Board for questions about cars?

[CoozudBoyuPuak]

Mumsnet is my primary source of information about other people's experiences and opinions so as I am considering what my next car should be I thought I would ask here - but I can't find a talk topic board about cars at all. There are some threads in chat/aibu and elsewhere with car related issues but no dedicated board unless it's hiding somewhere I can't spot within the "all talk topics" list.

Are we all really so steeped in sexist stereotypes that we leave all decisions about cars to our menfolk? Do I need to go and join another forum to ask my car related questions? Or is there room on mumsnet for this talk topic?

There used to be a whole site about car-related stuff! Not sure where it is or where it's gone though.

Ford sponsored it for a while - I went on a day with some other MNetters at Donnington when they launched the Ford Grand C-Max, which was brilliant!

Cool!

I wonder if it got obliterated if sponsorship was withdrawn?

Would be good to get a specific forum so people like us can find information and people in the know, know where to go to provide help!

The car board was subsumed into products or something when MichaelMumsnet did his supposed clear up of the boards to reduce topics...

2 months ago I emailed mumsnet about bring back the car topic after noticing lots of recent car threads and they said watch this space.

It really would be helpful if there was a car topic. I'm showing my age now but I find the search engine so difficult to find what I'm looking for as it doesn't pick out phrases.

For example if I type "race car" in the search engine (WITH quotation marks, I'm not a complete heathen on the interwebs), the top result is going to be a recent comment saying something like "DS9 had a swimming race on Saturday and when DH went to park the car, ..."!!

You know what, I just fact-checked my own example and the third result was "Mixed race hair care" so you see exactly what I mean.

What's the point of tidying if you don't make things easy to find when they've been tidied? (As I'm always saying to DH when he moves everything to the garage!!)

It looks like they've moved all the threads from the old Cars topic to "Shopping" (I searched for posts I know I've made about my car).

Hi @CoozudBoyuPuak we merged the Car topic a while ago but it was based on stats not because we thought it was too manly for us! Our intention when we make these changes is to boost activity on the whole and when threads are not getting many responses because a board is quiet, it makes sense to merge it with a busier one.

Fewer topics make the site much easier to navigate but, as always, we respond to what you, our users, want and if there's sufficient demand for a topic then we'd certainly consider adding it. Please start a thread (or keep posting on this one) and we'll monitor the situation.

We do understand the need, tbh given that the majority of car reviews seem to be written by men and we may have different/additional requirements.

@BattleofBeamfleot can we check - are you using advanced search?

Hi @YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet (love the name! 😂)

I'm primarily using the app, so I guess not?

The old car board always used to take me out of my browsing page and into a new tab for some strange reason. I used to get very confused.
Agree - a car topic would be useful. I am currently buying a new one and searched MN for views and like others had no success using the search function 🙄

Please bring it back, I was looking for it in vain the other day too. I agree about the new search function being pretty hopeless for phrases.

Thank you @YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet

I have started an AIBU thread so that we can have voting and get a feel for the level of demand - please could everyone who's been on this thread pop over and vote:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4791818-that-the-opinions-of-mumsnetters-on-the-subject-of-which-car-to-buy-is-much-more-interesting-than-whats-elsewhere-in-the-media

Our intention when we make these changes is to boost activity on the whole and when threads are not getting many responses because a board is quiet, it makes sense to merge it with a busier one.

You might as well just merge them all with AIBU 😂😂

@SoupDragon 😁the chaos! I don't even want to THINK how rowdy the Archers lot would be in AIBU.

Thanks, @BattleofBeamfleot 😁when I started at MN there were around 200 Beckys per square inch.

Yes, that'll be the app's fault but we promise better app days are ahead.

@BattleofBeamfleot you can do phrases with quotes on google and get better results than with the mn search.

I did "new car" "2023" site:mumsnet.com and got a large number of threads that would obviously be very much at-home on a car topic board which have been active in 2023 so within the last 4 months

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet If you moved threads to the relevant topics, this problem wouldn’t occur. I don’t understand how MNHQ so consistently refuse to grasp this.

Users ask for a specific topic, it gets created, doesn’t get any traffic because everyone posts everything in Chat/AIBU, users see their specific topic threads not getting any answers so then they also post in Chat/AIBU ‘for traffic’ and the specific topic turns into tumbleweed. You merge it with another thread then people ask for it to be put back.

That's a good point @Pringleface - you are right that loads of the posts on "chat" and "aibu" would be more appropriate on a specific board but get started there "for traffic".

@YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet I thought it would be reasonable to alert some of the hundred-ish people who have started or contributed to threads asking for new car advice in the past few weeks, but my posts have been deleted (I only did 4 or 5 and they were all only threads a few weeks old, hardly zombies). If I'm not allowed to try to make contact with mumsnetters who are likely to find this relevant and have an opinion to share then your "monitoring the situation" won't get much traction.

I’m actually looking for advice about cars at the moment! Specifically those which may help reduce travel sickness, so lots of MN experience would be great to hear if there was a car/ motoring discussion section to post on.

Really miss the car topic.
Desperately need a new car and would love the advice of other owners.
I know I could start a thread but I never have much luck with my own ones.