The Thing About Vehicle Forums

[rusty-away]

I've done some thinking about vehicle-specific forums on the Interwebs and drawn some conclusions/personal opinions...

Some history: I joined a couple of Land Rover forums back in 2005 when I bought a brand-new Disco 3. I knew nothing about the vehicle other than I could point it in the direction I needed and managed to proceed in a forward direction. Owner's manuals only go so far and I was like a sponge, wanting to soak up all the knowledge I could garner about my new car.

Don't get me wrong, I got lots of invaluable information which I was able to put to good use...but... I also got the first-hand horror stories from all of those Land Rover owners whose cars had shit-the-tin for a variety of reasons and, to be honest, I started to get scared. I almost had a feeling of impending doom the whole time I was driving the Landy. It got to the point that I stopped visiting the forum, deciding that not knowing what was coming was better than perpetually dreading what was to come.

Long story short, in 7 years of ownership only one thing happened to that car that caused it to fail to proceed. The high pressure fuel pump failed and when it did, it was literally right around the corner from a Land Rover specialist who had the part in stock! The vehicle was literally back on the road in a couple of hours. So impressed was I by the great run that I had with the Disco 3, I bought a Disco 4 and kept both cars for a while. I did eventually part with the Disco 3, almost tearfully.

So, what did I do when I got the Disco 4? Well, it was different enough from the Disco 3 that I resorted to visiting the forums again. Again, the information I gained was invaluable and, again, the ever-present horror stories were also there, ready to frighten the bejesus out of me. You know what? I sold that Disco 4 yesterday, 11 years after I bought it and it never once failed to proceed. Not once!

So, here I am now, new Cupra Born, joining a forum of like-minded people, hoping to glean valuable information and really getting the pants scared of me with some of the stuff I've been reading. I have resolved to "tough it out" this time. My conclusion is that many people join these forums for the same reason I did - to learn things and to pass on things to others. I've seen plenty of that here. I also think some people have been in the unfortunate position of having issues, some serious, with their Born, and need somewhere to either vent, or see if anyone else is having the same problem, or bit of both. From my experience with the Land Rover and Land Rover forums I have concluded that the number of issues one reads on forums is not necessarily a reflection of how many people actually have these things happen to them, over the entire sales of the make.

So, I'm not going to ignore the problems that some folk are having - after all, forewarned is forearmed - but I'm not going to worry about stuff happening until it happens. This looks like it is a good forum with lots of good natured folk and I'm planning on staying if you'll have me around.

Cheers

Rusty

[daern]

14,000 miles here and not too much to complain about. Still very happy with the car, so if they'd just stop breaking the API back-end, I'll be a happy camper.

[Daveion]

Welcome to the forum Rusty.
I agree with much of what you have said and I have been around for a time. My first car was in 1968, before the Internet. Some people seem to get on the forum to moan, others to sing their cars praises so try to keep a balance and share knowledge where I can.

[rusty-away]

14,000 miles here and not too much to complain about. Still very happy with the car, so if they'd just stop breaking the API back-end, I'll be a happy camper.

Here in Australia we don't get any connected services at all. In fact, of the VW Group vehicles only the Audi has this available here. According to to the motoring press it will be at least 2025 before we can expect to see any connected services and, even then, Cupra is being coy about what services may work retrospectively (on cars already sold.)

Rusty

[WoT]

The differences here: first, the manual is just ridiculous and fails to explain really basic functions of the software. The forum has made things like scheduled charging work for me. Second, this is...i realized too late...the bleeding edge still. If we don't exchange ideas here, some of us will take a long time to fathom how to live with these things.

[WoT]

...furthermore, i just wanted a car , not a tech toy. Your phrase "failure to proceed "? I spent about 40 minutes around Cirencester on sunday looking for a charge point to get me home. The forum has been handy in sharing this most fundamental kind of issue with EVs and helping me acquire some of the tools to mitigate. So it really is about the simple stuff, for me.

[rusty-away]

...furthermore, i just wanted a car , not a tech toy. Your phrase "failure to proceed "? I spent about 40 minutes around Cirencester on sunday looking for a charge point to get me home. The forum has been handy in sharing this most fundamental kind of issue with EVs and helping me acquire some of the tools to mitigate. So it really is about the simple stuff, for me.

Yeah. I guess that reinforces what I'm saying. Forums have lots of helpful stuff and even the horror stories are helpful in their own way, it's just that I don't want to spend all of my time worrying about what the next possible calamity may be. "Fail to Proceed" is a phrase I picked up from the owner manual of a vehicle I bought almost a lifetime ago. It's just a nicer way of saying "broken down". In so far as the tech stuff goes, I'm like you. All I want to do is get in the car, have the stereo come on to whatever settings I had last time I sat in the driver's seat, set the climate controls to suit the day and then just drive. I haven't even tried the parking assist, lane assist and stuff like that but, I do use the adaptive cruise control. I do 95% of my driving on open country roads, so learning how to use ACC was a must.

Cheers

Rusty

[dickyp]

I’m somewhere between you two on age, my starting point was in the maxpower era of motoring and the internet coming online. Forums generally were there for like minded people, modding the cars, arranging meets etc.

Now model specific forums do seem more problem areas whether that’s because the “clubs” migrated to new platforms Facebook, instagram etc who knows. Tips and tricks are great but general conversations seem to increase traffic and help.