
Yeah, the forums dying is such a fucking hit to the community and a whole generation of people don’t know it.
It def got killed my Facebook and smartphones in general as people just flat out don’t even own a PC anymore unless they have to.
I just make it a point to still use the forums that are still up and answer questions. Also Instagram you have to follow the right accounts or hashtags to find stuff. Our area uses a couple Facebook groups to organize but if you’re not already following something similar it can be hard to find them because Facebooks search feature sucks and sometimes the names of the groups aren’t really specific.
IG is def enjoyable, I’ve helped people across the world with questions doing similar builds to mine, but you’ll never have the knowledge like you did on forums. Even a lot of the YouTube diy videos have issues and the comments calling them out can be buried.
I’m sad knowing what I missed… born too late?
Car forums been dead cause most of the info is either already there or on YouTube, forums are nice though just a bunch of regular dudes helping each other with cars
I’ve been using vwvortex for decades, and while I no longer own a volkswagen, I still think thecarlounge is my favorite car forum on the internet (though it certain is not without its flaws) and its reasonable active.