When Should You Correct Someone About Car Things?

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I suspect that nearly everyone reading right now has been in this situation before: you’re talking amicably about car and car-adjacent things with people, and it’s all going great, a vibrant exchange of ideas and thoughts. Then it happens: someone says something that you know to be factually wrong. You can feel the inaccuracy in your gut. Do you derail the flow of the conversation to correct it, or just let it go? I was just in this situation recently, so it’s fresh in my mind.

I was taking the $500 Toyota Sienna David so kindly gifted me/ditched here over to a shop to get it properly aligned. The Sienna is fantastic, by the way, way better than a $500 car has any right to be, but it still needed an alignment. While talking to the guy at the desk about the Sienna and other car stuff, he said something that stopped my brain like holding down the reset button on a game console: he told me that things were worse in the car-servicing biz now that BMW owns Ford.

Uhh. Buddy. BMW doesn’t own Ford. BMW owns Mini and Rolls-Royce, sure, but Ford? No. I couldn’t even think of where he may have gotten that idea; it’s not like, say, Toyota and BMW, who collaborated on the new Supra, so you may see BMW-stamped parts in a Supra. I can’t think of any BMW/Ford collaboration other than the recent EV charging network thing.

Confused, I asked, “Wait. You said BMW owns Ford?” just to be sure I heard right. And, yes, that’s what he said, and elaborated on that a bit, noting that there were BMW parts in Fords now.

So, at this point I’m wondering should I correct him? And if I do, will I need to state my status as a Bigshot Professional Automotive Writer Person-Human to give my correction the required gravitas? Or will that make me just look like a jerk? And will my correcting this guy make him feel demeaned and embarrassed in his own shop?

I mean, some things you have to correct – safety stuff, of course, if someone says you can use old pie tins as cheap brake rotor replacements, that you should correct. But if someone is talking and says that the Pontiac Tempest’s Rope Drive was licensed from Saab, do you need to correct them?

Oh, and I didn’t correct the BMW-owns-Ford guy. It just didn’t seem right to do that to him at the moment? Besides, I don’t think him thinking that will really hurt anybody.

I mean, I sure as hell would want to, and if it was someone I knew pretty well, I would. I think in most situations I would, but there are times where correcting a minor inaccuracy maybe just doesn’t feel worth it? Or is truth the only real arbiter? I mean, when I am wrong about something, I want to know! Correct away!

What do you think? Do you correct every wrong thing you hear, or should you just let some things go? Tell us what you think in the comments! Hell, correct people with the wrong opinions if you want! Have at it!

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Mercedes Streeter

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206 thoughts on “When Should You Correct Someone About Car Things?”

  1. B.S. is the crabgrass of society. If you let it slide, it will take over. Many times in professional conversations, I would call it out to those with superior positions, sometimes with them never speaking to me again.(bonus) A lot has to do with HOW you correct. In your scenario I would have asked, ” Did someone bring in a ford with a bmw engine in it?”

  2. I don’t usually get into conversations like that a whole lot, though people do say some dumb things about air-cooled VWs from time to time (some people seem convinced you could get them from the factory with a Porsche motor) but usually I let that shit slide.

    My best friend is not really a car person. Well, she kind of is, because we’ve known each other for about 16 years and she’s picked up a lot. Because she’s…well, a female, people (usually at shops or coworkers) will tell her dumb shit and just expect her to believe it. The first thing she does is text me and ask if they’re correct or just talking out of their ass. Usually it’s the latter. She’s even corrected people a time or two, for which I am incredibly proud of her. She was even diagnosing the issues her 200k mile Prius was having before she got rid of it, diving into forums and doing some very thorough research.

    1. The Porsche-heads often tell me that my Corvair engine was derived from Porsche’s flat six design. I say, “Wow, that’s cool. I didn’t know the 911 debuted before 1959.”

      2. I’ve had people tell me several times that “Porsche designed my engine” – wow, you mean, Al Kolbe, Robert Benzinger, Ed Cole, and Maurice Olley were all moonlighting at Porsche at the same time they were working for GM? That must have been crazy hard at the time, especially with transatlantic jet travel being kind of in its infancy and all.

    2. I thought the 914 came with a VW engine. If that engine was also in a VW I can see where some people believe that is getting a Porsche engine in a VW as opposed to getting a VW engine in a Porsche.

      1. You know, I never thought of that. Could definitely see folks getting the two mixed up. I think some people get “someone dropped a Porsche engine into their VW” and “you could order it from the factory that way” mixed up too. Which is fair, VW stopped selling the Beetle here in 1979, that’s plenty of time for things to get muddled.

        2. OK, but explain my coworker who insisted, really insisted, like weirdly passionately about it, that his friend’s new Miata had a rotary in it and was therefore really cool because of that. Note, it wasn’t some custom engine swap project, it was like fresh out of the showroom new.

          1. A Mazda sports car RX7, Miata?same thing so rotary motor. I had a JH and used the JHPS site membership for great advice. The head of the site would always post a repair with instructions each month rating difficulty by how many glasses of wine need to be consumed after the work was done. The consumption of alcohol does mess with accuracy of information.

            1. Probably both, it was more odd because he usually doesn’t give a shit about anything that isn’t a full-size pickup or SUV. But he was really, unusually interested in that other person’s Miata, and for whatever reason, the thought that it had a rotary seemed to be the main appeal for him.

              Maybe he just thinks all Mazdas are rotaries?

        3. Yes thanks I am full of useless information that is sometimes correct. People love me at parties. I actually will make incorrect statements around some crowds just to see if the know it all knows everything or is full of BS. It amuses me. However Rockauto claiming me they can get parts for cars where the parts don’t exist irritates me. Go figure.

  3. This happens at car shows a lot, someone, usually older, corners me and starts going off on a tangent that’s maybe 25% interesting, 25% outdated, and 50% outright wrong, I usually just go with it and agree in hopes of ending the conversation as quickly and politely as possible.

    But I am often surprised by how little about cars in general or the auto industry car enthusiasts seem to know. It really seems like most people are only enthusiasts in the one, specific model they’ve decided to focus on and really don’t care about anything else. I suppose that’s why people go to a festival with a free concert, food trucks, and wine tastings and a field of cool cars, and just sit in a lawn chair by their own vehicle the entire time until it’s time to go.

    1. You’re not wrong. When I’m out in my Beetle I give a wave to any other classic car I see. The boomer dudes in their immaculate 57 Chevys and 60s/70s muscle cars don’t even look at me. But just those people. People under 50, in just about any classic car, always give me a wave or thumbs up. Folks in more “everyday” old cars or trucks do the same. And the age thing doesn’t apply at all if they’re driving something foreign, like Datsuns, MGs, Triumphs, etc.

      1. Late Boomer here that grew up with Bugs (I had 2), will always give you a wave. I hate the Tri5 squadrons and their incessant blasting of doo wop at car shows and cars & coffee.

        1. Love to hear it! Yeah, that crowd always gets on my nerves. And I like doo wop, funnily enough, but good lord it gets tiring hearing it at every damn car show.

          1. Yes, I don’t mind doo-wop music (do mind like the same 6 songs on endless repeat with no variety), but it is weird that it’s become the universal car show staple music, even when 1950s cars might be like 20% of the field, and when it’s like 20 years too old for Baby Boomers who were in high school in the 1970s.

            And if you are picking it to set the mood for the era of cars based on what the original owners would have listened to, teen-agers in the ’50s were not buying new Buicks and Chryslers, so you should be playing more along the lines of Perry Como or Phil Harris.

            Sometimes they will stick in a novelty spoken word truck driving country song, but that’s even weirder, if anything

            1. Even the VW shows (some of the only car shows I attend these days) are guilty of doo wop oversaturation, even though most cars at those shows are from the 60s and 70s. There’s very few early model VWs around here. That, or they just inundate you with the Beach Boys for five hours. I guess it’s more period accurate, but still gets grating after you’ve heard “fun fun fun” for the third time that day.

              Around here, that novelty song always seems to be “One Piece at a Time.”

              1. AKA, one of Johnny Cash’s weaker songs, I mean, yes, it was a hit, but it wouldn’t be one of my favorites even if it wasn’t oversaturated. He’s got a huge catalog, mix it up a little, play a Carter Family cover or something

        2. Yeah but they look so cool in their Tommy Bahama shirts, sitting next to their cars with the stuffed animals on the dash.

          Bonus points if there’s like a full-sized fake … child … doll … thing that looks like its in time-out up against the car. *shudder*

    2. I did that because I brought my own beer which was 50 cents a can and my brand VS $5 for a 9 ounce plastic cup of warm piss from a source that wasn’t declared. I also took best foreign car in show. TBH I was up against a small Toyota pick-up with camo paint scheme as the only other foreign car VS my Jensen Healey which Noone had ever seen before amongst a crowd 50-60s American Steel that were very nice. My movers lost my plaque.

  5. Context is everything. My coworker who didn’t realize his Subaru has a CVT is someone who will be happier not knowing. He spent too much money and is happy with his purchase. Someone cross-shopping a Subaru? If it might matter to them, I’ll correct them.

    Someone working in cars who should know better? Probably. Sometimes at my own expense, like when the Kia dealer evaluating my Kia Niro to see how much they’d offer for it mentioned it being AWD. It’s not. It has only ever been offered in FWD. He might have offered more if I let him believe it, but I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

  6. “Do you derail the flow of the conversation to correct it, “

    Yes

    “or just let it go?”

    NEVER!!!

    But soften the blow by saying “WHOEVER TOLD YOU THAT IS A FUCKING IDIOT AND YOU’RE EVEN A BIGGER IDIOT FOR BELIEVING THEM! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ARE YOU SOME SORT OF MAGA-IDIOT??”

    My advice MIGHT not be the best advice…

  7. About car stuff in general? Almost never. Not worth the trouble.

    About bad advice that might cost someone extra money or put someone in danger? I speak up, but sometimes I wait until the shit-talker is out of earshot, then give the person the correct information.

    About a car I know and love? I have a tendency to get pedantic as fuck.

    1. Oh no. This is the one I typically won’t touch because it always goes down a dark road of people accusing me of being pretentious. For, you know, daring to pronounce it like the brand itself pronounces it.

      2. I actually think pronouncing it “Shag-u-ahh” or whatever *is* pretentious, even if the brand pronounces it that way. It’s an English word, not a name. I’ve never met someone who says “Jag-wire” though, that would grate on me.

        1. On a somewhat related topic, I heard an NFL color commentator remark for hours about Jacksonville Jagwires.
          Of course, they are in Florida and can pronounce it anyway they want, I guess.

        1. IMHO with really good cars it shouldn’t be brand as much as model. It’s not a Porsche it’s a 911. It’s not a VW it’s a Bug/ Beetle, heck it ain’t Chevrolet it’s a vette.

      5. Speaking as the owner of an XJ6, “jag-wire” just grinds my gears. I’ll accept the American “ja·gwaar”, the British “jag-u-aar”, or “throat warbler mangrove”, though.

        2. I have accepted that it’s fine for people to pronounce “Willys” however they like; it’s really not worth my time to argue about it, and people tend to look at you weird when you mention that you read a mini-biography of the guy in a 1920s automotive book.

  10. If its someone I’ll never see again, it depends on how I feel.
    If its someone that I’m providing customer service to, it depends on how I feel and how much of a dick they are being.
    If its my friends, I’ll gently correct.
    If its my girlfriend I have a smile that says “honey, you’re being very pretty right now.” She knows that one (and has a similar smile for me) and will ask what she said.

    On that second one:
    Once upon a time I was a service writer for Pep Boys. I hated it. Had a customer come in and drop off his college age son’s Volvo for 4 tires and an alignment. Based on the tread wear we poked at it, found a loose inner ball joint, and so we couldn’t do the alignment till he approved the ball joint. (A brief note, at this time I was about 2/3 through my Mechanical Engineering degree. Working to make ends meet)

    I call up, I say we can’t do the alignment due to the ball joint. He explodes at me and demands that we do the alignment and stop trying to upsell him. Hangs up.
    I call back, because I have to explain that if we do the alignment with a bad ball joint, we will be unable to honor the warranty. “Fine! Don’t do the alignment! Fuck you! Get my car done and out of your shop!” or something to that extent.

    He comes in and picks it up. I walk through what we saw and how it was an inner tie rod and he’d likely need to take care of it before he got the alignment done at another shop.
    “There’s no such thing as an inner tie rod! Don’t you try to pull one over on me, I’m an engineer!”
    And I very desperately wanted to show him exactly how stupid he was, but I gave him my customer service smile and sent him on his way.

    Put a note in his file with everything said and done. He tried to come in later and claimed that we had refused to do the alignment because of some BS reason.

  11. Depends on the audience. I used to go into “well ackshually…” mode far too often, and learned quickly that if someone doesn’t care enough about something to be well researched on it, they probably don’t care to be corrected about it either, as lame as that might be.

    People who know little about cars have a tendency to say some very, very bold things about cars with nothing to back it up.

    So now I just twitch and froth at the mouth until someone asks me if I’m ok.

  12. Oh oh, there was one entitled little prick of a guy a couple jobs ago that posted weekend diy pics of him rotating the tires or something on his Tesla. On a slope. With the floor jack and a lone jackstand. I told him no no no no no and sent him a link to the safe lift and support points on a model 3. He was just so sure, never having done any of this before, that because it was a Tesla it wasn’t like a normal car and I didn’t know what I was talking about. I wasted 45 minutes on that idiot. I eventually made sure to put it on writing that my participation in the conversation did not constitute liability for any damage or injury he may sustain and got out of the thread.

  13. I don’t think I’ve quite been in this situation as it relates to cars outside of the commentariat here. But I know I’ll have trouble keeping my mouth shut when the time comes.

    I can only hope I am receptive when others correct my own misremembered facts.

  14. Funny story sort of related to this. A LONG time ago I was with my girlfriend at her step-dad’s house. He worked for Ford across the border – they were in El Paso and he worked at the plant in Juarez, my guess in some white collar management position. Anyway, we were talking cars at one point and BMW came up as a topic. My girlfriend asked what BMW stood for – and before I could accurately say “Bavarian M….” this dumbass says “British Motor Works”. I was flabbergasted but also said nothing. He was such an idiot. It wasn’t worth the argument.

    2. …I am 28. I’m pretty sure “British Motor Works” is what my dad said when I asked him over a decade ago, and that’s what’s been floating around my head as assumed fact ever since.

      I think I’m gonna go lie down for a while.

      1. It’s what I call it when talking to Germans to break the ice.

        Somewhere between calling Bavarians as Austrians, and Austrians as Australians. Any Austrians in the same conversation inevitably snicker and join in once I accuse Bavaria as being Austria.

  15. I’m more likely to say something about automotive errors here than elsewhere simply because The Autopian is specifically devoted to automotive matters. For example, I like to think I’m making progress in spreading the word about the proper spelling of Sonett and I haven’t yet given up all hope on establishing the importance of knowing the difference between the actual vs. the fictional Volvo 1800 variants.

    Come to think of it, mostly just those two things.

  16. For most people, I’d probably go “if the inaccuracy is going to cause a problem.” Someone mentioned someone not knowing the size of their engine, that could mean they get the wrong parts. Situations where someone not knowing something could get them hosed at service. That kinda stuff.

    But back when Saturn came out my dad was convinced that Saturn was a Japanese brand and, you know, he was never going to buy a Saturn so who cares?

  17. I was having dinner at a brewpub a week ago and overheard someone at a nearby table claiming that they had seen and driven a fusion-powered truck. He may have claimed it was in India, but that might be faulty memory on my part.

    He further stated that he’d seen the fusion core and that it was brighter and hotter than the sun. So: not a truck with a Ford Fusion drivetrain swap, but actual fusion.

    I definitely chose to keep my mouth shut because this gentlemen was speaking with absolute conviction and one does not debate lunatics in public.

  19. I ask myself this question all the time.
    Last week my wife and I were on a relaxing Caribbean vacation and two couples at an adjacent table, who were clearly not automotively knowledgeable, were just filling the available auditory space with inaccurate facts and misguided opinions about cars.
    My wife, who caught me glaring into the middle distance simply asked, “This is killing you, isn’t it?”
    It took everything I had to not wander over, push up my glasses up at the bridge of my nose, and start on a nerdy tirade beginning with “Well actually…”

    2. I was with my boyfriend at a GameStop and someone was saying wildly wrong things about something I knew about and he went “I can see you want to start a fight in this GameStop.”

  20. Okay, to preface this story my father-in-law is a blowhard, one-ups-man, grade A douchebag. For years, he’d say some off the wall shit about this or that and I’d just let it go because he’d start yelling and it would take longer to prove him wrong than I cared to spend so I’d just let it go. One day we’re at a family gathering and one of his siblings got a Tahoe with and was talking about how it had a 5.7L engine. Not to be outdone my father-in-law said “Oh yeah, well my expedition has a 5.8L engine!” Since I’d changed his oil before I knew it was a 5.4 and I pointed it out to him, because I knew I was right and could get him worked up in front of an audience. He proceeds to go nuts about “I know its a 5.8! You don’t know shit! etc. etc.” To which I say, its in the driveway lets go have a look and settle it. He continues to talk shit all the way out the door. When he popped the hood he just stared at the big old plastic cover with the big old 5.4 on it. Looked me square in the eyes and said…”You’re a f*cking asshole.” He’s a sweetheart.

      1. according to one of my thinks he knows it all car buds the Bobcat was just a reskinned Maverick. He is always right about car facts. Just ask him, he’ll tell ya.

  23. This kind of happened to me a couple of days ago. I’m sitting around in the office reading The Autopian, as one does, when a group of my colleagues started talking about new cars and the state of the market, etc. I did a lot of tongue biting rather than engaging and correcting them. It was hard, but I deemed it “not worth it” for some reason.

    1. I know a guy who insists that our highways are listed with dead electric vehicles, probably because they can’t drive for more than 25 miles and there’s no charging? Just seems to believe it. Once you have a thought like that, it’s important to talk you out of it. So I don’t.

  24. Didn’t Lincolns have BMW diesel engines back in the 80’s?

    Anyway, when should you correct? Depends on how much you hate them. I had a car salesman INSIST all Lincoln Continentals were RWD. This was the mid 90’s so I corrected him that the current ones were FWD. He proceeded to mock me in front of the other salesmen, so I proposed a challenge.

    We’d get two Contis, jack up the front of one and the back of the other. I’d lie down in front of the first, and he’d lie down in front of the second. Then we’d throw them both in drive and mat the gas. Last man alive wins the argument.

      1. Abusing Torch for being absent-minded is like embarrassing Einstein because he buttoned his shirt wrong. We love Torch just the way he is because of the way he is. I apologize for picking the low-hanging fruit.

    2. As for his current errors: Dude’s heart exploded. Too soon.
      As for his previous errors: Dude’s heart was getting ready to explode. Cut him some slack.

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