I suppose this may seem a silly question depending upon the extent to which you consider Curbside Classic to be a “car forum”. Actually, my question is about a different type of online beast than this site. What I am asking about is closer to what back in the dark ages used to be called a “BBS” or bulletin board system. Rather than primarily featuring photos and/or essays like CC, these more primal message-based systems are designed mostly for hosting asynchronous “conversations” around topics authorized by the system managers. This is what I mean when I say “Forums”.
Since forums can be used for a variety of different purposes ranging from purely factual to entirely social. I’m curious what you’ve found them useful for, or not useful for. Do you have any forum pet peeves? Have you had any particularly remarkable forum experiences? Or perhaps you have reasons for avoiding them altogether. Here’s an opportunity to discuss something that I expect plays a not-insignificant role in many CC readers’ online lives.
My own forum story relates to the changing relationship I have had with these things over the past 20 years or so.
I first discovered automotive forums in the form of a site called North American Motoring (NAM) in 2002. I don’t recall exactly how long I lurked on that site before officially joining on July 15, 2002 (according to my user profile page). Lurker or member, NAM absorbed a lot of my time during the early years of my new MINI ownership. It was there that I developed a sense of basic forum etiquette and protocol. Not that this was technically my first involvement with similar online environments. I was an avid user of dial-up CompuServe in the 1980s.
Some of you will know that this is an “acoustic coupler” modem. One just like this sat on my home desk, next to a VT-100 terminal, in 1984. Most evenings it was connected to CompuServe.
In fact, in its original incarnation CompuServe was really little more than an online home for a series of interconnected message forums. CompuServe itself was by no means the first online message board system – those had been developing among techie communities over the course of the 1970s. But what CompuServe did in the 1980s was to prove the concept that a growing segment of the general public could be interested in the sweet allure of (seemingly) anonymous conversation with strangers, electronic messaging (email), and of course using these technologies for buying/selling/trading stuff.
As long as we’re on a history of technology jag here, it should be noted that using electronic communications technology to buy/sell/trade stuff was in itself an established thing even before computer-based message boards. Surely some of you recall radio swap meets/flea markets. These still exist. In fact, selling vehicles seems to be what we would now call “evergreen content” on these programs. If you’re unfamiliar with the genre, consult your AM radio (huh??) dial. Apparently some are rebroadcast online and via Spotify.
Just amazing. All of the Vermonters you will ever want to hear (I think. But maybe not. I do love Vermont.) talking about the cars, trucks, tires, snowmobiles, pygmy dwarf goats, spare room rentals for single people, etc. that they have for sale. It’s a podcast too. Talk about history of technology mashups.
With the migration of 1980s message boards onto the World Wide Web came access to a larger segment of the public. Thank you Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and best of luck trying to put that genie back in the bottle. We’re counting on you.
Significantly the Web provided users the ability to link outside of the actual forum. This expanded available content as well as the user base. In retrospect, web-based forums were the beginning of what ultimately came to be social media. This brings us current to what historians of technology refer to as Web 2.0.
My point in all of this, winding up with social media, is to explain that while I may have initially been drawn to NAM, a car forum, for informational content my participation quickly morphed into a more socially-centered experience. I was enthralled with NAM and the clubby fun “lifestyle” that seemed to characterize MINI ownership in those early years of this century. Somehow, the fact that this experience was online (or as we now might say “virtual”) was particularly appealing to a person who is not naturally gregarious and does not participate particularly well in face-to-face, non-business, conversation.
Basically, I’m really not a lot of fun at parties.
Gen Zers – with their orientation toward virtual versus face-to-face activities – are probably pretty in line with where I’m at. To the extent that I might be better at parties now than I was 30 years ago could relate to getting a lot of practice socializing, online. Maybe I’m ahead of my time.
Just as online forums in fact recreated something that had been tried before via older technologies, the value of building a social community around marque ownership had of course also preexisted. A notable example of this was what Saturn attempted in the just-prior-to-the-Web era of the early 1990s. The Saturn Homecoming was basically like a car forum, except in a single weekend, with live musical performances by the likes of Wynonna Judd, and fewer photos of people in those really baggy 1990s jeans.
Indeed, Wynonna was there at the first homecoming in 1994.
She later was featured on Saturn’s 1994 promotional CD, another attempt to build the Saturn lifestyle experience through connections to non-automotive things. They’d stopped handing these discs out by the time I got my Saturn a couple of years later. Or maybe I got one and ignored it because “joining the Saturn Family” wasn’t high on my list of face-to-face activities back then. Nor for that matter was owning a Saturn as I let that car go before the warranty expired.
Anyhow, the new MINI by coming along half a decade later and in a different technology environment took an online approach to community building. NAM was never sponsored by MINI, but I was initially told about it by my MINI dealer. On NAM, one could share pride in ownership, explore frustrations about an early and pretty buggy vehicle, and learn various aspects of what was portrayed as MINI motoring culture. Most significantly, NAM had a thriving “Off-Topic” section and over time this came to be my – and I think many members’ – go-to destination on the site. In Off-Topic, everything from politics to lifestyle choices came to be discussed. That is, everything that ultimately came to define social media.
Eventually though, despite having hit “6th Gear” – the designation for members who had high post counts – I burned out on my MINI community. NAM back then (it could well be different now for all I know) had relatively weak technical discussions. Part of the problem of course was that in the beginning, everyone’s car was under warranty, thereby dampening much of a DIY movement. There was some gear-head discussion of MINI modification (endless posts about changing the supercharger pulley and the potential warranty-voiding problems therewith), but this paled in relation to the forum’s much more diverse Off Topic discussions.
For my part, I ultimately wanted more information about how to actually fix my car than discussion around headlight flashing and various takes on 2004’s dating culture. There simply wasn’t enough content there to keep my interest in a car that I frankly was losing interest in as well.
Not long after trading in the MINI, I moved on to BMW and BMW-related forums. I migrated armed with a more informed opinion on what I was looking for in a car forum community.
I’ve also participated in several old-Volvo forums and am an infrequent visitor to the Toyota Nation forum. Both the BMW as well as Volvo forums have what I assume to be thriving Off Topic sections. I wouldn’t know since post-NAM I swore off “Off Topic” participation in any forum. This aligns with my personal pro-mental-health policy to mostly avoid things such as Facebook. I have grown more than a little apprehensive about Web 2.0 (present company aside). Don’t even get me started about Web 3.0. To paraphrase Borat, Web 3.0, “Everybody know is for ROBOT!”
The Turbobricks Volvo forum was notable for its strong personalities and their ability to guide the conversation to their point of view…a point of view that was reasonably-well technically-informed and that I often agreed with on subjects such as 700 and 900 series cars and the need to punish poser hipsters. I enjoyed that forum for some time and appreciated advice from some of the more technically-knowledgeable members. But as the availability of mechanical information grew over time (Hello YouTube) and my expertise grew as well, I eventually got weary of Turbobricks. Though the orientation of the forum sections I frequented was technical, there was still a bit too much social club for my tastes.
Which leaves me as far as online forums go with E90Post.com, a sub-forum of the expansive Bimmerpost.
I have been a member of that forum since the time when E90 (etc.) BMWs were common. Yes, they’re still common but many if not most have passed into the realm of hooptie, collectable, or “I’m working hard to keep this car on the road.”. That latter designation encompasses yours truly for sure. The upshot is that the percentage of members who post worries about depreciation, feats of strength evidenced by “pulling” dyno tests or conducting stoplight drag races, and whether or not their obsessively-maintained low mileage cars can be trusted to drive from Orange County to the Bay Area without grenading has steadily decreased.
Presumably the rest of the remaining BMW owners are ok with 7 hour road trips.
The point is, E90Post has settled down to being mostly frequented by regular people and shares (mostly) regular people’s concerns. Which brings me to my last point/part of this QOTD; which is the extent to which forums for you are a source of valuable information or perhaps just entertaining reading that serve to alert you to a fascinating range of problems that your car may never have.
This from a post entitled “Please help me identify this wire under my car.” Akin to the post associated with our lede photo, entitled “Need help identifying rubber part from N52 engine bay”.
Not to say that reading worried posts about random bits of rubber, wires and fluids that forum members find beneath and within their cars is not entertaining, but the extent to which this has any impact upon my own technical awareness is dubious. If I were to pay much attention, it would mostly raise my anxiety about my own car…a car which remains quite capable of driving 700 miles at a time and doesn’t typically shed screws that I don’t personally drop. I now mostly read forums for entertainment and occasionally comment to assure folks that their cars will be ok regardless of their tragic, life-altering, mistake of substituting 5w-40 oil for 5w-30.
I’ve also not entirely given up on in-person car clubs (perhaps a whole other subject). While I’ve recently exited BMW CCA after nearly 30 years of membership since it was simply irrelevant to me, I replaced that with the Volvo Club of America. VCOA’s dues are less expensive and its magazine has fewer articles that make me feel bad for not playing golf/polo or driving the Amalfi coast. I’ll see how that goes.
So what’s been your experience, and possibly Internet life-history, with car forums?
It turns out that CompuServe is still around. You can visit its website, and it looks very much like something that your extraordinarily-elderly in-law might use. It’s freaky-weird to see a site design right out of 1995, with 2024’s news on it. Enter that rabbit hole at your own peril and don’t blame me.
None of the car forums mentioned in this article are officially associated with or sanctioned by the manufacturers their members are fans of.
And who often does NOT read his own work carefully enough 😉
Thanks…fixed.
The only three I look at, maybe two to three times a week, would be ForCBodiesOnly, Ford-Trucks (FTE), and Bob is the Oil Guy. Hagerty maybe twice a month. Yet are they what you are talking about? As for CC it is everyday just before taking off for the carrier at 0700 hours on Saturday.
Bob is the Oil Guy seems pretty renowned. I’ve been there a few times, and it’s often cited by people in just about every other forum who are attempting to authoritatively settle arguments about oil changes.
I haven’t been on a vehicle-related forum for over a year, the last one being Modern Buddy (for riders of Genuine Buddy scooters). I’ve poked around a few, for makes and models I’ve been considering buying. I don’t find the signal-to-noise ratio to be very good these days. 80% of the information requests could be solved in 30 seconds on Google.
Seems like many forums have been replaced by Facebook groups, which I find to be even worse!
Evan, your statement about “signal to noise ratio” pretty much sums up what I also feel about forums. Same goes for Facebook groups.
When I owned my 1997 Miata I was in the Miata forum daily. I could post a question in the middle of a project or repair and get an answer in minutes. I miss that community.
Wow, nice forum history! I’m impressed your personal use goes way back to cradling your phone receiver on a modem.
For me, my forum use goes back to the late 90s but I was never a major user. The first forum I spent serious time on was the now-departed Yahoogroups, specifically the 9C1 List (i.e. Chevrolet former police cars). It mostlycentered on technical topics but occasionally went off on tangents. That forum was very well trafficked in the early 00’s then gradually dwindled to almost nothing its last several years before Yahoo pulled the plug on the whole platform. This time frame of its decline
matches up very well with the ascendancy of Facebook.
Facebook took over much of the terrain of traditional forums. Personally I hate FB
and refuse to use it for automotive interests, and not much else either. Forums are
great for being able to choose particularular threads and coming and going back to
them over time.
I still belong to a few forums. The Mustang ones are actually pretty active which is
encouraging. I think maybe the shine is off Facebook a bit as people have realized
it’s not the best for that type of exchange. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking!
” not naturally gregarious and does participate particularly well in face-to-face, non-business, conversation.”
Did you mean “…does NOT participate…”? I had to read that a couple times to figure it out.
Yes, I very much agree about Facebook (continuing from what Evan also said above). My main beefs with Facebook automotive groups – and I’ve accidentally stumbled into a few over time – are also my main beefs with reading anything on Facebook. That is, a complete lack of literacy on the part of the majority of the posts (e.g., “posts” that ask questions without verbs…like “Christmas trees?”. As if anyone is really supposed to know what THAT means.). And also the algorithm’s refusal to show all posts to a thread in order (without my having to click on a bunch of stuff to make that happen). The fact that FB is always trying to show me what is “Most Relevant” (to who? to what??) drives me nuts.
In the end, I realize that I am having a conversation with a robot…and that kind of destroys the whole point of a forum (at least one where the point is to have conversations with fellow humans).
I’m on the HR-V forum because I drive one. I don’t learn much, because so many there are first time car owners, so mostly I try to impart my vast knowledge of automobiles. On the other hand the Lotus forum is excellent. Otherwise I just look at pictures. Part of my morning news/internet routine.
I love forums and am on more than a few .
As a Journeyman Mechanic I enjoy reading about the current mind set towards whatever repair I’m doing right now, I also enjoy helping out others who don’t really understand Mechanicing in general and just want to keep their auld crate running .
For me the best aspect of forums is when the discussions begin to meander .
I learn -so- much from these detours .
The only down side is the occasional mouth breather who insists on inserting politics, always to some right wing nutball theorem .
I also find parts through forums .
I didn’t discover the BBS format until they were all almost gone, they were neat because I could read through a thread so quickly .
The down side was : no pictures / images / torque spec. charts and so on .
I hope to never get on facbok but I have enjoyed my recent forays into specific tech. forums on reddit .
It’s nice to be helpful, I try to convince those who contact me outside of the forum to post their entire issue and solution to the forums as often others will know where to get a tool or part necessary and ask if I’ve tried doing a thing this other way so I’m still always learning .
-Nate
(still looking for a fuel tank and rack for a 1984 HONDA CB125S, will buy a complete bike for parts)
You bring up Reddit, which is interesting to me as I sometimes have a sense that Reddit is in its ascendancy so far as a harbor for human-to-human conversation online. That may be a total fiction that I’ve created in my mind though since I’m only an occasional Reddit reader.
I love the detours as well (go figure), and can’t stomach political commentary.
To answer your first question, way too much time. But far less than I used to. I’m finding that the forum signal-to-noise-ratio and “social” aspects are just getting worse and worse. If I need repair (or for my late model vehicles, mostly maintenance) advice, I turn to YouTube. I do follow a couple of Facebook groups which despite FB’s bad side, often have good info.
As for my history on line, it goes back about 40 years now. Working in the computer industry (I don’t remember people calling it tech back then) we got access to the Internet’s precursor, the Usenet, through character-only terminals in around 1983 or ‘84. No access to Compuserve, I think, but there were so-call newsgroups which were like bulletin boards. One was rec.autos, which spawned subgroups like rec.autos.tech, if I recall correctly, as well as rec.motorcycles and rec.music, where I spent more time than on rec.autos in those days.
As for the more modern forum format, I don’t remember when I started on those. Work and parenting were keeping me distracted, but I remember being a fairly early member of adventure rider.com, some Subaru Forester forum, IH8MUD which is a Land Cruiser forum, and mtbr.com for mountain biking. Today I look at TacomaWorld and FordTransitUSA daily (maybe) but that’s about it. CC is my favorite automotive info and community involvement.
I’ve wound up on TacomaWorld every once in a while in a desperate search for Toyota info. I have to say that I have struggled to find useful Toyota info online. Particularly information on anything hybrid (which would be why I’d be looking for Toyota info). The amount of misinformation there is staggering and it’s disappointing that there seems to be no really authoritative DIY information source for Toyota (and nothing close or equivalent to what RealOEM provides so far as being able to look up parts diagrams for BMWs). Anyway, I’ve wound up on TacomaWorld when trying to find basic info…and it’s seemed somewhat more sane than ToyotaNation so far as having people who know the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver. 😉
And yeah, I remember Usenet.
It was called Data Processing during my brief foray in programming for a major Baltimore bank during the last of the punched card days. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.
I frequented rec.audio.tubes a bit later, having started with that hobby in 1964 when I built a Heathkit amp I got for Christmas. Still at it.
I was a hardware guy so not really data processing, but I do remember punch cards. Don’t fold spindle or mutilate. I understood folding and mutilating, but what the heck is spindling?
Sticking it on a spike or punch.
Endicott NY where I live much of the year was the original home of IBM and at one time had 5 factories, 15,000 employees, and all of the punched card equipment.
Though a biologist, because I had used and written programs for DEC PDP-8 and PDP-11 computers in grad school (later on I collected them), a fellow grad who went right into DP (IT) convinced me to work with him in 1980. Big mistake, at least for me, and working in a bank. They had IBM 3033 and 3083 IBM mainframes. Programs were a 8″ +pile of 80 column punched cards held together by a rubber band. Real-time data base retrieval MVS and CRTs were just coming in. Left as soon as possible to be back in “real” science in ’82 and never looked back, best thing I ever did. Those were the days.
Memories. I was coding in Fortran on the IBM 3081 using punch cards when working for Rockwell on aerospace programs in the early 1980’s.
I was active for years on the original QuattroList and then the S-Car-List, both of which helped immensely with keeping my ’93 Audi S4 and then ‘95.5 S6 alive and healthy. The amount of hugely knowledgeable and creative people there was immense and went no small way toward saving me heaps of money (and also discovering create new ways to spend more heaps of money), a number of people on there became personal friends as well, both over here and in other countries leading to several fruitful and interesting in-person meetings and experiences. I think my first useful thing occurred in around 1999 when I acquired my ’93 and it developed an issue where the boost would build but then cut out around 4000rpm in high-load situations. I posted a query late at night and within half an hour had a response from Iowa, 1am-ish local time instructing me to take off the cowl cover and under there discover a valve with a vacuum hose that would surely be at least partially disconnected due to an undersized clamp that would need replacing with a better one available at any hardware store. Sure enough, that’s exactly what the issue was. My thanks to Darin Nederhoff, the curator of the S-Car-List, for answering that question and becoming an online friend for many years after.
Brickboard was very helpful with the 740 Turbo, and then there were many, many other forums that I’d join depending on what cars I had, all of them useful at one time or another through the present day whenever an issue or a question presents itself that isn’t obviously answered in the owner’s manual. There’s a Jaguar X-Type forum that I frequented in its early days when we had the ’02 when it was near-new that I’ve re-engaged with since getting the ’05 and been completely amazed at how now virtually ANY issue has been seen and solved multiple times making ownership far less of a worry.
VWvortex has been visited for decades now as well to help with Jetta and several GTIs along with the Touareg. Multiple Subaru forums and a couple of Jeep Wrangler ones have been helpful too but mainly as a perusal tool rather than active membership.
And of course Rennlist, probably the main Porsche one that helped with the 996 and was one of the reasons why I felt confident in having been able to own one without a massive wallet.
Nowadays if something happens I’ll usually just ask Google and then click on whichever forum it suggests with a topic that seems to approximate what I need. I’m not currently actively “active” though on any kind of forum and avoid Facebook like the plague I think it is, no clicks to there.
At the end of the day there is no doubt in my mind that Forums, especially the earlier ones, were a huge contributor toward making cars last longer and especially making more interesting or exotic ones far more viable for a “regular Joe” to own and maintain; in some ways they perhaps ended up taking some business away from specialist mechanics but likely also added to their volume by dint of more cars simply surviving longer or having demand for them rather than being scrapped due to lack of funds or local talent to deal with issues. Clear explanations and advice as to how to solve issues, resources and tips on where to find a part, what other parts might work (cheap Audi A4 ignition switch is the same as expensive Porsche 996 ignition switch for example) and just a resource for a mid-repair hiccup to go to and receive remote help makes almost anything achievable or at least doesn’t leave one at the exclusive mercy of an expensive shop.
I was going to mention Brickboard in the article, since I actually preferred that to Turbobricks. It was much more centered on technical info and had less attitude (at least in the threads I visited). I don’t remember exactly what brought it down…but I think it had something to do with the person running it just deciding that he’d had enough and taking down the server? Or maybe Volvo killed it by demanding that some of the technical library be removed. It seems like Volvo went through a period of time when they were particularly aggressive around copyright infringement issues.
Jim, I very much agree with your point about forums contributing to keeping cars around for longer. That’s certainly been the case for me.
Interesting topic – and something I haven’t given too much thought to before now.
I don’t spend much time on car forums, and actually less time than I used to. Forums aren’t the first… well, forum… that I check out when seeking an answer to a car question. General internet and YouTube searching comes first. But I do resort to a handful of bookmarked forums occasionally. Sites like TCCoA (Thunderbird Cougar Club of America) and Kia-Forums have yielded answers occasionally, though most forums tend to have frustrating search capabilities, especially for non-members, so that tends to keep me away.
And to wander down a few rabbit holes from your post here – just a few weeks ago I unearthed a Judds CD in our basement that I’d forgotten about, and put it in our 2010 Odyssey (which still has a CD player). Great music to catch up with after a long time.
I loved the idea of the Saturn Homecoming, however cheesy it seemed/seems. I was rooting for Saturn from the sidelines, and its failure was sort of heartbreaking since I was one of those who held high hopes for the brand.
Also, thanks for the CompuServe link. It’s an amazing time warp. Just this year I ditched my “Mindspring” email, which I’d had since 1999. (Mindspring was an ISP in the South that was later absorbed by EarthLink, which itself has become a living dinosaur like CompuServe.) The reason I signed up with Mindspring to begin with was because a co-worker used it, and by signing up, I provided his name as a reference and he got a $5 referral bonus. It’s funny to think now that that’s how internet service used to work!
Mindspring! I haven’t thought about them for a quarter of a century…but I recall them from the days of “Mindspring-Earthlink” (or maybe it was the other way around). Earthlink was my first ISP and I used them for maybe the first 10 years of my company’s online presence. Back in those days, well before Internet access was common (“WiFi” wasn’t even a word until 2000, about 7 years after we put up our first server…a Gopher Server!), dial-up was necessary for anyone who traveled as I did. For whatever reason I wound up with Earthlink. Which merged with Mindspring shortly into this century. And then not too long after that, I realized that I just didn’t need dial up access everywhere, so I put Earthlink-Mindspring out to pasture.
Somerset Maugham said “There is a certain elegance in wasting time. Any fool can waste money, but when you waste time you waste what is priceless.”
I’d like my early 40s to mid 50s back for a do-over.
I have typically joined a forum for almost every car I’ve owned for the last 20 years. I was never a fixture on them, but mainly logged in to either investigate a whether a particular problem is common and how others have solved it, or to investigate a model’s common issues so I can watch for or avoid them.
Grandmarq.net was a great source of info for my Panther cars, and there was a great Honda Odyssey forum with a pretty tight group of Gen1 Oddy fans. I was on FitFreak.net for a long time, and also followed Miata and Kia forums when I owned those. I could occasionally go down fun but useless rabbit holes like threads for turning a lopo 5.0 in a Panther into the hipo version like in Mustangs, or the guy who converted a Crown Vic to a 5 speed stick.
I need to join a good forum on my Mazda3 but YouTube has a lot of info on the older ones. My Charger, as a new specimen of an older model, would benefit from a forum dive so I can stay abreast of knowledge about currently known issues like the Pentastar tick.
I actually joined a Honda Odyssey forum at one point (when so many folks I knew had Odysseys) so that I could acquire info on failed rear brakes (wheel bearing? or maybe that was a Subaru Forrester forum which I joined for the same reasons) and have something intelligent to say to my friend as she fought the local Honda dealer.
Yes, but only to the extent of a Google search, either for some CC writing research or for an issue with one of my cars. I do subscribe to the Promaster forum and get a weekly email, which I will peruse. It’s been quite instructive.
Forum software has never been great, but 25 years ago it wasn’t any more challenging to use than dial-up BBS software had been. But this software genre has barely evolved since then. I find most forum software to create more friction in using it, than I get value out of the forum.
The last car forum I belonged to was MatrixOwners.com, now defunct. After I bought my Jetta GLI last year I considered joining a forum, but then found that there is a large community at r/GLI on Reddit. Reddit is WAY better (to me) than any standalone forum software. So r/GLI it is. Even if 80% of the posts are about tuning, and 10% are photos of wrecked GLIs.
I’ve only recently become Reddit user (usr?). I had the impression it was a haven for conspiracy theory wacko’s (and maybe it is) but some Google searches for bicycle and home repair info has pointed me to some good stuff. I guess like any forum there are good and bad subgroups, users etc. I actually got an account and poke around local news and a subreddit for my newest bike. The relevant (ie makes/models I own) car stuff isn’t very interesting to me though.
It’s mostly a haven for porn. It seems like every search brings up NSFW subreddits.
My first forum-like experience was actually an email mailing list that supported a BMW E3 community (that’s what was known as the Bavaria in the U.S. and all it’s numerous iterations). This was the mid-nineties and the participants were a unique bunch to say the least, very DIY-oriented and pretty much my kind of people. This mailing lists provided me access to an invaluable knowledge base that was pretty much unavailable anywhere else at the time. Key among the groups attributes was fostering a healthy, open hatred of anything related to E9 coupes and to a lesser extent, E10s (2002, et al). This largely had to do with the E3 (despite laying the pattern for nearly every BMW moving forward and being the best BMW EVER) was/is an unloved redheaded step child of the BMW world while the E9 and E10 get all the attention.
In more recent times I’ve participated in a number of vintage BMW, Mopar and Mercedes forums; usually finding them pretty active and full of helpful/knowledgeable participants. These types of forums continue to be my preferred format for the exchange of this type of information.
Most recently I was in search for a forum that supported a certain obscure, early sixties family of GM models. Having no luck my only choice was to join Facebook to gain access to 2 separate groups that supported 2 of the three models within this family. Facebook is weird, I don’t really like it vs the more traditional forums I’ve become accustomed to. Also, about half the participants within these groups seem to be cut from a different pattern that I can’t really connect with; many making what I consider odd/questionable modifications to their cars – could be I’m just getting old.
I wish I’d found that E3 forum…it probably would have helped me keep my Bavaria. In fact, my experience with that car (from the early 1990s through about 2002, although about roughly half of that time it slept in my garage, immobile) echoes what Jim Klein was saying above about how forums have helped keep old cars on the road. There were just so many things about the E3 that I needed help with, but really couldn’t find the help; and so ultimately I gave up.
Having owned a ’71 E3 2800 from 1975 to ’78, as well as a ’73 2002 a bit later, I’d very strongly dispute that the E3 was the best BMW ever! YMMV.
True that.
And that would be an excellent debate to be had on some BMW forum or another.
I had several forums that I used to be active on. AllFordTrucks, the Antique Radio forum, The HokeyAss Message board (HAMB) and the Fedora Lounge. My favorite was the Jaguar Forums which were a great resource in maintaining and fixing up your ailing Jag. Most of the forums I visited were to find information about my cars. I never had an interest in them as a social thing, though you do get to “know” some of the frequent posters.
For face to face conversations, I attend my local Cars and Coffee events and shows, as a visitor and as a participant. I enjoy talking with the car’s owners and other show attendees. Driving vintage cars I get into a lot of conversations in parking lots and gas stations.
I also currently spend time on the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) forum, which is a very extensive site and has many different subheadings. YouTube is really helpful for specific information in repairing my fleet of cars.
I visit CC everyday, but I consider it more of an online magazine, though there is a great community of contributors and commenters.
I’m not familiar with Facebook, but it doesn’t seem like a system that could be used for longer, in depth conversations.
Jose, I’d love to hear/read more about your Cars & Coffee experience (i.e., you should write about that). Such things exist in my area, but given our weather, it’s kind of a 2-season thing…unlike what I imagine being possible in your part of the country. Plus, my general disinclination to do face-to-face things has kept me from participating.
And yes, I think you peg CC for what it is and why I wouldn’t consider it a “forum”. We’re definitely more of an interactive magazine.
Antique Radio forum? Tell me more. (glances over at the 10 tube radios displayed in the dining room).
But seriously, I haven’t really pursued that hobby in 10 years or so. It’s probably dangerous for me to pick it back up. It won’t stop me from searching the forum out, though…
Indeed. Says the guy who just got rid of the last antique radio over here a month or so ago…and so now could be tempted to refill that now-vacant space.
Somewhere end 90’s i was a member and spent a lot of time on bothe Car and driver and Road and Track forums. Good times, and made some friends I stiil talk to these days, we even formed our own car forum andnusedbthatbfornyears, our own small community with never more then 50 active members.
A lot of us hung out on the Autoweek forum. Sometimes we even talked about cars. When Autoweek had enough of such shinanigans and shut their websites forum down, we staged a takeover of the Motor Trend forum. Good times – fun as hell!
Sounds like a blast. I love the idea of takeovers.
I’m a comparative latecomer to the world of computing, having got our first computer about ’95. Never had a separate modem. But I do remember dial-up internet, and having to get off the internet if someone else wanted to make a phone call – cell phones were very rare and expensive here in those days. Plus we had no signal in the valley where we lived. AFAIK there’s still no signal down there. Lots of places like that in rural Australia.
I never got into the bulletin board/forum thing. I prefer a site laid out like this; the way my brain’s wired I find this easier to negotiate. But I did post regularly on one model car site for about twenty years, then moved across to Fakebook about eight years ago, when my writing group took to using it for communication.
I find that many of the forums for Mopars and Olds that I look at from time-to-time fairly informative and useful but a bit too many red-necky and troglodyte types, especially when it comes to discussion of certain non-auto topics… ’nuff said. Guess the old grease-monkey stereotype persists to an extent. I rarely comment on those.
The Harley forums (my interest nowadays is strictly pre-war antique H-Ds and m/cs) are even more so, but can be v useful when deep mechanical info is needed as more of the members actually work on their bikes than the car guys.
My electronics interests (former writer/editor for a vintage vacuum tube audio magazine that’s now defunct, like so many other print venues) are served by perusing and occasionally posting in antiqueradioforum, audiokarma and video karma. I find these to be more civil than the car forums, in general.
These took the place of the old rec.audio.tubes BBS.
The forum I’ve been a member on the longest is Yesterdays Tractors (for my Ford 8N), joined in 2003, but was hitting the site in late 2001 when I bought the tractor after we moved to our Middle West farm.
Like others above, I’ve joined forums based on the cars in our lives at the time, so a number have fallen off my daily reading list. On some of them, I’ve tried to “give more than I take,” by posting detailed writeups of mods I’ve done, etc. Others are more of a resource when I’m doing a repair.
The YT site mentioned above ran on an old, hand-coded platform for many years and was upgraded to one of the commonly used forum platforms early this year. Given the demographic skews a decade or more older than I am, it did not initially go over well, but most of the dust has since settled. There are some who never came back, but the site has also picked up a lot of new (and typically younger) users.
Forums (and lately Facebook Groups) have been invaluable in maintaining my Lancia Beta Zagato spider and my Dodge Ram 50 pickup (a rebadged Mitsubishi Mighty Max), where I also generously give back advice and generally “talk shop” with others in the same proverbial boat.
Car forums come in handy when they illustrate how to fix your car. For example I saved the “how to do it” pictures of a young owner’s repair of his rotted out trunk pan on his ’67 Dodge Polara that he posted on For C Bodies Only … I own a ’70 Plymouth Sport Fury in the same shape as his car … when I pop open the trunk, I can see the ground. He used various pieces of sheet metal which he cut to fit and then added the indentions in the metal from a jig that he made. I’m going to fix my trunk pan the same way.
The first thing I will need to do is visit the Harbor Freight store and buy their “second best” mig welder … then learn how to use it. I’ve already done my “homework” by going to YouTube and Google and searching “welding techniques.” I’ve never “struck an arc,” but if my work doesn’t look as good as a professional’s work it doesn’t matter as the NOS trunk mat I bought a few years ago will hide my amateur welding skills.
Ahhhh, you’re about to cross a DIY threshold that I’ve contemplated more than once myself. Welding. I haven’t done it yet, but when I think of (and read on forums) what acquiring that skill (and the stuff) would enable me to do, I’m constantly tempted.
So, you’re absolutely right I think about the role that forums can play in inspiring personal growth (at least growth so far as taking up a new skill).
As a side note, in my local area, there’s a large maker’s space cooperative that has space for makers to do welding (and it also has an automotive repair section). I’ve thought of joining just to learn welding from a fellow member (it’s set up for members to teach each other skills). I’ve wondered if some skills are better learned in-person than via video…and welding could be one of those. It’s the noodling around thinking about that kind of stuff that of course keeps me from just going to Harbor Freight and getting that 2nd-best MIG welder…
Fascinating history of forums Jeff. I’m a member of a couple of Ford Sierra forums (and FB groups), as it’s interesting and helpful reading about repairs/modifications that others have made, especially when they include a great selection of photos or diagrams! I’m a one-off visitor to other forums – often a car will be featured on CC which makes me want to know more and owners forums can be useful repositories of info. Mind you, a lot of the forums (and FB groups) contain info that needs to be taken with several grains of salt!
My webforum days started in the early 00’s on Woodie’s Fairlane forum, as I cut my teeth on my first car, a ’64 Fairlane. It was a very positive experience: I was around 18, filled with passion and a bit of innate mechanical aptitude. Like most guys in my shoes, I had a ton of ideas I liked to talk and dream about, and on some of the “all business” forums, I might have got a rough go of it. Fortunately, it was mostly older guys who could answer all my technical questions, and address some my rabbit trails tactfully. Sadly, I drifted away when I joined the Navy and went through flight training, and apparently Woody closed it down in ’12.
The next big one, that I’m still on, is benzworld.org. It’s got a wealth of information, and some pretty helpful guys, but also a place where you might draw flack as a typical newbie. Part of that is because it’s one of the busier forums I’ve been on, so there just isn’t the real estate for things to run wild. My biggest complaint is it’s kind of a coastal community – it’s hard to meet up and do things in person for a guy like me living in Montana. That’s the reverse of the snowmobiling forum I’m on (SnoWest): it’s a rougher crowd – with a few people just there to brag on their toys and how much money they throw around – but if you don’t let that intimidate you, it’s not bad. Obviously, I’m much nearer to the heart of that world, geographically, so I’ve been able to actually meet up with other members.
The other forum worth mentioning is 924board.org. I stumbled across my Porsche 931 a couple years ago, went digging for information, and quickly ended up there. It’s very old-school (still looks like mid-00s), but well worth it. I wisely just started one project thread on my car, and used the search function a lot. I’ve got a lot of help, info, and even parts for the cost of shipping from there. It helps that it’s pretty small, and the 924 isn’t a car that attracts many posers, but that has a broad, international following. It can be slow, so it’s not the place for daily automotive entertainment, but you can get a lot of basic tech advice, and even some pretty advanced help on more ambitious projects.
Some general observations on car forums… Most people want to help, but there’s usually not much patience for people who obviously haven’t shown much initiative in searching, downloading manuals if they’re available, or who come out trying to throw their weight around. I haven’t had much trouble with garbage advice anywhere; usually someone else will chime in and correct obviously dangerous or potentially destructive suggestions, and common sense alone will weed out a lot of it. Also, you pretty quickly get a sense of people who are out of their depth or only there to push their own agenda. I typically avoid the off-topic areas: what little good might come of it is offset by the acrimony it tends to bring. I’m happy to discuss religion and politics, but only with people I know in person and are willing to have a sincere discussion. When you’re arguing online with strangers, there’s just too much a chance of a few bad eggs derailing it.
Finally, I got off Facebook almost four years ago, and have never been on Reddit – other than occasionally finding an informative thread (but that’s seldom automotive). Those two entities have cut a lot of traffic to webforums in general, but the upside is, I feel like they do a lot of the “garbage collection” – the trolls and blowhards often fare better there, especially if they’re good at triggering the algorithms (whether by skill, or dumb luck). I probably lose out somewhat by not employing the big net you get with the social media giants, but I feel like people on automotive forums are far more likely to be of the same mind and intent as me. The same goes for Curbside Classics. You can find endless content from FB/IG/Reddit, and it’s likely to be more engrossing in a sense, but at the end of the day it’s only there to keep you there; they have engagement down to a science, and the winners tend to be content producers who have the best hooks, not the ones who truly teach you how to do something or present some forgotten but intriguing bit of history. So, I hope the traditional webforums stick around. No matter what, they’ll ebb and flow, and sometimes you get stuck in a rut with one, sometimes the interesting people dry up for some reason, but hopefully there’s always a good one to be found.
Beartooth, what a good, measured, discussion of how to navigate the forum world. I also find interesting your mention of how different forums “look” (for lack of a better term). My personal preference is for the old-school look of 924board. I find the smaller font and flatter style much easier to interact with than what I suppose is the visually-simplified style of something like benzworld. More colors and clicks (as seems to be the more modern style) are just distracting for me. I’d rather see as much information as possible laid out on my screen and then I can read and choose where to go.
Car forums can be weird at times!
In the early 2000s, well, winter 2003, there was a guy on Cheersandgears.com posting about the Google SEO of Robert Cannell the Arizona governor and Google hits for him. It turned into a big brouhaha about the user’s identity and IIRC, a complaint to his college in the UK- well college is high school over there sort of… not good. He faded into obscurity… the guy never seen again.
I’m in Toronto and used to view Mazda and Honda forums a lot… still got a ’92 Prelude Si 4WS I bought way back in 2004,
Sometimes things can be pretty bizarre
When I bought my G37 new in 2010 I was frustrated with the weird shifting behavior of the 7speed automatic (eventually fixed through a reflash of the transmission software) and started participating in the MyG37 forum. It was very helpful in finding updates/service alerts on things such as the updated transmission software. Recently (still have the G) I was experiencing a strange new vibrating noise at idle with the car in gear. The dealer performed an ECM valve system software update that did not eliminate the noise. The forum provided the solution: a 94 cent plastic push pin connector for the windshield washer tank neck support had disintegrated with age causing the neck/tank to vibrate at certain idle speeds. Snapped in a new connector pin to secure the neck and noise gone. The forums (and YouTube) are great for identifying this sort of problem.
So there was, in the early days of the Interwebs, an email digest for International Harvester owners called the IHCDigest. Before I bought my first Scout, and for several years afterwards, that was a great place to ask questions and meet other folks from all over the country. I don’t recall exactly when that shut down, but I’ve got an archive of about four years of emails from those days.
There was then a forum called the Binder Bulletin, an offshoot of a paper newsletter, that was very active for years until some sort of internal politics happened and it changed hands (this also coincided with the sale of my Scout to a friend, when I dropped out of the hobby for a couple of years).
When I bought my second truck I found everyone had moved over to Binder Planet, where the old heads still seem to hang out. It’s been sad to see some of the names I knew from the early days drive off into the sunset, but I have to remind myself I’ve had these trucks for almost thirty years.
I still meet and talk to folks I’ve known through those online spaces to this day, usually at the national meets, and they are always kind, generous with their time and knowledge, and generally just excellent people.
The only time I spend on car forums is if I have a specific issue with my car. Car forums are indispensable when it comes to diagnosis and repair tips and parts. Honestly though they come in a distant second after Youtube videos as I am a visual learner first and foremost. They could be made more relevant if they incorporated video windows not just hypertext links. Something tells me car forums tried that in the past and Youtube either does not permit embedded links or they want payment to do so.
The BMW forum I am part of does seem to allow links to YouTube, but for some reason the posts seldom do that.
Eventually, I will write a whole article about automotive-repair-related YouTube. I think it’s useful, fascinating, and quite problematic all at once.
Which makes it a perfect subject.
I go to Fit Freak forum when I have issues with my Honda, which is rare. Used to hang out too much at Bobistheoilguy. Facebook has a great group for my camper and the manufacturer does not run it, but monitors and answers questions. Most of the time is spent here.
The only place I blog is here, and even then only as a commenter for now.
But forums come in handy when I’m searching to see if someone out there is having a similar issue with their car. Then I read. Most of the time, the thread is an old post anyway, but sometimes helpful diagnosing an issue.
In recent years, that’s been various Mustang forums, CivicX, and Lancer forums (fora?) to take care of the fleet. Since my wife no longer has the Lancer, there’s no need. I wonder if there is a CX-5 forum? I may need that forum someday, but that day is not this day. 😉