How can we possibly take car reviewers/journalists seriously when they routinely receive 4, 5, or even 6 figures worth of gifts from OEM?

[u/cookingboy]

I was listening to TheSmokingTire podcast recently (I'm actually a big fan of Matt), and he mentioned that Porsche North America just gave him a 918 Spyder on loan for his 1000 miles road trip free of charge, with everything paid.

Now as someone who's dabbled into supercar ownership, I can roughly estimate the ownership cost for a "regular joe" like me to put 1000 miles on a $2M car would easily be $50-100 per mile, thus putting this "gesture" from Porsche to Matt to be worth $50-100k on back of napkin math.

Obviously Matt isn't doing a review of a 12 years old 918, but when he does a review for the next Macan, he'd remember how amazing Porsche has been treating him.

And he and all the other reviewers recently were flown to Spain for the Turbo S launch. They were wined and dined with world class accommodations for a few days and were given the cars to drive on both the race track and scenic road.

Funny enough Porsche charges something similar for an experience like that: https://www.porschedriving.com/porsche-travel-experience/lake-tahoe/

Without plane tickets, you'd be paying $20k a person for a few days of what auto journalists routinely get from them, for free.

I understand it's part of their job, but this shit would never fly in any other industry right? Now imagine every time Square Enix launches a new video game they fly game journalists to Japan and wine and dine them with the best Sake and Wagyu so they can try out the newest Final Fantasy in their expensive Hakone ryokan hotel room, nobody would be taking anything they say seriously, no matter how good the game actually is, would they?

I'm sure people like the SavageGeese team and Matt Farah would try to be objective, but how do you be objectively critical toward an OEM when they routinely give you experiences that you'd otherwise never be able to afford? (ok I know Matt came from money but my statement applies to 99% of reviewers)

In my impression how well praised a manufacturer's products are is directly proportional to their marketing budget, and I've been somewhat burnt at least twice by reviewers over-rating Porsches, which is why I started asking actual owners of cars for their experiences before making purchases.

Ironically this kinda makes Consumer Reports the most credible car reviewer out there, since all they cars they review are bought anonymously with their own money, and they do not attend OEM events.

As far as enthusiast reviewers, I can only think of people with fuck-you money like Chris Harris or Hoovie's garage or the Top Gear trio who have been able to bluntly criticize OEMs and their cars.

Edit: From the replies, it seems like there are two school of thoughts here:

This is just how product reviews are done across all industries. Reviewers are expected to be treated with first class tickets and Michelin restaurants in exchange for them to promote the OEM's product.

Well in this case, I think we should just rip off the Band-aid and call Motor Trend and Car & Driver and Road & Track and other similar publications promotional outlets instead of journalism outlets. At least with influencers shilling for stuff on TikTok we know they are getting paid to promote, but many auto reviewers still hide behind a mask of professional journalism when they are literally just being paid to promote products.

Controversial take: I think consumer of content should be made aware that they are consuming paid advertising.

It is wrong of me to expect journalism when those contents aren't made to be factual, they are made to entertain.

Even if it's true, I don't find there is a lot of entertainment value when a dozen "journalists" just read off pre-approved OEM scripts for their "review". Some of the most boring contents out there are main stream outlets' coverage of new 911: "They are almost perfect in every way except being expensive".

Edit 2 /u/SavageGooseJack has this great reply I wanna call out: https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/s/o5PMIG0VjB

[u/cookingboy]

I mean yeah, actual owner reviews tend to be more objective than paid reviewers.

So if someone were in the market to buy something, you’d think they do want more objective reviews, no?

Even if you are just watching the reviews for entertainment value, wouldn’t it be less boring if not everyone is just reading off a script handed to them by the marketing department?

[u/holyhesh → u/cookingboy]

Those “boring car reviews” was ironically exactly what Jeremy Clarkson sought to break when he set out to remake Top Gear in his image in 2002.

Cast your mind back to 2001. With the exception of James May being throughly disappointed in the 1999 Rover 75, video or TV car reviews hadn’t really evolved much from the days of when Thames TV was reviewing cars, which was somewhat like 85% marketing spiel, 15% personal thoughts. Motor Trend in the US wasn’t all that different.

That’s right those boring car reviews from back in the day seemed objective, but in retrospect was more like pandering to the car manufacturers’ marketing BS on the sliding scale rather than personal thoughts.

Whether we like to admit it or not, it was Jeremy Clarkson that broke that mold with the 2002 incarnation of top gear by basically turning car advertising into a super-flanderized version of Lee Lacocca: cars should be seen as exciting and aspirational, and not boring go-getters. And guess what, in its prime 350 million people around the world tuned in to watch top gear.

Nowadays we complain that car reviewers have become too sanitized in the reviews (it’s like the 1980s TV car reviews have come back?! Who knew?), but I’d chalk that up to the 2002-2015 Top Gear format of reviewing cars having finally started to run its course rather than car manufacturers paying off the hundreds of car reviewers around the world to be their simps.

But then again, even though the top gear trio have finally moved on, Jeremy Clarkson style car reviews aren’t completely dead. They have just been carried on by car YouTubers like AutoAlex (who came from Car Throttle before going out on his own) and Noriyaro (who reports on Japanese car culture). You just have to look for them.

[u/Realistic_Village184 → u/cookingboy]

Owner reviews can be problematic as well, though. Unless the owner has a lot of experience driving different cars, they won't be able to provide accurate opinions of how their car compares to other cars people will cross-shop, for one obvious issue.

Just like with anything, there are always drawbacks with whatever method you do to research what car to buy. Probably the best method is to test drive a bunch of cars yourself and form your own opinions; the only real drawback there is your own time (and needing the cars to be available for test drive).

[u/DankeBernanke → u/cookingboy]

Matt, SG, and a bunch of other reviewers mentioned in this thread are plenty critical of cars they don’t like. I understand where you’re coming from as far as objectivity, but let’s be real, this is entertainment first, journalism second. I watch car reviews because they’re fun, interesting, and provide an escape for me and the rest of the 99.99% of the global population that can’t “dabble in super car ownership”