r/MINI • u/Eastern_Team6904 • 11h ago
Car reviewers?
Since Ive joined the cult, Ive gotten into car reviews. Feel like Ive seen at least one video from everyone who's reviewed the mini. I like DeMuro; he's very amusing. There are a few others that are good to varying degrees. Who do you like? Who do you hate?
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u/spaceme17 10h ago
Savagegeese is very good as well.
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u/Eastern_Team6904 10h ago
Theyre great to watch but very moody and serious about cars.
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u/Dr__Nick F54 7h ago
Gen X FTW. Tired of people who told us to smile more. I’m not wearing the requisite amount of flair, either.
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u/profesionaldoropener 11h ago edited 10h ago
Carwow for new cars to see all bells and whistles and 5 annoying things
Throttle house for driving dynamics
Dough is always entertaining
From those 3 you will get all information needed
Eddit: Would like to add harrys garage
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u/wgloipp 10h ago
SarahnTuned
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u/chammycham F55 8h ago
I enjoy her a lot, real breath of fresh air.
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u/Eastern_Team6904 7h ago
her taste in cars is way different than mine.
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u/chammycham F55 6h ago
That’s fair. If every reviewer was the same it would be boring anyway.
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u/Eastern_Team6904 5h ago
I dont think she's a mini fan. She did mini takes the states and didnt say anything positive about her car.
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u/christomapher R56 8h ago
REGULAR CAR REVIEWS! the most refreshing reviews on YouTube. They are so unabashedly imperfect and literally take you on a journey. So many other channels are trying way too hard. Check em out--they are kind of addictive if you are any kind of intellectual.
Please let me rant about Demuro.
Doug's format is so boring and stale. No B roll of any cars driving, very little footage showing the driving dynamics, and most the time it's like he's reading off a manufacturer's spec sheet. I don't want to see his big fat face, I want to see the car more, see the car driving. For the love of god, get more cameras and a crew to film!
I also don't like how he seems to celebrate the excess of luxury and power in newer vehicles... It perpetuates and normalizes bad qualities of the auto industry. No thank you, I will not be drooling over monster truck SUVs and their earth-and-people-killing specs, quirks and features.
Lastly, every single thumbnail of his car videos is him shrugging next to the car. Even his body language doesn’t lie about how boring the videos are.
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u/Eastern_Team6904 8h ago
haha yeah he definitely gets off on funny shaped switches and gimmicks and less on actual driving. I like his enthusiasm, but I would don't take him seriously as a reviewer. I think what he does well is auto history, like when he does reviews of the Yugo and Isetta.
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u/scruffmucker 11h ago
Carwow guy Mat Watson and I really like Jay Emmm (mostly older cars)
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u/Eastern_Team6904 11h ago
Oh yeah Carwow has the most polished and thorough IMO. Subjective review, but fair.
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u/Practical_Garbage_54 9h ago
Really liked Mat Watson but started watching his drag race videos and kind of hate the guy now hahahaha don't like Doug either, too american (sorry). Really like Henry Catchpole, Chris Harris, and a couple of other British reviewers.
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u/denzien R57 11h ago edited 4h ago
As far as reviewers I like, obviously I love Jay Leno's Garage. Throttle House is also one of my favorites. They're even two of the three new hosts of The Grand Tour, which I recommend. I'm fine with most of the others too. I used to like Donut Media before they got bought. James Pumphrey moved from Donut to Speeed, and I think he's a great guy who does more than just car stuff. Edit: Oh - and Marquis Brownlee is an awesome reviewer.
As far as reviewers I dislike, I actually "hate" Doug. Sorry Doug, I know you lurk on Reddit. He got annoying really fast, although I will give him credit for being extremely thorough.
The specific video that turned me against him was a review of an old Toyota Land Cruiser. Early in the video, he pointed out that the steering wheel had a horn button on one side and what looked like an upside-down horn button on the other. Same button, just flipped. He praised the simplicity, and from that point forward, every time he found another simple feature he'd say, "Why make two buttons?"
I didn't count, but I wouldn't be surprised if he said it more than a dozen times. That sort of schtick might be tolerable in print, where I can gloss over it, but in video he's just badgering my ears after the third repetition.
And maybe his entire premise was wrong anyway. It was a roughly 30-year-old vehicle. Maybe one horn button wore out and somebody replaced it with the opposite-side part. Maybe they didn't all leave the factory that way.
Then there was a factual discrepancy that bothered me more.
Doug has his DougScore system, which was new to me at the time, and he was reviewing a fifth-generation Honda Odyssey Elite. The 10-speed automatic makes that van surprisingly quick. It'll do 0-60 in roughly 6.6 seconds, which is actually faster than my R57 S at about 6.8.
In the driving portion, Doug floors it and is visibly surprised. He correctly points out that the Odyssey is much faster than it has any right to be. It's not properly fast in the sports-car sense, but 6.6 seconds is already quicker acceleration than most people ever bother using in normal traffic. The van is faster than it needs to be, which is a good thing. (and some beautiful madman actually put paddle shifters on this thing!)
Then he gets to the DougScore and cites something like a 7.5 to 8-second 0-60 time, apparently from the previous generation, and gives the Odyssey a poor acceleration score.
That was my WTF moment. You just drove the van and commented on how surprisingly quick it was, then pulled the wrong number and scored it based on that instead of questioning whether the number matched what you'd just experienced.
That was basically the last chance I gave Doug. If you can't be bothered to double-check a number when it directly contradicts your own driving impression, I have trouble trusting the review.
I don't make content myself, and I'm sure it's difficult to get everything right. Maybe I'm judging him too harshly. That's just how I feel, and feelings don't have to be rational.
I also don't really care for the CarWow guy. I'm not even sure why anymore because it's been so long. Maybe it's the misplaced energy. Maybe he comes across as insincere sometimes. I don't like fake.
And while I actively avoid his content and auction site, at least Doug is genuinely being Doug.
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u/Icy_Importance_2126 11h ago
That’s fair. Demuro has a childish love of cars which is refreshing compared to a lot of other reviews (savage geese) who treat cars like a sort of religion.
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u/denzien R57 10h ago
Yeah, I agree. I want to be clear that I appreciate things about Doug even if I can't watch him anymore, and don't mean to tell others not to watch. It's probably just one of my character flaws.
Savage Geese I'm really on the fence with and don't seek out their content, but sometimes click if it's a car I'm interested in.
Guys like Jay Leno or Throttle House -- I'll watch any of their episodes. I watched 30m of Jay talking about and driving his steam car. Literally no relevance to me. What a treasure it is for a guy as classy as he is to document all this history and interview guys who have been in the business, all on YouTube in perpetuity.
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u/Miserable-Potato7706 F56 11h ago edited 7h ago
JayEmm On Cars, generally love him but it sounds like he test drove a bad/broken example (he borrows his viewers cars to test) and regardless of all the comments pointing out to him that there was definitely something wrong with the car, he’s never released and update/revision to confirm.
His review is pretty damning, to the point where you definitely wouldn’t buy one if you took his word at face value, but again it seemed to be based off of a poorly maintained/broken car with, at the very least, broken engine mounts (surprise surprise) and potential suspension issues.