Because C&D are officially retarded.
OK, got my new C&D Sat. Cover is the Camaro vs Genesis V6/6-spd comparison. Flip through, and see the Genesis is 2nd (no suprise), and the Camaro 1st. Then I start looking through the charts... the Genesis beats the Camaro in EVERY category but one.... interior sound levels. So I look at the tally chart, see the genesis has a lead in every category except the last two.... "Gotta Have it" and "Fun to Drive"... they gave the Camaro a 1 point win out of those two categories... what a crock of sh.... well you know.
Here's the results in non-scanned/typed format.
Veh.....prices.....weight.....braking.....skidpad.....lanechange
Cam....29200.....3807......173...........0.87g.......63.7mph
GC......30375.....3492......161...........0.88g.......66.0mph
Veh...power/torque....0-60....0-100....0-140....1/4m@mph....sound(idle/fullthr/cruise).....MPG(city/hwy/180m)
cam...304hp/273tq......5.9.....14.7......35.9......14.5@99.........46/79/71................17/29/19
GC....306hp/266tq......5.5......14.2......32.0.....14.2@100........43/80/72...............17/26/20
Don't know about you, but that looks like a decisive win in the hyundai Column.
Their results:
veh....Vehicle.....Powertrain.....Chassis..Gotta have it/Fun to drive
Cam.....78.........44................41........22/18
GC......79..........44................43........16/20
Total: Camaro 203, Genesis 202.
BULL!
Yeah, the same thing happened a few years ago with the GTO/New Mustang. The "Gotta Have It" factor made the Mustang win even though it lost in almost all categories.
P71
Dork
5/4/09 8:47 a.m.
Calling them them being R&T and C&D to cancel my subscription today.
What the hell is a "Gotta Have It" score anyway? Is that some sort of penis compensation, or maybe a mid-life crisis score? So they're basically saying, "The Genesis is a better performing car in pretty much every way, but the Camaro will make you look cooler and will probably have a better chance at getting you laid."
Objective numbers only tell part of the story.
Agreed: "Gotta Have it" is a great big Factor sub Fudge.
But then, some competent cars are just no fun at all, and they have to have a way of counting that. So the "Fun to Drive" factor has some validity.
saw my first Genesis tv spot , it was pretty cool, genesis drifting around a racetrack. All Ive seen of the camaro so far is a parked dull silver model, just sitting there as a part of Chevys lineup....compact coupe drifting in a TV ad FTW!!!
I bet GM would do the whole drifting thing had they been in a better financial position, but you have to imagine a Detroit mag is going to take the detroit cars back. Honestly I'd have to test drive both before coming to a conclusion.
Yavuz
New Reader
5/4/09 11:06 a.m.
Ugh C&D sucks. I remember after I bought my SRT4 they had a "Cheap Speed" comparo where they placed an RSX over the SRT ACR even though it lost in every category - because it had a nicer interior. Don't get me wrong, the RSX is a great car... but to have the RSX's interior make it the winner in a "CHEAP SPEED" article makes no sense.
I let my subscription to C&D run out until they sent me an offer for 3 years for $7.... at 20 cents a magazine I just get them and they go straight into the bathroom for toilet reading.
So when is GRM gonna give us the REAL scoop?
I haven't read a car mag but GRM and Old Skool style hot rod mags in awhile.
I couldn't take reading about expensive crap I would never own. Why read about the Porsche Double Suck 911 Rerun Ruf Tuner edition (OH SNAP!) again? I just couldn't take it.
The cars I wanted to read about, or the builds, just weren't there.
Then, like you, I noticed a bias in the tesing procedure. I read some article years ago where they tested a bunch of euro trash vs some domestics. To show you how long ago it was one of the cars tested was an Oldsmobile Achieva SCX.
That d@mned Olds beat most all of those euro cars. At the time I was a dyed in the wool domestic guy and it ticked me off. They slagged the olds and raved about the Euro cars. The point to the test was speed. Yet, the euro cars won for fit and finish and stuff that hand zero to do with getting around a track fast. Also, the Olds was something like 10-15k cheaper than the cars it beat! It smacked of crap to me so I quit reading them all at that point. Especially since I was far from rich, still am not rich, and couldn't stand to read another review of the BMW Reicher Ficker which burned the wallets of poor people for fuel.
I'm ranting here and not making much sense but you get my drift.
Xceler8x wrote:
II'm ranting here and not making much sense but you get my drift.
You may be ranting, but you're preaching to the choir here. I'm getting tired of hearing BMW M3 and or Honda accord winning a comparison test that they weren't even involved in.
How much (column inches, page count, whatever) advertising space did Hundai have in that mag? How much did GM have? Just wondering. Maybe they should do a test for various brands of "Herbal Viagra," as that seems to be quite the ad generator for the non-GRM mags.
Yeah, usually the massive bias to foreign cars is what i notice, but stuff like the Camaro/Geneisis thing shows a little deeper into the way they think.
Basically, its like HS kids- Jap cars are cool, yo, but so are Camaros. I think they think of it as hiding the bias.
That said, i think that comparo is closer then it looks. Camaro has tq on the Gen, and if it wasnt a body made to take a V8 (and lost the related weight penalty) I think it would out perform the Gen.
Maybe.
There's very few mags out there doing new vehicle tests and comparisons with the nards to be truly objective. DIRT BIKE and DIRT RIDER were/are the two biggies in the off road motorcycle world and several years ago both mags ran, as they generally do, annual new model MX bike shootouts. The 125 class is usually tested first, 250s the next issue and this was the 125 test. DR softsoaped everything with the final line 'but in the right hands, any of these can be a winner'. DB said flat out their Yamaha was a stinker and it couldn't be attributed to a 'lemon', that it needed basic design improvements to bring it on a par with the others tested. Yamaha's sales people demanded a retraction, DB refused so Yamaha yanked their advertising for 10 years. DB's editors kept getting letters about the whole thing for years and they always answered them the same: if the bike is good we'll say so, if not we won't. They also weren't afraid to say if an aftermarket part was not up to par. That kept their subscription in my mailbox for a LONG time.
Mental
SuperDork
5/5/09 12:08 p.m.
Aside from the obvious (the lot of us being GRM kinda folks) I think the great superiority of GRM/CM lies in the fact that the mag is done by peaple, not commitees.
The guy who owns the thing is out there selling ads. So he aviods the assorted swedish enhacment products for the kinda of folks he knows we can buy from. CRC, Crz Z Soap, etc etc etc, becuase there is no commitee. he knows what he publishes, meets the lot of us at events and can taylor his marketting to the needs of his readership. Then it trickles down. The gal who ons the thing will be the one making phone calls and answering the phone if the ad isn't right. Hence the extra attention to getting it right. The peaple that edit, take pictures and write are the same that we all meet at a dozen events throughout the country and double that many just plain old gearhead settings.
The bigger mags aren't sure who their readership are, and as a result cater to the adverstisers instead of finding advertisers who match the readers. So they have these comittess and do profitabilty studies and teh like aand the result is a lot of recycled content within a publisher's house to placate their advertisers.
Given the ads for the last big mag I thumbed through at a checkout counter, I don't want to see the next comparision test. It will probably belong in the Forumsection of another "non-car" magazine
Just my $02
Per Schroeder
Technical Editor/Advertising Director
5/5/09 12:18 p.m.
As soon as we get a Genesis to test.
[Per]Dont make me turn this forum around[/Per]
thedude
New Reader
5/5/09 11:13 p.m.
I get sick of reading about the luxury vacations the journalists take to see some E36 M3ty car. "We roll through the beautiful backroads of Monaco on our way to the luxury resort where we were greeted with a fabulous dinner and a massage and free tote bags...." and then they drive the car for five minutes and call it not a turd samwich.
Josh
HalfDork
5/6/09 6:01 a.m.
I love the fact that someone's thought process, at some point, was "you know who could really use some good soap -- GRM readers, that's who", and thus, a series of back panel ads was born :).