"Overlander" mag: bias? what bias.

Submitted: Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 00:53
ThreadID: 3988 Views:2542 Replies:13 FollowUps:16
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Very interesting to read the new April "Overlander" magazine. Have a good look at the different editorial attitudes evident in the articles about the new Prado, and the new Sorento and Renegade.

Fuel consumption
Prado: 14.69 l/100 km (4 litre engine), nothing said.
Sorento: 14.2 l/100 km, "...engine to be thirsty..." (related to the similarly powered Terracan)
Renegade: "...reasonable on fuel...mid 15 litre/100 km range.

Make up your mind, guys!!! (Sorento wins)


Wheel articulation:
Prado: "...increased to deliver better off road performance..." (not good enough before???) 17" wheels/tyres. Better approach angle than Sorento.
Sorento: "...is restricted by the limited wheel travel at the front end...live rear axle offers adequate articulation..." 16" wheels/tyres. Better ramp-over angle than Prado
Renegade: "...long travel rear suspension...a competent off-roader...low ride height and limited ground clearance restrict the vehicles ability...."

Would the Sorento equal or better the Prado's approach angle with aftermarket 17" wheels/tyres? No mention of Renegades angles. How about a RTI 20 degree test to get a bit of objectivity, Mr."Overlander"? It doesn't take that long to run a vehicle up a ramp, does it?


Engine power:
Prado: 2.7 litre 112kW/4800, 240Nm/4000; 4 litre 179kW/5200, 343(376)Nm/2400(3800).
Sorento: 3.0 litre 145kW/5500, 295Nm/3000
Renegade: 3.7 litre 155kW/5200, 312Nm/3800

Sorento almost matches an engine (Renegade) 23% larger than its engine. Prado 2.7 litre very narrow power band (800 rpm)


Cost
Prado: $38990 (2.7, man), $45990 (4.0, auto), $71990 (4.0, auto) as tested.
Sorento: $37950 (3.0. auto)
Jeep Renegade $48290 (3.7, auto), Sport $45190 (3.7, auto)

...Plus options of course


Page spread:
Prado: 24 paragraph + 6 paragraph side bar, specification page and diagram, 15 exterior photos, 1 interior photo, 3 engine photos, all spread over 8 pages.
Sorento: 11 paragraphs, 7 exterior photos, 1 interior photo, 1 engine photo, limited specs information in text, spread over 5 pages.
Renegade: 7 paragraphs, 4 exterior photos, 2 miscelaneous photos, spread over three pages.

This was for three recently released, similarly sized vehicles


Yes, Mr "Overlander" we can see who buys your lunches.....

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE VEHICLES MENTIONED. I am just truely SICK of the biased and inconsistant drival this magazine publishes.

Time for some editorial headkicking. I have sent an email similar to this to Overlander and eagerly await their response.




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Reply By: Savvas - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 07:30

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 07:30
Gary,

I'd agree with you in that there must be some "manufacturer's incentives" going on when these mags. In the normal car world, observe the mags when a new model commodore is released.

For example when the VT was released, Wheels dedicated close to half the magazine to it. A new shape Camry was released at the same time and got 4 pages.

Speaking of 17" rims on the Prado. It also has 65 series low profile tyres. This is going to be a problem vehicle for getting A/T or M/T tyres without going back to 16" rims. Also, low profile tyres don't lend themselves to aired-down driving as well as 70 series or higher tyres. They'll be great in your local Westfields car park though!

Also, can anyone figure why the Prado retains a six-stud wheel pattern, when the 100 and 78 have gone to 5 stud?
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Follow Up By: Michael- Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 09:30

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 09:30
Why did Toyota go from a 6 stud pattern to 5? The good thing is that the 16x7in Prado rims fit very nicely on the 80series and allow for a wider range of tyres than the old split rims. Maroondah tyres have 'new' Prado rims for sale for $45 each. Does anyone need some white original special edition Hilux split rims?
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Follow Up By: Member - NOBBY - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 11:03

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 11:03
We all know the rule " Never bite the hand that feeds you "
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Follow Up By: Savvas - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 21:56

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 21:56
Yep... After all, business is business!
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Follow Up By: Suzuki Viagra - Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 20:56

Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 20:56
The newe commodore is one of the ugliest pieces of tin every to "grace the road", yet it sells in droves. It is also slower and worse equipped than it's direct competitors.

Sound like the Prado case.....?

Seriously that 4 litre's a good motor though - rather that than the V8 Cruiser engine.....
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Reply By: Kev. - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 12:39

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 12:39
Moral of the story - dont belive every thing you read especially anything to do with sales.
Its very hard some times to figger out what product is the best when every one says their product is better.(they all cant be right)

I dont think the Overlander mag is the only one that does this !

Thats why these forums are good to get first hand info from every day people that have experience from a paticular product.
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Reply By: Scott - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 13:39

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 13:39
GaryInOz good call and the reason why we do not buy and read 4WD magazines.
Toyota spend buckets of money on advertising and wining and dinning motoring journos and factual truth in reviews is disgusting biased as you have well shown.
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Reply By: Scott - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 13:39

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 13:39
GaryInOz good call and the reason why we do not buy and read 4WD magazines.
Toyota spend buckets of money on advertising and wining and dinning motoring journos and factual truth in reviews is disgusting biased as you have well shown.
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Follow Up By: Member - Colin- Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 12:19

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 12:19
I'm with you Scott - as for the Overlander Forum, I have deleted it from my 'favourites'.Colin - Subaru Forester
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Reply By: joc45 - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 16:06

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 16:06
Yeh, and it's funny how some glaring design faults never crack a mention till the model's well and truly run-out, then it might crack a mention in "buying a secondhand xxx" section. Like a certain well known large turbo diesel which had major recalls for engine bottom-end work. Or transfer cases problems which were never addressed. Legendary reliability?

I do find the mags sort-of useful tho', in that the bias is often glaring, and one can usually still read between the lines, filter out the crap and end up with a reasonable impression of the product(s). Then check out these pages for good measure....
Gerry
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Follow Up By: Truckster - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 22:59

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 22:59
Yeh, and it's funny how some glaring design faults never crack a mention till the model's well and truly run-out,

EXACTLY!

When do you hear anything BAD being really said about ANYTHING in a test.

3 Rangies in teh top 10 of 4x4 mthlys 4wdoty....

Also thats why I call 4wd Montly Toyota Monthly... Never a bad word said about Yotas, and anything like cars bogged etc are always Nissans, even in tests/examples....
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Reply By: Mark R - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 18:04

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 18:04
Couldn't agree more - just bought March Overlander because of cover story "We drive Nissan's Intercooled TD42 Patrol". They didn't need to drive it to read the Nissan brochure. There is NO information in this article that relates to DRIVING this vehicle - discusses specs only! A waste of money.
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Reply By: Truckster - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 19:46

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 19:46
LOL.

that would be like the spotlight test in a mag recently

Larva 175s better than

Lightforce 240's/170s
Hella Rally 1000/2000/4000
Cibie Super Oscars/Oscars

Noting the ads and lights for "subscription offer" in the same mag following the test??

I agree dont buy the mags, they are so 1 eyes it makes the Cyclops look like a swarm of flys...




and if you have a problem with the dribble in Overrated, goto www.overlander.com and to the forums, and post it there.. Gregor LOVES to hear the truth from people...
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Follow Up By: diamond - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 20:03

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 20:03
come on mate i run the narvas and there not bad for the price why go out and spend silly amount of money on spottys when the narva for $160 do just a good job
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Follow Up By: GaryInOz - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 22:31

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 22:31
Thought I had better do the right thing and let Gregor see the draft of the letter before I made it public so I havs emailed it to him and left a msg on the forum for people to contact me if they want a look, 8 people in less than 12 hours so far... of course if they are in this forum they have already seen the guts of it. It was elaborated on in the final draft to that went to Gregor.
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Follow Up By: Truckster - Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 22:41

Saturday, Mar 22, 2003 at 22:41
GIO, most are here as well..

That forum gets 100's of messages a day! thankfully its BBS style not Email!!!

Diamond, as long as your happy with them, as are others, thats all that matters aint it!

Take care.
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Follow Up By: Savvas - Monday, Mar 24, 2003 at 08:30

Monday, Mar 24, 2003 at 08:30
Diamond... I think Truckster's point is the the magazine's test of the lights was probably not completely objective. It was apparent that Narva may have incented the magazine.

Nonetheless, I agree with you that the Ultima 175's are good value for $138 bucks at Repco. Great light distribution, reach and brightness for those dollars. Even for twice as much money.

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Reply By: Member - Des - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 17:24

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 17:24
Interesting post Gary, but I think we shouldn't be too conspiratorial about it. Simple explanation for the bigger spread: Prado sales will be up to 10 times those of Sorento or Renegade. Many people have no doubt awaited the release of the Prado; don't imagine too many bated breaths for the others. Which is not to say they are not good vehicles, just that they will probably not be top sellers like Prado. Fair comment about fuel etc though.

Agree with many of the other comments here, but I don't think that bias is the main criticism of the 4WD mags. (Although it always seemed to me that 4x4 monthly was very pro-Patrol when Ron Moon was at the helm. And who sponsored him?) It seems to me that the main problem is that they don't spend the time and money required to do proper evaluations of many products - it is much easier just to rehash the press info kits. While the poor writing quality and blokiness of Aust 4WD Monthly annoys me no end (do we have to have the same tedious 'Handbrake' and XXXX lines EVERY month?), they are generally better at hard comparative testing. I think Overlander are better at travel stories.

Just my opinion.
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Follow Up By: Truckster - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 18:11

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 18:11
"It seems to me that the main problem is that they don't spend the time and money required to do proper evaluations of many products ..."

True, but how long do you consider long enough for a car evaluation? 12 months? They would need a bigger staff, and also for car companies to loan out 5 cars per year for mags, then you have auto manual, diesel petrol etc etc..

Overlander is heading more towards hardcore 4wding accordin to their forums... Thats what the "readers"(10% of their readership) that are on the forum want from the mag, so they are listening to the readers..
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Follow Up By: Suzuki Viagra - Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 21:05

Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 21:05
Prados will outsell the other two combined 5-10 times over.

Some people can't get over the cringe factor of not having a toyota?

Exactly which car broke during 4wd of the year testing? It wasn't the Hyundai but an "Unbreakable" toyota......

LOL!

PS I just got mud to knee height in my Vitara on the weekend while trying to tow a MU through 120 cm high mud, similar to my mate did in his short wheelbase DIESEL troopy a little while ago. He blew his transfer case and gearbox at a cost of $2500 while I shorted out my flasher can for 5 minutes after I got out, which I fixed by driving with my hazards on for 5 minutes.

Which one is unbreakable? Which ever one has bribed motoring journo's for 25 years to get the reputation?

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Reply By: Kev. - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 19:39

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 19:39
I will still buy the mags but most times i dont read the reviews (they dont interest me).
I buy them to check out other custom 4wds for ideas and to see what products are avalable (advertising)

Forget the new Toyota /Nissan tests......I cant afford a new one anyway !
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Reply By: Chip - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 20:20

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 20:20
I'm not overly interested in the new tests/rigs etc but understand that plenty are so I've stopped buying the mags. They're basically full of advertising these days and as you have all pointed out, a fair degree of bias, but I do still like to look at some of the custom rigs in 4WD Monthly if I see one lying around.
Chip
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Reply By: Member - Bob - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 20:24

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 20:24
I agree with the observation that the magazines are biased. Do they make money from sales, or from advertising revenue. Probably the advertising revenue is proportional to sales, but its the advertisers who call the shots. I've said it before, you aren't going to bag a product if they've just spent 20 grand on advertising. One of the other mags did a comparo with the Prado and several other vehicles. The Prado actually broke down during the comparison (major drive line failure) but they managed to overlook that in their summing up. I wrote to the editor. My letter wasn't published but I received a reply saying that they thought this was out of character for Toyota as they all owned them and never had any problems!
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Follow Up By: GaryInOz - Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 21:39

Sunday, Mar 23, 2003 at 21:39
Owned them, or supplied leased vehicles with advertiser sponsored modifications fitted?

Boy, I'm getting cynical :-)))
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Follow Up By: Suzuki Viagra - Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 21:06

Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 21:06
Exactly Garz - all free long term loans from the company I bet....
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Reply By: damien - Monday, Mar 24, 2003 at 16:24

Monday, Mar 24, 2003 at 16:24
You cannot possible compare the Prado & the Sorrento - 2 completely different vehicles with completely different uses in mind.
The Prado will probably outsell the Sorrento 100:1, so therefore it is only natural that it gets a bigger write up - there's far more interest in the Prado.

BTW, Gregor has since replied to your message Gary & i must say what he says makes a lot of sense.

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Follow Up By: Truckster - Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 22:59

Tuesday, Mar 25, 2003 at 22:59
It may outsell it 100:1...

but people interested in the Sorrento have the right to as much info and writeup as the Prado buyers...

Sorrento buyers maynot want a Prado... Maybe if there was more writeup on the Sorrento there maybe MORE interest in it.. The Prado didnt seem to win everything.

And its just the bias by ** ALL ** 4wd mags, not just overlander.


YMMV
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Follow Up By: damien - Wednesday, Mar 26, 2003 at 16:54

Wednesday, Mar 26, 2003 at 16:54
I know what you're saying Truckster but:-

Magazines need to make money.
The way they make money is by selling copies.
If you were to print 2 identical magazines except one has a 10 page spread on the Prado & the other a 10 page spread on the Sorrento, which one do you think would sell more copies?

Easy question - it would obviously be the one with the Prado in it.

The mags need to utilise their space wisely - 10 pages on the Prado may be ok because they are aware that a large number of people will buy it. 10 pages on the Sorrento would not be a good editorial move - i'm sure there's only a very small percentage of people that would even bother reading it.

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Reply By: Member - Andrew - Wednesday, Mar 26, 2003 at 20:28

Wednesday, Mar 26, 2003 at 20:28
Gary

I would never buy anything solely on the opinion of someone else, no matter what level of expertise they have. We are all looking for different things and we all have different priorities.

Magazine tests are great for detailing features and deficiencies, but its outcome is always the opinion of the writer.

I have read far more biased and uneducated and plain wrong info on webgroups and forums like this.

I think you expect too much from magazines if you expect every new vehicle to get identical coverage. They will always pander to the majority because thats where their market is.

Maybe take a valium, chill out and stop being so paranoid. Lifes too short.

AndrewAndrew - 1999 GU ST 4.2Turbodiesel Wagon
Whyalla SouthOz
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/4wd_out_of_adelaide
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