Honest John www.honestjohn.co.uk

The poor wearing qualities of winter tyres has always put me off buying them, but recent reviews of the Continental range claim a new tread pattern spreads wear more evenly and a suggested life of 30k prompted me to buy. Given the nature of the tyres, I was expecting a high 'A' rating for braking performance and was disappointed at the 'C' rating stated on the supplied tyres. Last weeks 'Honest John' column appeared to explain this by stating Winter tyres have a significantly poorer performance in wet/warm conditions than 'normal' tyres. The tyres (including fitting) set me back well over £300, and I now wish I had settled for a good quality 'all-year' tyre.

I posted a review on this site after having a bad experience with a garage, It was balanced, fair and factual. I found it had been removed after the owner complained with no one from the website even bothering to let me know. After I complained on their forum and e-mailed the management of the site asking why my negative review had been taken down whilst positive review had been allowed to stay, and asking how useful their review section was if only positive reviews were allowed to stand, I supplied all evidence showing how poorly I had been treated.

To my amazement HJ agreed with garages version of events! so presumably waiting 4.5 weeks for a repair to a clutch is perfectly acceptable and I was in the wrong for removing my car and taking it to another garage who fixed it in 4 days.

Replies I received were incredibly arrogant and rude.

Unlike the other negative reviewers, I think it's still worth reading, but it's become arrogant (in line with the rest of the DT - try posting on any of their forums and you will be certain to be insulted). It's the poor advice I am bothered about. One example is that Honest John recommends the Hyundai I30 as being superior to the Golf, Citroen C4 etc. I have driven all these cars and this is just not true! The Hyundai does not compare with either the C4 or the Golf. Clattery suspension, cheap interior, poor fuel economy, wandering steering. You could once recommend the Hyundai because it was cheap and had a long guarantee. Now it is expensive for what it is. As for the I10 that he also recommends - nasty little car made in India. For the same price you can get a VW UP or a Ford Ka. No contest.

I asked Honest John a simple & specific questions about DPF additives. He did not answer my question but gave me an answer to a question I did not ask. When I responded that as a Telegraph reader & subscriber I was disappointed in his reply I got an almost abusive response advising me that I was lucky to get any free response & reply from him. He says the Telegraph don't pay his wages!! You can be sure he gets a "fat" fee for his weekly column.

His head has obviously got too big for the silly hat he wears.

I would suggest you don't ask him for responsible advice and the Telegraph Media Group reconsider using such a rude and unpleasant "ambassador" to loyal readers.

What an Unpleasant man! I wrote explaining that a Tow Bar fitted to my car had saved my family from serious injury many years ago, when a car ploughed into the back of my stationary vehicle, and since then I had always had a tow bar fitted for safety, his reply, was that "It is people like you that have caused me Thousands of pounds of damage to my cars by reversing int them! that my email would be binned!

What a way for a columnist in a national newspaper to respond to a reader, Pardon me!!! never again!!

like others have said, this was once a really GREAT website. but has gone seriously down hill. you cant say anything on the forum without someone nit picking on silly things or trying to correct you. also too many adverts. i guess money has taken over and that is whats driving the site now.

id recommend using friendlier forums like Piston Heads or sites specific to your brand of car.

It's a pity as I used to check this site every day and really liked the banter that went on. You can tell how little its used, today i went on and there had only been 4 new posts throughout the whole day. shame really but hey ho all things change.

Not as good as it used to be. Now full of self-rightous types withh little in the way of real help to an ordinary motorist. Also , has a tendency to be anti- speed restrictions biased. This is not a sensible way to go in any civilised society. If you do not like the law, agitate to the lawmakers, rather than ranting on website to all and sundry.

HJ site now is a trivial site and I would advise people to look at specific sites with their problems, i.e the club sites for their cars.

Used to be a great site until they redeveloped it. I used to use it around the early 2000's and it was a friendly forum and a good site for motoring news. Now it's full of pop up adverts and the moderators make it an uncomfortable place to chat. I use Piston Heads now, much better and more like the Honest John site of years ago.

Honest John is easily accessed. Got all the information I needed to compare models.

Fantastic site, great prices, ordered at 11am got delivery 24hrs later- how impressed was I. I have passed on to all the girlies in the office, we love them!

Fantastic site, great prices, ordered at 11am got delivery 24hrs later- how impressed was I. I have passed on to all the girlies in the office, we love them!