Just how much influence do car makers have over 'independent' motoring journalists?

Leonard Hofstadter

In Toyota's case, it must be quite a lot of influence.

See this line in today's Irish Times (in relation to the new 508):

"Toyota dominates the segment in Ireland by some degree with the Avensis (Ireland’s best-selling car up to now), a car that the Irish customers, fleet buyers and law enforcers have taken to in droves. Before the man from Toyota phones again to remind us to remind you, the reason is that the Avensis is relatively painless to run, and has solid residuals."

I wonder what other makes are up to this kind of skulduggery?

We already know courtesy of Chris Harris that Ferrari is also exerting undue influence over what road testers say they will only let you test a car once you tell them where you're going to test it so they can set up the chassis specifically for that road, (and apparently for Jeremy Clarkson's DVD where the Ferrari 458 was tested, there were two seperate cars: one for the straight line speed tests and the other for handling), so just how much 'control' do manufacturers have, over the supposedly independent press, and what can be done about it?

This is not an attack on any of the journos by the way, they have a job to do but I hate the fact that clearly they're being obstructed from doing their job properly by certain car makers.

Anan1

captainspeed wrote: »

This is not an attack on any of the journos by the way, they have a job to do but I hate the fact that clearly they're being obstructed from doing their job properly by certain car makers.

In fairness, their job is to draw advertising revenue from the likes of Toyota.;)

biko

In Ferrari's case it's total dominance over the media.

RedorDead

captainspeed wrote: »

In Toyota's case, it must be quite a lot of influence.

See this line in today's Irish Times (in relation to the new 508):

"Toyota dominates the segment in Ireland by some degree with the Avensis (Ireland’s best-selling car up to now), a car that the Irish customers, fleet buyers and law enforcers have taken to in droves. Before the man from Toyota phones again to remind us to remind you, the reason is that the Avensis is relatively painless to run, and has solid residuals."

I wonder what other makes are up to this kind of skulduggery?

We already know courtesy of Chris Harris that Ferrari is also exerting undue influence over what road testers say they will only let you test a car once you tell them where you're going to test it so they can set up the chassis specifically for that road, (and apparently for Jeremy Clarkson's DVD where the Ferrari 458 was tested, there were two seperate cars: one for the straight line speed tests and the other for handling), so just how much 'control' do manufacturers have, over the supposedly independent press, and what can be done about it?

This is not an attack on any of the journos by the way, they have a job to do but I hate the fact that clearly they're being obstructed from doing their job properly by certain car makers.

The majority of motoring journalists in this country are part time journos with an other real life job and do it only as a hobby. Thus the cosiness that ensues. There are maybe 5/6 journalists with the balls/intellect to call a car how they see it.

Bodhan

I am a full time independent Motoring writer, I not only write for my own site, I also write for a number of papers.
Although I can't speak for the nationals I find very little reason to believe car companies influence what's said about them in the press.
There's no Ferrari company in Ireland so Jon's experience in the UK, while annoying, means little here.
On the whole the car companies are happy to be getting any press, it's just a bonus if it happens to be good press.
If there's an opinion, be it good or bad, it's a review. If it's just a piece telling you about the interesting features that a car has, it's boring.
Toyota as mentioned by the OP gave me a Prius this week, there was no mention about what to say or how to say it, at least in my case there's no bias towards the car.

coylemj

It never ceases to amaze me how newspapers go on about politicians going on junkets when the biggest junketeers of them all are motoring journalists, they get brought for model launches to exotic/glamour spots like Monte Carlo, stay in the best hotels, get their arses licked and they get fabulous goodie bags, all topped and tailed by first class flights with generous helpings of champagne and caviar.

But what really annoys me more than most is that they always do the test drive in the top of the line model which is absolutely stuffed with expensive extras so what they report on bears no resemblance to the bog standard models that will represent 90% of the sales of that model.

To add insult to injury they always say in their report that the standard model was 'not available' - well tell the distributor that that is the model the punters are interested in so make it available and refuse to fall for that trick.

Bodhan

coylemj wrote: »

It never ceases to amaze me how newspapers go on about politicians going on junkets when the biggest junketeers of them all are motoring journalists, they get brought for model launches to exotic/glamour spots like Monte Carlo, stay in the best hotels, get their arses licked and they get fabulous goodie bags, all topped and tailed by first class flights with generous helpings of champagne and caviar.

But what really annoys me more than most is that they always do the test drive in the top of the line model which is absolutely stuffed with expensive extras so what they report on bears no resemblance to the bog standard models that will represent 90% of the sales of that model.

To add insult to injury they always say in their report that the standard model was 'not available' - well tell the distributor that that is the model the punters are interested in so make it available and refuse to fall for that trick.

In fairness, the international launches are held these nice places because they are central for all the journos who are flying out to them. The flights are usually Aer Lungus or Ryanair.
We can only test the models that the companies give on the day. The bog standard cars that sell in ireland are never standard worldwide so there's no point testing them, there is no "standard" car for the world market.
Plus, if you think about it, if you want to see a t-shirt in a shop and you ask the workers, they won't show you the 1.99 rack. They'll show you the 12.99 first, same for cars.

Leonard Hofstadter

In all fairness the Irish car journalists must cringe at the thought of having to ask can they test the poverty spec 316d - because Ireland is the only country enough that is so intellecutally challenged enough to actually bother buying such a car.

The models shown to journalists at these press conferences are far more reflective of what is sold everywhere else bar backward old Ireland - the only country in the world that likes buying the worst possible version of any given car!

Anan1

captainspeed wrote: »

In all fairness the Irish car journalists must cringe at the thought of having to ask can they test the poverty spec 316d - because Ireland is the only country enough that is so intellecutally challenged enough to actually bother buying such a car.

I drove one recently - it wouldn't be for me, but it's actually a very impressive car for what it is. If all you're doing is high-speed Autobahn commuting i'd say it'd be perfect.

captainspeed wrote: »

The models shown to journalists at these press conferences are far more reflective of what is sold everywhere else bar backward old Ireland - the only country in the world that likes buying the worst possible version of any given car!

I don't know that that was ever true, unless your only comparison was with the UK. I've an old German W124 pricelist around somewhere, showing the 230E as coming with a four speed manual gearbox!

Seperate

I'd say alot of them are afraid to say anything bad about a car for fear of the supply drying up. VW Ireland aren't going to keep giving them cars if you point out the bad points all the time. It's a catch 22!

Mr.David

I know that certain manufacturers (one German in particular) modifies there press vehicles to the point where they are substantially different to the production versions - with items that are not specifiable on the production car so as to get artificially positive journo write ups.

I think the other point is that a lot of journos don't know very much about cars, and are poor at being able to subjectively assess a vehicle across a wide range of attributes/criteria. And so they are susceptible to hype from manufacturers which influences their perception of the car.