"HonestJohn is now part of Drive!" I read that as Drivel.
Should've gorn to Specsavers.
:o}
|
On the face of it, baffling. It's rolled into Drive, but where is the HJ content - HJ basically seems to have disappeared?
It's as if VWFS wanted to shut it down.
|
The Drive website says, "The archive is large, built up over 25 years under different ownership, and some of it covers vehicles or regulations that have since moved on. The priority is keeping what's still genuinely useful, updating it where it needs it, and giving you a sensible place to land instead of a dead page."
It's not clear exactly what "the archive" refers to.
|
I think it was always planned.
Sic transit Gloria mundi
|
|
I only ever used HJ website for the car by car breakdown when wanting to know when specific models etc came out. And still use it occasionally.
|
|
Why were you sick in the Transit with Gloria on Monday?
|
>It's not clear exactly what "the archive" refers to.
The HJ Reviews section seems to have been imported, once you get beyond the VW splashes.
|
Honest John car reviews are moving across to Drive's reviews section
buying guides are being updated and republished in Drive's guides
model information is being linked through to the relevant Drive model pages
used car pages point through to matching cars for sale on Drive
duplicate articles are being merged into one stronger guide rather than left to compete with each other
anything genuinely out of date is being retired rather than kept around indefinitely
drive.co.uk/looking-for-honestjohn-welcome-to-drive
Not expecting any unbiased reviews in the future ...
|
|
Haven’t been there since the forum closed.
|
I also looked at the HJ site for car reviews and info. The Ask HJ team also still made the occasional entry : looking at Drive it seems to have disappeared.
The original HJ site was one of the most popular in the U.K. in terms of views. Around 20 million per annum if Google is to believed. The world has moved on of course and there is a much wider range of sites now, dispersing the motoring user base.
I hope we can continue to contribute to this site Forum as long as it’s around with its mainly good humoured expertise and sometimes quirky diversions.
With that in mind it’s been great to see the recent return of a couple of members coming out of the shadows. Perhaps a few more lurkers might reveal themselves and add to the information and entertainment.
|
>> The world has moved on of course and there is a much wider range of sites now, dispersing the motoring user base. <<
Plus the fact that the younger generation seem less interested in what is under the bonnet, etc. ?
|
>> Plus the fact that the younger generation seem less interested in what is under the
bonnet, etc. ?>>
Very true. Despite the efforts of the advertising industry, they are not interested in cars, let alone what's under the bonnet. (Is anyone on here interested in laptops, or how they work?) Our youngest son, now over 40, had an old Peugeot 309 bought for him when a teenager. He then inherited our 19yr old Focus Estate which lasted only a couple more years, and since then has never needed to own a car. (His wife has an old Peugeot 308 diesel which suffices). For most non-mechanically minded people, owning a car is a money pit.
|
"Is anyone on here interested in laptops, or how they work?"
I am :-)
|
>> Very true. Despite the efforts of the advertising industry, they are not interested in cars,
>> let alone what's under the bonnet. (Is anyone on here interested in laptops, or how
>> they work?)
I've had several conversations with garage service staff and techs where I've introduced myself as an outlier who is old enough to do own repairs. Changed head gasket on a Mini, new radiator in a Pug 205 etc.
Very little I'd do these days beyond changing light bulbs and wiper blades. Even a battery change can need a PC etc connected.
I was reasonably proficient for a while with desktop/tower PCs - installing cards and memory, sorting out then teenage son's hard drive after it caught a virus.
|
>Very little I'd do these days beyond changing light bulbs and wiper
>blades. Even a battery change can need a PC etc connected.
I still like to have the ability to configure settings or diagnose errors on my cars and have an old Thinkpad set up for the task.
I have the official SDD S/W (Win XP!) and a Mongoose Pro i/f which I used on my XJ and which saved me a fair bit of cash on dealer charges. I also have ISTA and E-Sys for the BMW that I've used to enable a couple of features and reconfigure the instrument display. I could change the greeting and warning tones from BMW to Rolls Royce too but don't want to appear too pretentious.
The Chevy is basically just OBDII and isn't festooned with electronics everywhere so a simple bluetooth ELM reader and android app is good enough.
|
Thanks MA, good to hear, and it would be good to tease a few more of the HJ refugees across if we could.
I think I already mentioned we've had a recent problem with bot sign ups resulting in thousands of sign-up emails a day for a few weeks, so any genuine ones may have got forever buried.
As the problem seems now to be resolved, if you know of anyone who has been trying to sign up please ask them to try again, or use the Report Message button and send their email address and we'll see if we can locate them or restart the process.
Lastly along with the other mods here I moderated on HJ for a number of years prior to a rather unseemly bust up in the background in late 2009, so I began here in early 2010 and have barely visited HJ since. When the times were good there it was a great place to be - even during some of the most difficult moderating times and decisions (and there sure were some!!). It's a shame if it's really gone now though.
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 13 Aug 26 at 10:19
|
|
"Wave"........ will try to look in a bit more frequently ! Trouble is since retiring 3+ years ago my laptop only gets switched on from time to time !
|
|
Welcome. Since I retired (early) in 2013 I’ve moved almost entirely to iPad. I can’t be faffed with my switching and loading my aged laptop. Instant iPad access is great if you have that option
|
|
Jeez have we been here since 2010??
|
RIP HonestJohn (Website) - Dog
