Car forums – will the pursuit of profit kill the fun?

It hasn’t been easy gathering together enough car owners to get TrueDelta’s vehicle reliability research off the ground. For many models, a forum dedicated to the car has been essential in getting the word out.

Unfortunately, truly great automotive forums are increasingly rare. As Greg Childs of NICOClub, a forum for Nissan and Infiniti owners, notes in a recent editorial, the landscape of automotive forums is changing. An increasing number of forums that were started by enthusiasts are being bought out by a couple of profit-minded organizations. As a result, the quality of forums has suffered.

We’ve run up against this ourselves. The dozens of forums that have been active in getting the word out (list here — please support them) are independent and focused on creating a fun, informative community (or at least they were when they started lending a hand).

Those that are corporate-owned much more often want us to show them the money. Which is their right, but since we don’t charge for access to the results there’s no money to show. In the future there might be a little to share, after we open up the alternative of paying for access for those who refuse to participate in the surveys. But there probably won’t be much. We’ll continue to focus on providing the most useful information possible, so revenue will remain secondary. (If TrueDelta were owned and operated by a large corporation, and even if it simply had outside investors, this probably wouldn’t be possible.)

When forums have been unwilling to lend a hand, or even let me post about the research, our information on the car models the cover is not as comprehensive or as good as it could be. Who suffers? Car owners.

There are exceptions on both sides. AudiWorld, an Audi forum, starting helping out while still independent. They’ve since been purchased by Internet Brands (parent of CarsDirect). But Jason Teller, the former owner, has remained active, and AudiWorld has remained both an excellent resource for Audi owners and very helpful to TrueDelta.

Of course, the initial barriers to starting a new car forum are low. (Though, as Greg notes, creating a good, active forum poses major challenges.) So if a corporation buys a forum and runs it into the ground, anyone who wants a better forum can start one. If you do, and would like our help getting the word out, please contact us.