The car freak in North America has more choice than ever before in shows aimed directly at them. In fact, it’s gotten to the point that any media putz with an interest in cars can put together a TV show. If they’ve got the bucks to produce it well, chances are that some network or another will pick it up. Unfortunately, if it looks good, the North American public (ok…the American public. Us Canadians are just along for the ride) will watch it. If it’s half assed drivel, oh well, the masses saw their ad spots. It’s gotten to the point where it really pisses me off when I see some tools creating bad automotive tv.

This brings me to this evening’s rant. As a blogger who works in the car industry, you would think that I might overload on car stuff. Well, you would only be half right. If I’m the only one in the house, I’ll likely have Speed tv on in the background, even if I’m not actually watching. Earlier tonight, I walked by the TV just in time to see the so called pro on Chop Cut Rebuild give his obligatory maintenance tip, sponsored by one of the major oil companies.

He proceeded to tell the viewer that to check an air filter, you just spin the nut off the air cleaner canister and lift off the lid. Then you’ll be able to see any debris in the filter. Of course there were a couple of blades of dried grass inside for the viewer to see. The vehicle he was showing was a Sixty something Corvette. Now amongst the brands that I’ve worked with, I think the last vehicle that came with a flat, circle style air filter was an early Nineties dodge Pick Up. Most regular cars abandoned that style filter a decade before that. Talk about current how to instruction!

His other recommendation was a little more subtle. Apparently the CCR folks advocate checking your air filter any time after 10,000 miles and then replacing it as needed after that. 10,000 miles works out to about 16,000 kilometers. A few years back, I did a short stint at a Toyota store in a rapidly growing suburb of Toronto. After 6,000 km you could have started growing bean sprouts in the contents of the average driver’s air filter. While this sounds like an extreme example, how many of you live in a new subdivision? How many of you drive past active farm land every day? A more sensible recommendation would be to check your air filter at every oil change. Up here, that’s every 5 or 6,000 km, or in the 3,500 mile mark.

While I’m sure that major oil company was happy with the number of viewers who sat through their heavily sponsored Car Care Minute, how happy are they with the poor representation of their brand? Maybe if the viewing public weren’t so daft, then we might get shows put together by car guys who actually have a clue in hell what they are talking about.

After all, close to 70% of the public are below average!