I’ve envisioned our car buying guides as living, evolving references (as opposed to the fairly static ones you find elsewhere). In that vein, we’ve taken a lot of your feedback and applied it to the guides we’re rolling out this week and into the future.
Here are the big upgrades we’ve made since getting your advice:
- “Important Facts At A Glance” section now includes curb weight range and IIHS safety ratings (plus a link to their site).
- All Buyer’s Guides get a “Which One We’d Buy” section where we tell readers how we’d spec out our car if we were buying one.
- “Build Your Own” configurator links can now be found on all Buyer’s Guides at the end of the “Which One We’d Buy” section.
- All Ultimate Buyer’s Guides will not only include the standard features breakdown of each trim level, but they will now include notable options available on each trim (and cost of those options).
This seems to accomplish a lot of what you’d asked for in order to make our recommendations more robust and holistic. One of my favorite suggestions was to give more actual advice in the non-Ultimate Buyer’s Guides. We’ve done this by adding the “which one we’d buy” section, including advice like: Don’t buy the Volkswagen Tiguan unless you get an insane deal.
I’m also quite pleased at the assistance we’ve been getting from owners. For instance, a would-be dad had a question about having the WRX and children. A bunch of WRX owners/parents chimed in to assure the would-be parent that the car is suited just fine to child rearing.
So, keep the comments coming, we’re still early in this venture and our aim is to provide the best and most direct assistance you can find.
Contact the author at matt@jalopnik.com. Photo: Dave Burnett / PUPPYKNUCKLES