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Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:00 pm
by Mad Manny
ADVENTURE AFRIKA Magazine Issue 11
Issue #11 is out, it has Pula 'Botswana & a Okavango pic on the cover.
In 'Gear & Gadgets' theresa Rentech PPS750 Portable Power pack - these seem to be improving! R8500.00.
Great articles on a Botswana trip, the Wes Kus, Nambia, the Maputo Special Reserve, Lower Sabie & part 5, the Gamaskloof of the Mountain Passes piece.
The George Van Deventer (War Medic) gives thewhole story of how his Hilux was written off & through 'Back a Buddy' & a payout from Cross Country Insurance he raised enough (R600k) to buy a Land Cruiser 79.
He named it Ubuntoe in honour of the Ubuntu he was the recipient of...
Then on page 80, as mentioned here viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1358
3 Club Members & a Forum member have their vehicles featured in the 'My Ride & I' competition...
Go buy it!
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:12 pm
by Mad Manny
CAR Magazine November 2021 issue:
The decline in CAR Magazine continues with November issue:
The MAIN feature is a TEN way test of double cabs in SA.
It is NOT a comparative test.
It does NOT compare like to like.
It is of NO USE to anyone in the market for a Double Cab bakkie.
It seems it was purely designed to declare the Ranger (which CAR loves) the winner.
Here are the problems with the test:
The use the single Turbo Ford Ranger SiT2.0 Fx4 @ R712 300, the R940 000 Amarok V6 3.0 & then include a Isuzu KB 250 @ R576 000?
Why not the 3.0 D-Teq.
So they pit a 100kW Isuzu against a 190kW Amarok costing nearly twice as much?
They then rate them on 16 categories, one of which is 'Looks'.
Whilst I agree that Nissan is probably the best looking & the Mahindra the ugliest - it's too subjective.
All the bakkies were 4x4, but, to further entrench the uselessness of the test, some were Auto & some Manual.
Note: Although they were all 4x4, no real 4x4 test was done - but they did do a axle twister & break-over angle test.
They included a drag test, where the bakkies have to drag 600kg of tyres, water drums & railway sleepers for 800m.
1st Hilux 2.4 (NB, NOT the 2,8 with 150kW)
2nd Amarok V6
3rd Ranger SiT2.0
The JAC T8 2.8 & the P-Series GWM 2.0 came 9th & last.
Anyhoo, the final results were:
1st Ford Ranger FX4 Auto (they delight in pointing out the 10 speed, Ranger, has been around for 10 years & has won their bakkie of the year choice for 10 years & it wins this skewed 10 way test).
2nd Hilux 2.4 Auto
3rd Amarok V6 Auto
4th Triton Auto
5th Navara 2.5 Auto
6th New Mazda BT-50 3.0 Auto
7th P-Series Auto
8th D-Max 2.5 M/T
9th Pik Up Karoo Auto
10th T8 M/T
Had the test used bakkies within R100 000 of one another & only included Auto Boxes I'm sure the Ranger would still have won, but the points gap between them would have differed.
In other stuff, the 1st car with a reverse camera was a Toyota (1990).
Nice article on the Jeep Gladiator which isn't coming here.
They cover a new derivative of the Ranger called the Storm, so you know have FX4, Thunder & Storm - and you guys thought Toyota launched a lot of special models! 
The rest of the mag is about EV's, Platkarre & Bikes...
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:45 pm
by Onwards
Yawn.
Stopped buying Car. Used to be great informative, now it is..., well not of the same value anymore.
Most of the time I get impression it is about a free ride in a car they cannot afford
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:26 pm
by Flipside
So glad I gave up on the opinionated and subjective media long ago…
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:13 pm
by grips
I have a complete Car collection from 1978 till 2019. In 2019 I stopped buying Car magazines.
Not my line of interest anymore.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:27 pm
by AndreasR
Magazine’s like Car and other car/travel magazines are just promotional crap nowadays. Never get decent write ups with objective views. If you believe everything in these mags there has never ever been a bad vehicle or a horrible place to stay/visit. Everything is reported through rose tinted glasses.
They survive on advertising and freebies. You can’t bite the hand that feeds you. They are a waste of paper, or if you subscribe digitally, bandwidth.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 8:41 pm
by KurtG
Well, with nobody wanting to buy a magazine that costs more than R2.56 incl. VAT these days it’s inevitable that to keep them publishing them that they need to take sponsorships.
I blame the ‘readers’ for the downfall/changes to the publishing standards, because without them paying decent money for the print, the magazines cannot remain completely impartial.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 9:37 pm
by BushWacker
… be reasonable Kurt,
… what do you do
with the 13p (?) you save
by not buying ?
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:03 am
by Mad Manny
I don't think sponsorships or pressure from manufacturers is to blame.
It's just sloppy, lazy motoring journalism by guys who are not 'Petrol Heads'.
Surely you would compare 10 vehicles that a certain buyer would be interested in.
So, step one, pick his budget, say R720k to R840k.
Then decide if he wants manual or Auto.
Does he want a 4x4?
Then you get a vehicle from each manufacturer that meets this hypothetical buyers needs.
There is no way a guy would have a D-Max 250 M/T & a V6 Amarok on his list.
So either they were sloppy & didn't try get LIKE vehicles from the manufacturers, or they just wanted to make the Ranger look great.
I actually suspect most vehicles were added to pad the pages. The 2.4 Hilux against the 2.0SiT Ranger makes sense as neither are 5the top of the range.
But then they should have used the top 2.0 Amarok & the 3.0 Isuzu as they're in a similar price band.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:12 am
by KurtG
Me thinks they couldn’t get the vehicles they needed for a like-for-like comparison so they just winged it with what they could get.
Lazy journalism indeed!
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 6:54 am
by Ricof4e
Thanks Manny, you confirmed my suspicions. Last week Thursday in P&P I reached for the Car Mag, saw the "bakkie shootout", read the cover and quickly put it back on the shelf.
The test made absolute no sense to me.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Wed May 18, 2022 4:30 pm
by BushWacker
… once in a blue moon I buy a car mag :
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Thu May 19, 2022 11:54 am
by jakeslouw
I picked one up yesterday. And put it down. Pathetic.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Thu May 19, 2022 11:58 am
by iandvl
I don't by the 4x4 / overlanding mags anymore - unless there is a specific article I'm interested in. They're pretty useless these days. A few years ago, there were good technical articles about things. They are sort of stupid these days.
Re: Mad Manny's Monthly Motoring Magazine Review...
Posted: Thu May 19, 2022 4:48 pm
by BushWacker
I mainly bought it for the comparative data tables at the
Back showing prices basic specs and performance ests etc
as I may be in market for small car.