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Interest in car futzin

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bobhustead

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We have taken to watching Road Kill Garage and Engine Masters on the Motor Trend channel. RKG is fairly hardcore work, mechanical and body. RKG gets up to 200,00 viewers and Engine Masters up to 250,000. Engine Masters is fairly technical engine performance improvements and testing on an enhanced dyno. Surprised there is that much interest in this stuff.
Bob
 
LOVE both of those shows. Also Garage Squad. I think my favorite part is the (apparent) honesty of them. Sure, none of those crews has to shell out their own personal funds for the parts but they're still trying to be budget-conscious and re-use whatever parts they can. The crews even "donate" bits from their own garages to make things happen. The shows where they chuck out and replace anything that's even dusty... I just can't relate!

Also the fact that RKG and EM crews know quite a bit but are clearly learning as they go. On RKG, nothing ever goes as planned. Brand-new parts don't fit and sometimes don't even work. Just like in my garage! The fun part is that they consider the projects "done enough" when the engine puts power to the wheels -- we'll figure out a proper gas tank later! Then they take the half-built heap for a test drive... and break something else on the way home.

I also think that I learn a lot more from those shows. The RKG guys often limp a car along as a problem develops, showing and telling you the symptoms (and guessing at diagnoses) the whole way. Then they tear it apart and find the real culprit. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video of a car misfiring from a failing coil (as opposed to a failing fuel pump) is worth an entire book.
 
These also show a lack of car understanding in the general public. Some show from England with an old guy and 3 women recently showed changing a starter on an old Rover as mechanicing and the explanation of what was wrong with the starter was authentic gibberish. The show with Bruno Massel might be good if they actually showed you what they are doing instead of just snippets.
Bob
 
I enjoy those kind of shows...unfortunately I cannot watch the Roadkill or Enginemasters anymore because my friend Dave had access to them, and he passed away last year. I do like the YouTube guys like Vice Grip Garage, Puddins Fab Shop and Mortske - they make a lot of content about getting old junk going and troubleshooting what goes wrong. They have some ad sponsership but I don't think they get regularly supplied with parts or off-camera crews to expedite the work unless its part of a special promotion. They don't do much with British or other Euro rides though - usually older American muscle cars and older classic cars/trucks (although Puddins Fab Shop does quite a bit with smaller Japanese trucks).
 
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