My current car was well-reviewed when new but had a cosmically stupid timing chain design that screws over the second or third owner. But most reviewers are targeting new-car buyers.
Thinking about that made me wonder if there are channels/creators specializing in reviews of cars that have significant mileage on them. Looking at relatively recent cars and asking “how did this model actually hold up? What design flaws should second-hand buyers watch out for?”
RCR kind of ends up doing that sometimes, but it’s not really their specific focus.
Thanks!
Car and Driver does them but obviously no major car media outlet can run many long-term tests in parallel at any one time.
It’s wild how far I had to scroll for Car and Driver, this has been a thing they’ve done for decades.
And they are fucking savage on cars.
If they say they didn’t have any problems on 40k, it will last a normal person who cares and had to pay for their car a good bit longer.
And I’ve found that they’re very honest with the long term reviews.
I specifically remember the long term test of the Giulia QF. As they put more miles on it (and it spent more and more time in the shop) their opinion slowly went from “this is one of the best cars we’ve ever driven” to “this is one of the best cars we’ve ever driven, but it’s so terribly unreliable that no one should buy or even lease it”.
Brazilian car magazines like Quatrorodas used to rotate long term review cars every few months between employees of sister magazines.
This had the extra advantage that most were not gearheads, and instead valued reliability and practicality.
Hearst and Axel Soringer could certainly do that if they wished.