Car forums are still a very important place in 2025. Is there something really stupid and specific happening to your car? Chances are, there’s a forum somewhere with a ridiculously deep dive on why it happens and how to fix it. Knowledge like this can’t really be found on TikTok or Instagram, yet it’s also not super easy to search for these resources.
Lately, your favorite Autopian writers have been combing through enthusiast forums and finding out what’s going on with certain cars. It’s how we’ve discovered a lot of our engine swap stories as well as our part failure stories, like the $3 part that can strand your Jeep Wrangler. Thank you, Gubbin!
Just want to note that these “here’s something important that mostly just forum nerds know” articles are a great public service.
Ecsta C3PO has a great idea:
There should be an online database of this for all vehicles, compiling the “best-of” from the forums.
Examples I can think of
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2011-ish Kia Optima Steering coupler – cheap (if labour intensive) repair for clicking noise in steering column
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2013-ish Mazda3 rear strut mount – common failure point because aluminum mount oxidizes and fails, especially annoying when studs snap when trying to remove.
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Some early 2000’s Subarus you can pull the power steering sensor on the steering column and get great steering feel with no warning lights.
In today’s Shitbox Showdown, contributor Mark Tucker made a reference to the weird way to count Star Wars movies and Triumph car names in order. Twobox Designgineer makes a good reference:
If you’re counting in Star Wars, it goes 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9. If you’re counting in Triumph sports car, for the US market, it goes 2, 3, 4, 4A, 250, 6, 7, 8.
If you’re counting off the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, it goes 1, 2, 5. Sorry, 1, 2, 3, The rabbit had me confused.
Today, Thomas wrote about how someone drove a fan car upside down. SlowCarFast figured out who really was behind the wheel:
Is that how Stig’s Australian cousin does things?
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic laptop image: Wikipedia/stock.adobe.com
Unfortunately the last of a couple of Australian Chrysler Forums recently bit the dust after the owner died and there was no way for anybody to take over operation of it – while there were only a handful of us still posting there after everybody else drifted away to Facebook or away from the scene completely, there were vast amounts of accumulated knowledge that is now sitting somewhere inaccessible on a server, or already deleted.
Stangnet and Allfordmustangs both had something like this (for Mustangs, of course). Stangnet still does within certain forums. I used to be a moderator at both sites (at different times).
OK Update on an old post. I bought a few of the Skoda washer fluid funnel caps … these fit on all my cars. Soft rubbery material will stretch to fit most filler necks. Fit perfectly on my Toyotas (after cutting off the factory clip). Not so great on the MDX due to clearance, these are large and a bottle tight against the fender is a compromised fit. Tested on the Corolla, a car that always spilled and no mess. 8 of 10, would buy again.
Were 2 for $10 on the Jungle site.
The Wayback Machine (https://archive.org/) can sometimes get you out of a bind by at least giving you the html of a page that is long gone, but there’s no substitute for saving any pertinent pages yourself, complete with associated media.
For my own purposes, genvibe is a ridiculously good resource.
When photobucket started charging for hosting pictures it really hit forums hard. Lots of detailed repair pictures gone forever.
Yup, there are a heck of a lot of placeholders out there marking the graves of photobucket links.
This. I have this lingering fear that some of the important car need-to-knows of the early 2000s internet will be lost to time, whether it be a corporate buyout, forum admin moving on, or running out of funds to keep the server running.
I still remember when the Wikipedia pages for the Mitsubishi engines were complete, with bore/stroke/comp ratios/hp/torque, generations and all, unlike the mangled pages they are today, all because sources couldn’t be cited
I try to save screenshots of relevant info when possible… sadly with a rotating fleet things get missed.
Yay, I’m so glad you saw my comment, and I loved Ecsta C3PO’s reply!
As an adult I still insist the car website, or any website, will not be the one just posting content that is available on many other sites but one that creates a sense of community, yes Autopian, but also provides a service other sites don’t.
On that note the Autopian is ahead of the game by providing what is this car advice to police departments around the country on a limited basis. I think the Autopian could get worldwide recognition if they asked the departments they helped to notify other departments that they were available. Let’s admit it we love this shit and it helps others.
In addition, Autopian has members all over the world. That means access to junkyards all over the world. Can they create a market for car parts for dues paying members where you post what you are looking for and ask for members help with 10% towards Autopian? Even DT has never asked for help I assume because he doesn’t want to take advantage but really don’t we love being the guy who solves the question?
I’ve done some of that sort of thing in the past on a now defunct online forum – measured then sourced a pair of Daihatsu Applause reverse lights from a local wrecker for someone at the other end of the country who worked out they would be potentially the ideal front parker lights for the modified Concorde nose cone (think Mad Max Falcon Hardtop) on his custom Valiant panel van.
Benzworld has an Encyclopaedia Germanica section that’s full of great information.
Might I present you with
https://www.diyauto.com/
Lots of forum posts and guides compiled in a way that can be filtered by make/model etc
That is REALLY COOL!
Yea! I had a quick diy fix for the squeaky leaf on 2nd gen tacomas that I posted on Tacoma world in 2010ish and around 2012, the people setting that site up contacted me asking if they could put it up. They seem to have done it with a ton of others too
This is the answer. Won a raffle there a year or two ago after submitting a few things and their stickers are now all over my toolbox lol. Autopian should honestly do a whole article for visibility. Literally exactly what this post is asking for.
That’s awesome! I want some stickers from them. And I need more autopian stickers for my bus
Alas, I keep getting a 500 internal server error. Bummer
Weird, I just got it to pull up
I was able to register but then got an error upon logging in. Then the 500 errors started. Will try clearing the cookies and some other stuff
Thanks for the shoutout! Thats actually my website. Really happy to see the good feedback. Started it for all the reasons listed above.
That’s awesome! I didn’t know that was your website! It’s been really helpful with different projects and I tend to direct people to it at work and in the family
I forget which Nissan forum I grabbed them from, but one thing I liked about having my 2002 Q45 was I was able to download the entire catalogue of Inifiniti’s official Service Manuals that their technicians use. At that forum link, it looked like pretty much every car Nissan produced (within a timeframe) had these manuals available.
The difference between using a Hayne’s/Chilton’s and using those service manuals was astounding.
One thing that does suck about awesome car forum posts is people often link in pictures and videos that go dead over time. So the forum post about changing your heater core remains but the useful pictures/videos are long gone.
I try to archive the entire webpage when there’s a great post I want to use/keep.
I found that through a forum too. It has been amazing finding everything I need to work on a 25 year old Frontier.
Am embarking on the same journey with my 27 year old Frontier.
Same with car sites! Old jalopnik posts, and even autopian posts, are missing tons of photos referenced in the articles, which makes them essentially useless.
I found the FSM for my 350z on Nicoclub, and they have a ton of other Nissan dealer manuals. Super helpful for diagnosing and learning about the finicky convertible roof on my car.
I’m pretty sure NicoClub is where I grabbed them too. Amazing resource for Nissans.
In my Jetta TDI days, Fred’s TDI Club forums were amazing and incredibly helpful. And fun as well.
Jeez, 9 years later, now that I sold it and replaced with a Honda, I have far more infrequent reasons to research some minorly insignificant and debilitating problems.
The people on Fred’s were fun and we had a fair share of shared pain. It was a smaller pool of participants, but we were pretty engaged. I miss some of those contributors, but I have nothing to offer them anymore. Towards the end of my time there, there was a lot of sold it. Moved on to something Japanese. And then diesel fuel got so expensive, that a lot of us got to the point of “why bother.”
Don’t get me wrong. I loved my ’01 Jetta TDI. And I never drove a gasser Jetta from that era. So, I can’t compare the experiences. But there was some pain involved.
This site is a great place to commiserate about poor choices we may have made in our earlier years.
I am mildly offended that my Portal reference didn’t make the cut.
To quote the auto turrets: ” I don’t blame you.”
All hail the Holy Hand Grenade…
Ni!
Run away, run away!