Carfilter?
June 1, 2019 11:43 PM Subscribe
Are there any car forums that are better than your average internet? Obviously Metafilter is my gold standard. Looking for forums welcoming of people that aren’t cishetwhitedudes and are patient and kind with people who are learning and not Car Nerds.
More specifically: for a mid 90’s Chevy S10 and a mid 2000s Subaru Forester. Bonus points for a Kawasaki KLR forum.
More specifically: for a mid 90’s Chevy S10 and a mid 2000s Subaru Forester. Bonus points for a Kawasaki KLR forum.
Not a forum answer, but you would do well to listen to all the episodes of Car Talk, especially with the specific cars you've mentioned. Lots of general, useful advice for your era of vehicles and they took calls from all types of people.
NPR
posted by McNulty at 12:07 AM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
NPR
posted by McNulty at 12:07 AM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
Are you curious about general car topics for beginners, or things specific to your models?
Like, there are subreddits for different kinds of cars, but if you want general car maintenance stuff...honestly you might want to go back to the model-/make-specific sites and ask there anyway.
None of the sites really stand out in my mind as being particularly Good People; for that, I would stay here on MeFi and use tags to filter past FPPs and AskMes. For example, I seem to recall finding good stuff on the corollaland.com site when I had a Toyota question some years ago, but I never got to know the community. The /r/Subaru subreddit was friendly when I had a question last fall, but it is like 50% pictures of cars.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:28 AM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
Like, there are subreddits for different kinds of cars, but if you want general car maintenance stuff...honestly you might want to go back to the model-/make-specific sites and ask there anyway.
None of the sites really stand out in my mind as being particularly Good People; for that, I would stay here on MeFi and use tags to filter past FPPs and AskMes. For example, I seem to recall finding good stuff on the corollaland.com site when I had a Toyota question some years ago, but I never got to know the community. The /r/Subaru subreddit was friendly when I had a question last fall, but it is like 50% pictures of cars.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:28 AM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
"Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for mechanics and DIY enthusiast owners of cars, trucks, and motorcycles."
posted by grouse at 5:27 AM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by grouse at 5:27 AM on June 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
Adventure bikers are basically the nerds of the biker world, so there's a lot of good KLR discussion out there.
KLR650.net is the place to be for KLR stuff. It's a popular bike so there's lots of other forums, but this is the mother of them all. I do think most of the posters are there to help. You do some times see a gruff "this was answered on p 225 of the oil thread" response, but that's not the majority (just never ask about oil.) It's a lot of white dudes (way more gun rack posts than I'm personally interested in) but I think that just comes with owning this particular bike. Stick to technical forums and search for previous answers before you post and it's fine.
Browse the KLR FAQ. Not a forum but I'd read it to help decode some of the bike-specific technical language and abbreviations.
Other places I've found helpful from time to time are KLRworld and KLRforum. Not sure how they rate as a community but good posts for solving technical problems.
I think the friendliest biker forum around is at ADVrider.com. They have an "every bike is an ADV bike as long as you take it on adventures" kind of attitude that I extends to their interactions with people too. (There is one massive KLR thread in the "thumpers" section you can search or follow for bike specific stuff.)
Or PM me. I traded in my KLR a few years back but I'm happy to try to help out.
posted by Wulfhere at 6:05 AM on June 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
KLR650.net is the place to be for KLR stuff. It's a popular bike so there's lots of other forums, but this is the mother of them all. I do think most of the posters are there to help. You do some times see a gruff "this was answered on p 225 of the oil thread" response, but that's not the majority (just never ask about oil.) It's a lot of white dudes (way more gun rack posts than I'm personally interested in) but I think that just comes with owning this particular bike. Stick to technical forums and search for previous answers before you post and it's fine.
Browse the KLR FAQ. Not a forum but I'd read it to help decode some of the bike-specific technical language and abbreviations.
Other places I've found helpful from time to time are KLRworld and KLRforum. Not sure how they rate as a community but good posts for solving technical problems.
I think the friendliest biker forum around is at ADVrider.com. They have an "every bike is an ADV bike as long as you take it on adventures" kind of attitude that I extends to their interactions with people too. (There is one massive KLR thread in the "thumpers" section you can search or follow for bike specific stuff.)
Or PM me. I traded in my KLR a few years back but I'm happy to try to help out.
posted by Wulfhere at 6:05 AM on June 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Not sure about those specific models, but I've had good luck with some Facebook groups (the private ones) for specific niche topics in the past. Also some bad luck, either just finding a group, having it be dead, or worst case full of people id rather not be talking too. That said though, it cant hurt to look if you're not completely anti-FB.
posted by cgg at 6:07 AM on June 2, 2019
posted by cgg at 6:07 AM on June 2, 2019
The Ultimate Subaru Message board is decent, people might mock you a little if you say something really silly but are generally helpful. There's a fairly wide range of political views represented, but threads in the technical areas tend to stay on topic. It's not metafilter, but nor is it the umoderated dregs of the internet.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:04 PM on June 2, 2019
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:04 PM on June 2, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Grandysaur at 11:44 PM on June 1, 2019