Automobile

[Mike Schaeffer]

I've been lurking for a little while, but when I saw the posts
regarding the Automobile magazine review, I wanted to post my own
commentary. I hope this is within list ettiquette but the review
really struck me as biased.  The plain and simple fact is that pretty
much everything said about the car was negative, and occasionally
adolescent in style.  Even the few positive comments (nice engine,
good body control, nice equipment level) were attached to caveats
of various sorts.  In an advertising dollar driven magazine world,
reviews like this are uncommon, and maybe it's perversely good that
magazines are willing to be so harsh. Ironically enough, Nissan
bought a couple pages at the front of the magazine for a two page
SE-R ad. It'll be interesting to see if that campaign continues.
Now, for more specifics:

* Steering feel - they spent a lot of time talking about the steering
  feel on the Sentra SE-R. Apparantly the LSD causes problems when
  transferring torque. To be honest, I'd be suprised if the LSD didn't
  cause steering feel issues.  The Sentra was the only reviewed car
  so equipped, and they seemed to make it into a liability. Perhaps
  the other cars felt linear as they spun wheels and lost power
  through turns?

* Body control - They praise the SE-R's body control and then dismiss
  it as unimportant. The GTI's agressively three wheeled cornering
  style, however, is apparantly a riot of fun.

* Interior - Santa Monica Transvestive Hookers apparantly find
  the SE-R's cloth fabric tacky. I don't know if they polled such
  people, but the remark seemed pretty juvenile, particularly with
  respect to something so open to personal interpretation.  It seemed
  particularly odd, given that the Focus SVT is redeemed for it's cheap
  interior apparantly through well designed option packages. I'm sure
  that five years from now, as parts fall apart, a SVT owner will be
  able to console himself that his option packages were nice. :-)

Anyway, it really irritated me.  I like the car, and find it really
odd that it got such a negative review.  I think the Car and Driver
comparision was much more balanced.

-Mike