Honest John (The Daily Telegraph): Your Views?
Discussion
For those of you who are not familiar, 'Honest John' is a kind of motoring agony uncle that has a column each Saturday in the Daily Telegraph motoring section, and the Honest John website. On many occasions his replies to Telegraph readers car related questions have made my blood boil. The guy sets himself up as the self styled 'dealer you can trust'. He has apparently been a car dealer; I really do wonder though.
His latest howler (in todays Telegraph) is this one; reader writes in with the following question: 'I'm looking at a 2001 VW Lupo E for my 17 year old daughter. The asking price is £2000, it has 72000 miles on the clock and is being sold through a private dealership that specialises in cut-price cars. It looks very clean, has had only one owner and I'd love to think this was a good deal. Should I be wary?'
HJ's quite staggering reply was "He does'nt specialise in cut-price cars - he wants at least £1,000 too much" - WTF???? Having just checked prices on Autotrader, I would say this was a normal price for such a car!! How can he possibly expect anyone to be able to find cars like this for at least a grand less. The trade will gladly pay top money for decent examples of such cars at the moment.
A couple of other examples of his crazy recommendations to other members of the public are these two here:
1) Univeristy Student writes in asking something like 'should I buy a £1000 - £1500 W126 S-Class?' (for occasional use). HJ's response went something like 'don't touch it with a barge pole, if the engine goes pop, it's £15k for a brand new one and if the ABS unit fails it's £1500'. I'm quite sure I do not need to point out to fellow PHers the the rank stupidity of the man's reply.
2) Punter writes in saying something like this: 'I've just spent £5k at a dealer on a used Citroen C5, that was MOT'd by the dealer for 12 months. After taking delivery I noticed an MOT advisory notice stating that the front tyres were getting low on tread, but were passable. What should I do?'
HJ's reply was something like: 'Replace the tyres, then send the dealer an invoice saying that you will sue him if this is not reimbursed as the car is not of satisfactory quality'. The basic point here is that an MOT tester has decided the tyres are road legal. If this ever got to court, it would be thrown out because as they are road legal, they are of satisfactory quality. At the end of the day, they are used tyres on a used car. Also in law, the customer would have to obtain authorisation from the dealer before changing the tyres and expecting the dealer to pay.
I cannot believe that this person is being paid by the DT to offer such ill thought out twaddle as advice to the public at large. What do the rest of you think, because he really does rile me! Do any of you know who he is or have had any dealings with him. I seriously wonder about the guy's credentials for the job he's doing.
Cheers Folks, rant over!!
His latest howler (in todays Telegraph) is this one; reader writes in with the following question: 'I'm looking at a 2001 VW Lupo E for my 17 year old daughter. The asking price is £2000, it has 72000 miles on the clock and is being sold through a private dealership that specialises in cut-price cars. It looks very clean, has had only one owner and I'd love to think this was a good deal. Should I be wary?'
HJ's quite staggering reply was "He does'nt specialise in cut-price cars - he wants at least £1,000 too much" - WTF???? Having just checked prices on Autotrader, I would say this was a normal price for such a car!! How can he possibly expect anyone to be able to find cars like this for at least a grand less. The trade will gladly pay top money for decent examples of such cars at the moment.
A couple of other examples of his crazy recommendations to other members of the public are these two here:
1) Univeristy Student writes in asking something like 'should I buy a £1000 - £1500 W126 S-Class?' (for occasional use). HJ's response went something like 'don't touch it with a barge pole, if the engine goes pop, it's £15k for a brand new one and if the ABS unit fails it's £1500'. I'm quite sure I do not need to point out to fellow PHers the the rank stupidity of the man's reply.
2) Punter writes in saying something like this: 'I've just spent £5k at a dealer on a used Citroen C5, that was MOT'd by the dealer for 12 months. After taking delivery I noticed an MOT advisory notice stating that the front tyres were getting low on tread, but were passable. What should I do?'
HJ's reply was something like: 'Replace the tyres, then send the dealer an invoice saying that you will sue him if this is not reimbursed as the car is not of satisfactory quality'. The basic point here is that an MOT tester has decided the tyres are road legal. If this ever got to court, it would be thrown out because as they are road legal, they are of satisfactory quality. At the end of the day, they are used tyres on a used car. Also in law, the customer would have to obtain authorisation from the dealer before changing the tyres and expecting the dealer to pay.
I cannot believe that this person is being paid by the DT to offer such ill thought out twaddle as advice to the public at large. What do the rest of you think, because he really does rile me! Do any of you know who he is or have had any dealings with him. I seriously wonder about the guy's credentials for the job he's doing.
Cheers Folks, rant over!!
Edited by MZ on Sunday 7th September 21:10
MZ said:
A couple of other examples of his crazy recommendations to other members of the public are these two here:
1) Univeristy Student writes in asking something like 'should I buy a £1000 - £1500 W126 S-Class?' (for occasional use). HJ's response went something like 'don't touch it with a barge pole, if the engine goes pop, it's £15k for a brand new one and if the ABS unit fails it's £1500'. I'm quite sure I do not need to point out to fellow PHers the the rank stupidity of the man's reply.
I'm not sure I do see the 'rank stupidity' in this one. At least when I was on a student budget, the last thing I wanted to do was treat my transport as disposable and/or maintain an oops fund. OK, nobody with a £1500 S-class is going to buy a new engine, but you could easily put one in for servicing, find out the electrickery was buggered, and get a very scary bill. 1) Univeristy Student writes in asking something like 'should I buy a £1000 - £1500 W126 S-Class?' (for occasional use). HJ's response went something like 'don't touch it with a barge pole, if the engine goes pop, it's £15k for a brand new one and if the ABS unit fails it's £1500'. I'm quite sure I do not need to point out to fellow PHers the the rank stupidity of the man's reply.
Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of b
ks 
I'm not sure I do see the 'rank stupidity' in this one. At least when I was on a student budget, the last thing I wanted to do was treat my transport as disposable and/or maintain an oops fund. OK, nobody with a £1500 S-class is going to buy a new engine, but you could easily put one in for servicing, find out the electrickery was buggered, and get a very scary bill.
Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of b
ks [/quote]
Depends what you want to do with your money really. But if said student asked me for advice on the matter I would have advised him to go for it, but do his homework beforehand. He will find a sound example for that money. I've owned loads of Mercs of that vintage and a bad one is fairly obvious. There are plenty of decent breakers out vthere that can supply used parts (incl. engines and ABS units!) for very reasonable money. If you're not going to do lot's of miles, it could make a good car to use through university.
MZ said:
I'm not sure I do see the 'rank stupidity' in this one. At least when I was on a student budget, the last thing I wanted to do was treat my transport as disposable and/or maintain an oops fund. OK, nobody with a £1500 S-class is going to buy a new engine, but you could easily put one in for servicing, find out the electrickery was buggered, and get a very scary bill.
Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of bks
Depends what you want to do with your money really. But if said student asked me for advice on the matter I would have advised him to go for it, but do his homework beforehand. He will find a sound example for that money. I've owned loads of Mercs of that vintage and a bad one is fairly obvious. There are plenty of decent breakers out vthere that can supply used parts (incl. engines and ABS units!) for very reasonable money. If you're not going to do lot's of miles, it could make a good car to use through university.Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of b
ks bimsb6 said:
MZ said:
I'm not sure I do see the 'rank stupidity' in this one. At least when I was on a student budget, the last thing I wanted to do was treat my transport as disposable and/or maintain an oops fund. OK, nobody with a £1500 S-class is going to buy a new engine, but you could easily put one in for servicing, find out the electrickery was buggered, and get a very scary bill.
Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of bks
Depends what you want to do with your money really. But if said student asked me for advice on the matter I would have advised him to go for it, but do his homework beforehand. He will find a sound example for that money. I've owned loads of Mercs of that vintage and a bad one is fairly obvious. There are plenty of decent breakers out vthere that can supply used parts (incl. engines and ABS units!) for very reasonable money. If you're not going to do lot's of miles, it could make a good car to use through university.Otherwise, though, you're right, what a load of b
ks Deva Link said:
Many of his replies in the newspaper column are random, to say the least.
The HJ forum is amusing - you're not allowed to disagree with the small number of things he contributes. If you do, the insanely aggressive and touchy mods delete your post.
I've noticed that, and they don't seem to like links to threads on Pistonheads either!The HJ forum is amusing - you're not allowed to disagree with the small number of things he contributes. If you do, the insanely aggressive and touchy mods delete your post.
His reply to the letter about twin wires across the road is complete bo****ks as well.
HJ says they are used to compile the speeds of traffic, and then decide if a speed camera should be put there.
I know, from a thread on here, they are used by town planners to determine traffic density. The double wire is to distinguish between cars and HGVs etc. As you can imagine without reference to the wheelbase you can't determine speed and even with they are a crude and inaccurate way of determining speed.
HJ says they are used to compile the speeds of traffic, and then decide if a speed camera should be put there.
I know, from a thread on here, they are used by town planners to determine traffic density. The double wire is to distinguish between cars and HGVs etc. As you can imagine without reference to the wheelbase you can't determine speed and even with they are a crude and inaccurate way of determining speed.
Strawman said:
As you can imagine without reference to the wheelbase you can't determine speed and even with they are a crude and inaccurate way of determining speed.
? How so? I like HJ in the DT though i find his website boring. I noticed that Lupo answer too, but hey, its impossible to be always right.
I doubt very much that one person supplies all the answers, that would be impossible i reckon. I would imagine there is a small dept running the HJ section and website.
I always love the question headings though, they're very clever. I do know HJ doesn't come up with those.
Deva Link said:
Many of his replies in the newspaper column are random, to say the least.
The HJ forum is amusing - you're not allowed to disagree with the small number of things he contributes. If you do, the insanely aggressive and touchy mods delete your post.
The HJ forum is amusing - you're not allowed to disagree with the small number of things he contributes. If you do, the insanely aggressive and touchy mods delete your post.
You never spoke a truer word....
If you type the word sodium, the swear filter blocks the first three letters...
Bunch of strange people....
I doubt very much that one person supplies all the answers, that would be impossible i reckon. I would imagine there is a small dept running the HJ section and website.
I always love the question headings though, they're very clever. I do know HJ doesn't come up with those.
It may be that there is no HJ but simply several journalists. A bit like the email addy with someones name that firms use so that people contacting Customer Services feel more comfortable with rather than the bland info@xxx.com or complaintsdept@xyz.co.uk.
MZ said:
HJ's quite staggering reply was "He does'nt specialise in cut-price cars - he wants at least £1,000 too much"
Hello! I noticed this letter too, and thought it a bit off for him.But in general though, his advice is good and an interesting read, and I always read his pages even if I have to filter out bits. The sort of bits I'd filter out if I asked my Dad for car advice :-)
Strawman said:
His reply to the letter about twin wires across the road is complete bo****ks as well.
HJ says they are used to compile the speeds of traffic, and then decide if a speed camera should be put there.
I know, from a thread on here, they are used by town planners to determine traffic density. The double wire is to distinguish between cars and HGVs etc. As you can imagine without reference to the wheelbase you can't determine speed and even with they are a crude and inaccurate way of determining speed.
The double wire allows you to know which direction the traffic is moving in. Additionally, setting the wires a known distance apart would allow you to get a fair approximation of the speed of vehicles passing, as (distance apart / time taken for front wheels to pass from wire 1 to wire 2) = speed of vehicle. Obviously the vehicle direction and speed isn't guaranteed as cars will cross the wires within the same time period. Similarly the count isn't guaranteed as there are vehicles with more than one axle, so number of axles passing / 2 isn't a completely accurate count. However, it'd be enough to give a good feel of traffic volumes and speeds.HJ says they are used to compile the speeds of traffic, and then decide if a speed camera should be put there.
I know, from a thread on here, they are used by town planners to determine traffic density. The double wire is to distinguish between cars and HGVs etc. As you can imagine without reference to the wheelbase you can't determine speed and even with they are a crude and inaccurate way of determining speed.
I'd imagine officially they're only used to count vehicles numbers and direction, but as you could get an approximation of speed for no additional cost I'd be amazed if they don't also add that analysis to the data. Whether you'd then use that information to site a speed camera is a different question...
Dan
Edited by DanL on Sunday 10th August 10:27
I think he survives by bossing a certain type of Telegraph reader - who like to think of themselves as not being vulgar enough to know anything about cars - around.
His style of writing gives the impression he's exposing a garage rip off or incompetence with every sentence - a sort of friendly Geezer for posh people who either can't, or don't want to be seen coping with the day to day reality of buying and running a car - quite often 'tho his forthright replies are saying more about the stupidity of the questions he gets asked in the first place.
For some of them he deserves at least a
His style of writing gives the impression he's exposing a garage rip off or incompetence with every sentence - a sort of friendly Geezer for posh people who either can't, or don't want to be seen coping with the day to day reality of buying and running a car - quite often 'tho his forthright replies are saying more about the stupidity of the questions he gets asked in the first place.
For some of them he deserves at least a
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