this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Cars - For Car Enthusiasts

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c/Cars is the largest automotive enthusiast community on Lemmy and the fediverse. We're your central hub for vehicle-related discussion, industry news, reviews, projects, DIY guides, advice, stories, and more.

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Coming from Reddit, there were multiple car-related subs and they all saw some fairly heavy traffic with lots of posts and comments. Heck, even some of the model-specific ones seem to get more interaction than this sub does. What's the deal?

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (5 children)

I see the anti-car subscriptions getting much more traffic than pro-car subscriptions. It might just be the demographic here is less in to cars and more into city planning.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (2 children)

For sure, though I'll note I know many people who dislike cars as the dominant form of transportation in a society but are also car enthusiasts from the hobbyist perspective (this would also include me).

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[–] RaoulDook 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That doesn't seem very practical. For example, I've owned several cars but no one has ever let me plan a city.

How do you get into city planning anyway? I've got some sweet plans for a rad city made for motorcycles only.

[–] Purplexingg 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Well, just being the change you want to see. Being vocal about building less car-dependent cities leads to more people being aware a car isn't necessarily critical to daily life which leads to people voting for people who share those same ideas. Sure it won't be tomorrow but as someone who hates driving I'm definitely making an effort to drive as little as possible and voting for that lifestyle.

But to answer op's question, Lemmy's population as a whole is probably very techy/urbany and young. Very conducive to living in a major city where it's possible to live without a car.

[–] RaoulDook 8 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Personally I don't want to ever live in a major city like that. Rural or small town life is where it's at - I have multiple cars (paid off) and own my own house and land all for an affordable price on a middle class wage. Around these parts, you must have a car or be fit enough to walk long distances carrying stuff.

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[–] ilikekeyboards 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Same. I love racing, karts, formula1, I'm playing VR racing games and my first pc games were Need for Speed Carbon and Most Wanted. I like the engineering aspect behind them, the pistons, the clutches. I'm watching people fixing their cars on youtube etc.

I never owned a car, never will.

Way too expensive. I've taken my bike to work for the past four years. Over 20.000 thousand miles. I've only spent £1000. That's £250 a year for work commute.

[–] tdot 6 points 11 months ago

Porque no los dos? I have loved cars my whole life, have driven and worked on many different cars and am currently in the market for something 20 years old that’s a little too fast, but I still like my cities walkable and wish driving wasn’t the only option in most places here in the US.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Well Lemmy is still mostly populated by left leaning tech enthusiasts and for people like this, cars are just a tool or even something that should be banned at all cost.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

Bit harsh your opinion touched a nerve apparently to get downvoted. I think you expressed yourself politely and sincerely and you may also be right. Reddit had years to cultivate subs by and for people who are not terminally online, and those are the people who will be slowest to adopt complicated fediverse tech.

[–] Hazdaz 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I'm a left leaning tech enthusiast and I'm also a hard-core car guy. I

I don't really see those two groups being mutually exclusive.

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[–] Telstarado 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Agreed. I'm a car guy, have been working on them for decades, owned a shop at one point and worked at a racing component manufacturer for a good bit.

Car enthusiasts come in a lot of stripes and a super broad community may not gain as much focus right away as communities around a single topic, such as weird cars, etc. I'm subscribed to a weird car community here and there's a bunch of cool stuff being posted.

I'd say just keep the faith and keep posting great content and car subs on Lemmy will evolve to a point that attracts plenty of subscribers. I'm personally subscribing to every such community I come across...

[–] Hazdaz 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

You can't just talk about this weird cars sub without mentioning the name of it for others to join.

Also if you know of a classic car one, post that as well. I searched the communities and I think I found one and it had so few posts on it. This is especially sad coming from Reddit where the classic car sub would get at least a couple of posts a day. Even if they were of some random dude posting a picture or two, that's still nice to see.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (3 children)

There are magnitudes more users on the "Fuck Cars" community. You guys might wanna watch yourselves. lol

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fuckcars communities are more of a "we hate the societal effects of car dependency" and less of a "we hate cars everywhere".

[–] Galluf 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Many users there don't seem to be capable of differentiating those two things.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I love cars, especially the old restored ones, or reading about people tinkering and troubleshooting. But I subscribe to fuckcars because I fucken hate literal vans being used in my city and clogging up the streets designed for less and smaller traffic. Those Chelsea tractors, as they call them in the UK can fuck right off. Fine em, tax em, whatever you need to do, sabotage their tyres, whatever. Fuck em.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I see cars as tools. I'm a fuckcars person because I believe cities should not be built to appease roads and cars. Though I do find old cars cool and fascinating, I just want good people-friendly infrastructure in the world.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

There's also just fewer people in general here.

[–] Amilo159 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Very good observation. I think it's really true to some extent as early adopters of Lemmy are seemingly interested Linux, programming, memes and activities.

Automobile enthusiasts are just arriving from Reddit. I was into tanks, rare planes and things like that, for which there just isn't any community right now.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I've always just used car specific forums for car stuff. Though I gotta say the newer my cars get the shittier the forums are. Like damn man you put a K&N filter in it? That's some CrAzY mods bro

Can always start a flame war about oil that'll get some clicks

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

I think Facebook killed forums. With rare exception, they're all a ghost town. I'm excited about the idea of the fediverse, and the threadiverse specifically, bringing back forums. I think we should work toward that goal.

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[–] Nioxic 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I like cars.. but what do you want me to post about?

I dont like posting pictures of cars nobody can afford and there aint much point in posting a picture of a toyota aygo..

We have all seen a ferrari or whatever.

Posting upcoming 2024 models?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Honestly I like seeing any random daily driver that is well cared for by its owner. Knowing the goods and bads of that car.

Also cars differ from country to country so it's nice seeing what others get

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[–] MarkHughes4096 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

We are all busy working on our cars :)

I would quite like a project car sub, This one doesn't feel very focused. That's my thought anyway.

EDIT: I just added my 3 project cars, I have literally thousands of pictures of the work, I may try and compile a cross section post of the work I have done on each at some point if people might like that.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Reddit didn’t start with a huge amount of car subreddits, it built over time.

Part of the problem I’m seeing is that people are expecting the new communities here to have an instant following but really things should be posted to a single larger community until it’s big enough to splinter off.

[–] TeckFire 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I made one post already, i just feel like I’d be spamming if I kept posting with so few other members. Maybe that’s just in my head, because I’m sure i could post some interesting content lol

[–] Telstarado 5 points 11 months ago

Nah, prolific not-spam posting of good content would just make me want to follow your account if there is such a thing on Lemmy. Post away!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I've posted a similar thought other places, but coming from reddit--where you are as good as anonymous on all but the most niche subs--it's tough to get back into the mindset of posting to build community. It feels like coming full circle back to the topic-specific forums where you recognized a good 25%-50% of the people commonly posting and you didn't have to worry about your voice getting drowned out by random chatter and bots.

All that to say, I personally think posting semi-relevant or memey material, just for the sake of spurring conversation and getting to know other members is fine and probably a good thing while things are getting rolling.

[–] slow5oh 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Feels bad man, definitely missing /cars in all this switch.

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[–] Professorozone 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Just wanted to share my enthusiasm about finding out about Super Formula. Currently watching all the races and qualifying of this year and really impressed by the quality of racing and broadcast

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It could take a while to develop, on Mastodon it took about 2-3 years before folk started tooting about cars (now there is quite a lot of traffic). Also this sub seems quite US-centric, us Europeans see all your big trucks and muscle cars and think nobody will be interested in the superminis most folk drive round here, and a lot of people keep their cars stock as mods are expensive due to extra insurance costs!

I drive a modest VW Polo 6C myself (this is like 90% of a Golf, just slightly smaller) and am quite into detailing, I'd post up more pics but it keeps pissing down here in England at the moment (whilst rest of Europe is roasted by sun so there are often hosepipe bans!)

[–] spicytuna62 5 points 11 months ago

Please post your superminis! I love seeing kei cars around town when I do. I saw a Toyota HiAce last week and started gushing over it to my wife.

It's true many Americans prefer larger cars, but some of us out here have a genuine appreciation for smaller cars. My '97 Prelude makes my 9th gen FB Civic feel like a truck after I've been driving it for a minute.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I am definitely a car fan, I have 0 money to work on cars or build them, and I have almost 0 technical knowledge about them except specific cars. So, with that said I would love to see more but it's hard for me to contribute.

I currently drive an EV and we all know what car enthusiasts feel about EVs... I personally have grown to be fascinated with em

[–] Crazychicken563 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think a lot of us were just lurkers or introverts. The thought of a broad audience can be a bit nerve-racking. I was active in the small WRX subreddit before all this, but never posted to any "main" subs.

That said the community here is indeed very small so once we get over the "ah general community = too many people" feeling there will be more posts. True for myself at least.

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[–] schwim 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

For me, a category as broad as this one is unappealing. I love all sorts of cars but rarely what's posted in a car such as this. "Air-cooled VWs", "off-roading" or "vintage and patina" is right up my alley but there's a bunch that's not.

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[–] Viking_Hippie 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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[–] phamanhvu01 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

c/cars might be tiny in comparison to r/cars but imo post quality here is a lot better, and Lemmy in general seems to attract tech users more than car guys from what I've seen.

It's also a good thing that on this platform, there's no teenagers commenting stuff like "are you a Honda salesman 😭😭😭" or "are you 40 💀" just because you buy a practical family car instead of that WRX STI.

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[–] Dinodicchellathicc 5 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I like cars. Here's my humble daily

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[–] Professorozone 5 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I'm a car guy. Happy to talk to you.

Ummm what do I do?

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[–] Blamemeta 4 points 11 months ago

There's a lot of internet-style weirdos on the site.

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