My current car was well-reviewed when new but had a cosmically stupid timing chain design that screws over the second or third owner. But most reviewers are targeting new-car buyers.
Thinking about that made me wonder if there are channels/creators specializing in reviews of cars that have significant mileage on them. Looking at relatively recent cars and asking “how did this model actually hold up? What design flaws should second-hand buyers watch out for?”
RCR kind of ends up doing that sometimes, but it’s not really their specific focus.
Thanks!
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In terms of an actual good review of long-time ownership you’re better off reading owner groups like forums/subreddits etc. Some reviewers will revisit long running models but it usually gets less attention. If you want a view into long-term ownership you have to get it from someone who’s owned it long-term
The biggest problem with that approach is that people who have had major issues and dissatisfaction probably don’t own the vehicle anymore and thus won’t be found in these groups. I don’t disagree it’s a good place to get feedback, but just be aware of the inherent survivorship bias.
Every cars I’ve owned the past 30 years have all had strong forum (now reddit) communities. These have people/groups are a treasure trove of information and sadly older indexable/searchable formats are getting less frequented (old school forums), for non searchable formats such as tic tok and you tube.
Meh, I find forums are still pretty honest that way.
This. Forums are the best. The issue is, if the car doesn’t have an enthusiast following, info is non-existent.
I feel like the bias can also go the other way. People who’ve had a bad experience are more likely to complain on the forums and if it ain’t broke people aren’t posting about it.
Forum posters are already an extreme minority.
It seems like for every honest person you get on a forum, you get 10 “best car I ever had, never had any problems and I put 500k on it”.
And for everyone of of those you get a “I’VE HAD NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER. 17,000 MILES ON THE ODOMETER.” Like yeah. It’s not supposed to have any problems at 17,000 miles, even for a poopsmear brand like Jaguar or Alfa.
Forums are just a data point among many. You need to sift through all the garbage and see what passes the sniff test.
My favorite is “just passed the 6 month mark! Still running great and looks new!”
"Just brought her home! Can’t wait to live my best life dailying this beauty!
PS: Will someone explain how to shift this thing?
Anyway, five stars for sure!
I think there’s useful information to be gleaned from owner groups and forums. But I also think a person needs to be careful.
Ownership bias is very real. And I think you tend to actually get more of the extremes. i.e. people who are there to go on about how much they just love their vehicle. Or conversely just how much their experience was the worst ever.
Likewise… the vast majority of people don’t have any significant time with comparable models.
You gotta look into maintenance threads and buyers guides. Less opinion pieces and more gleaning from what people are dealing with. Anyone’s gonna try to sell you if you ask for an opinion.
Look through an e46 forum everyone will tell you they’re reliable if you replace every piece of rubber and plastic every 5 years. Which is partially true but that’s a ton of maintenance itself. You’ll know you’ll be dealing with cooling issues, and there’s a million threads on subframe issues etc.
Munro Live disassembles cars and talks about their build spec/design and shortcomings.
Car and Driver also does long-term tests and reviews.
Edmunds Used Consumer Reviews is my go-to. Here is an example for the BMW 1-Series.
It’s actually kind of hard to find. In a perverse kinda way, I think the site doesn’t really want you to find this area because some brands get really crappy reviews from owners, and I think Edmunds doesn’t want to upset these brands.
Motorweek has a long term update I think
You can look up reliability ratings of old cars in Consumer Reports. If you don’t want to pay for the membership, check your local library. They sometimes can give you access for free.
It is fundamentally and literally impossible for a single creator to do multiple concurrent long term reviews. You have to rely on different owners for different cars you are interested in, and in the case of Youtube, that is not too difficult since you can search the model and ‘long term review’ to find a lot of amateurs giving their input. But as others have said, this is one of those topics that online forums do a better job.
Go talk to a mechanic. Even though I’m primarily a Toyota guy, I have my finger on the pulse of what’s what in the industry.
Which is why I only buy Toyota and Lexus vehicles…
I did it for a while. I did an Angry Video Game Nerd style review system, full of foul language and crude humor, but underneath the character was my actual experiences from being a car dealer and mechanic. I told people about the known problems and what to look for in the average craigslist cars. I did OK for a while, but, a lot of people get pissy when you crap on their favorite car and youtube wrecked me when they went family friendly, so I pretty much gave it up.
Most channels are limited by how much they can spend on cars long term. Throttle House and Everyday Driver come to mind for some longer term ownership reviews. Specific to Porsche incl. air cooled 911s you want to check out Rennenthusiast. Cars With Luke does modern Porsches but not sure he puts enough miles on them, currently has a GT4RS, previously a GT3 that he didn’t keep very long and a 718 GT4 before that.
Just look up reviews until you find some channel that features a make model you’re interested in, usually there’s some interesting content out there.
Luke just got rid of his GT4RS because it was too loud so he got a 991.2 GT3RS I believe.
I haven’t seen any channels dedicated to that concept but I have seen individual owners reviewing their own cars as they age. There’s plenty of that around YT
I’ve considered doing this, but for vehicles from the 90’s and 2000’s. I have a fondness for sub $3000 cars and love diving into the forums and researching how they hold up. I also have a ton of experience from that era of vehicles with high miles. It would be pretty easy to keep a steady flow of good content while I rack up miles for personal long-term reviews.
JayEm does review older cars. He does speak briefly about the ownership and potential costs. But probably not enough to satisfy your needs
He does have some very good videos on his purchases which seem to be very good imo
Car magazines usually have long term test cars, usually up to 18 months, if you use an app like Readly you can find a good few of them.
There are long term car reviews. But by the time they are completed, a lot of people already bought shiny new car.
If I am interested in a car I usually Google make/model/year common problems. Then there is some checking in forums and common issues.