10 Survival Tips for Car Forums

Mitsubishi Evo X - 10 Tips for Car Forum Survival

Show of hands, who’s a member of at least 10 car forums? There was a time when I used to say I was a member of at least 30 car forums. Nowadays, I have to admit, I’ve lost count.

The thing is, I have found no source of information more useful than car forums when it comes to knowledge about ANY car. Yes, yes, you sometimes have to sift through tons of crap, ranting and misinformation. However, more often than not I can find the correct information I need so long as I’m willing to discern a little.

There is a car forum for every subject on the realm of cars. From racing, to rally to hyper-miling to car sales. Most importantly, there is a little niche car forum specific to every car model on the planet. How do I know this? Well, I haven’t looked up every single model on the planet of course. That said, a few years ago I was considering an old beater SUV to take surfing in Baja California and I ran across a Honda CR-V forum with boards for models as old as the gen 1’s from 1995. Let’s face it, if there’s a forum for a dang Honda CR-V there has to be a forum for everything else!

Hmmm, maybe not for say an AMC Pacer. Well, let’s see… [goes off searching for one]. Ah, yes! There is in fact an AMC Pacer forum. Like I said, there’s a forum for every car on the planet.

10 Tips for Car Forum Survival

Let’s say you have a question or doubt about anything on your car. Imagine you are going to be doing some work on it and have some doubts. Perhaps you simply want to learn more about the most popular performance upgrades for your vehicle. I highly urge you to search up the most popular car forum for your particular interest and join.

Here are 10 tips for guidance and survival in car forums. These come from someone with plenty of car forum experience — Yours truly.

  1. Check out the vibe of any forum you join. Some are super friendly and people will almost always be willing to help. One great example is EvolutionM for the Mitsubishi Evo. I’ve also had great experiences at All Ford Mustangs, Fiesta ST.org, Tacoma World and even the Corvette Forum. Then there’s Miata.net which is apparently full of too many miserable old people that can’t afford a Porsche and complain about everything. These types of car forum members generally make your experience pretty terrible, whichever the car forum. You know who you are. By the way, I do have friends that belong to Miata.net and are no spring chickens. You know who you are as well and I love you.
  2. Don’t thread hijack. It’s not nice. If you have a question that’s perfectly in line with the topic, then feel free to ask. But don’t derail a thread with different questions not related to the topic — unless it’s a thread that has gone social and people just talk and talk about matters only loosely related to the thread topic.
  3. If you want to establish a good online reputation, try and always use the same username across all forums. This will help you when someone has to vouch for you or if you want to sell stuff on the car forums. People will know it’s you and that you are well-respected. It works the other way too. If you’re a dumbass or irresponsible and gain a bad rep, your bad rep will follow you around from car forum to car forum to whatever other forum.
  4. Don’t go to car forums just to take. It’s a two-way street. If someone asks a question and you know the answer, take the time to respond and be nice about it. After all, the other members are helping you with your needs.
  5. Search before you post. It’s better form to search up old threads about a topic you might be interested in than just doing the easy thing and posting up a brand new thread. Be mindful about reviving very old threads unless it really merits to do so. By the way, simply commenting on a very old post is reviving it.
  6. Don’t complain about topics that come back as new threads even though they have been discussed before. This is something that plagues old car forums. The regulars spend half their time trolling and complaining about new threads posted about topics that have already been discussed. Yep, they take the time to complain instead of helping, or just ignoring the thread altogether. Forums should be ever-growing and discussing topics again in new threads can often be very useful.
  7. Treat others as you would like others to treat you.
  8. Don’t be a troll.
  9. Don’t be a troll.
  10. Don’t be a troll.

DON’T BE A TROLL

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