New Wheeler Dealers

I really liked the old Wheeler Dealers, especially Edd's work actually fixing things as opposed to "remove and replace."  I saw the new version for the first time last night. (The car in was an 82 Celica Supra I fell  in love with.)

Edd's replacement did a lot of real wrenching, including welding up a cracked exhaust manifold and fabbing a new exhaust. Cool. 3 minute segment explaining why head gaskets are needed? Meh.

It took me awhile to figure out what I really DISLIKE: the transitions to and from commercials, and between segments are too frogging long. If they just cut those out/down, the pace of the show would be better and they could show more actual stuff. If they used the time for more commercials, I'd dislike but understand. But they don't. 

Does anyone know why they would intentionally de-content a program like this? 

[grouchy rant off]

To keep up with the likes of Misfit Garage and their ilk now owned by Velocity.  Dumbing things down is just embarrassing.

I was a little surprised at the MIG welding of that cast iron manifold on the Supra - I'm no welding expert but my understanding is cast iron is tricky to weld with a MIG - you're supposed to heat the whole thing up in an oven first, then weld, then let it cool down slowly for the repair to be successful. 

Re: the explanation of the function of a head gasket.  This appears to be a new regular feature, they did some basic explanations in the first episode as well.  I can see where it may be a worthwhile thing, but the function of a gasket should pretty obvious to anyone.  Save it for more complex things.

As for the transitions into and out of commercials, it seems like all shows do this (not just the car shows, look at all the home DIY shows as well) - before the commercial they tell you what will happen when they come back, and after the commercial they tell you what they did before.  It bugs me too, as they could just use that space for more content.  I haven't forgotten what happened 90 seconds ago.

OH GOD, Mythbusters was the worst for that. "And coming up next! Jamie's gonna say something witty while we blow stuff up! And ... (blah blah for 30 seconds) wait'll you see it!" (45 minutes of commercials) "Can you believe what we did in the last segment? It was so amazing! (blah blah for 30 seconds)" Cut to Jamie: "Ha ha, we just blew something up!" cut to "And coming up next: ..." arrgh

That was the good part of original BBC programming - things aren't scripted around ads. Also the big change in WD is shifting from a Brit show to an American show

I still like it! Edd was great and I have nothing bad to say about him. The show is about those simple picky things that take 98% of the time addressing. I found myself getting upset as they progressed to excessively rare and expensive cars rather than the desirable but beat cars most of use deal with. But most of the processes shown are transferrable to cars we may deal with! Sometimes it is just a switch or a wire, might be something the previous owner "bodged" or it might just be "a head gasket".

I get tired of shows that seem to be operating around the sponsors products for whatever they do. (Garage Rehab...cough cough!!!)

I enjoy seeing the process of stitching a wheel or polishing wheels.

Bruce

re: commercial bumps- It's a pain to edit a tv show, even harder when you really don't have a ton of content.  Each different "scene" that they are shooting requires a light, sound, and video setup and that all takes time.  I'm guessing that they're also adding extra bumps in so that they can squeeze another commercial per show in later on during syndication.  But yeah, it get's annoying. 

I DVR everything so commercials do not bother me. My wife calls shows like this, the ugly people shows, because everybody looks as though they have not washed in weeks. I set my expectations so low for Wheelers and dealers. If you are really interested in car stuff, I am guessing you would just go to yours (or someone elses) garage and start wrenching. These shows are for entertainment and interest me because they put a value on cars. My disappointment was the RS sale seemed so staged, the former owner is back and wants to buy it.....Misfit garage and Richards "drop-ins" so weak and staged.

Getting tired of this new series.  The previous episode Mike removes the oil fill cap sees a little bit of lung butter and declares the headgasket in need of replacing.  Delivers car to Ant tells him what is under the cap and Ant agrees headgasket needs done.  No diagnosing the problem, no recognition that a little snot (or a lot if you own an Rx8), does not always mean an internal a coolant leak is the issue.  So they replace the headgasket

Then the Mustang episode he puts it on the dyno does a run and sees its 39 horsepower down.  I'm thinking this will be good to see if he gets all that power back. He does a handful of changes like installing headers and installs an electronic distributor.  He just stuffs the distributor in the hole without any concern for needing to time it and appears to time it by ear!  Never goes back on the dyno to show improvement.

Not sure I can watch too many more of these.

After watching this and seeing the things they posting on face book I see why Ed left. 

No one is born with knowledge of head gaskets. If I was a kid who was into cars and there was no one else to explain these things, this part of the show would be great. Remember,  we all start at zero.

My only substantial beef so far was the "triple wing" on the RS Cosworth.  Can't believe the original owner wanted it back after that.  

I suspect that the owner of that Cosworth never really sold it to Mike.  I bet he let them wrench on it for him and they "bought, then sold" it to him for the purpose of TV.

The owner of that car had to realize how valuable it was before he sold it to Mike, there's no way he would've let it go for $30k.  I also have a hard time believing he couldn't find a single shop in the LA area to work on it...

The AMG episode was similar, it  appeared they were doing the repairs and upgrades for some high roller...

Wait until next season when Mike and Ant get in a disagreement and Ant walks off yelling to “get that camera out of my face”. And just when they settle their differences, they’re presented with an impossible deadline because “the customer needs this car in 12 days for it’s unveiling at SEMA” or some other E36 M3.

One major note that WD has not done- sell products.

Other than going to some of the small companies who do hand work, they have not stooped to advertising someones stuff.

What I am seeing- some more detailed work than the last season with Edd.  Not as much as when they were in England, sure.  But it's still an improvement from last season.

You could tell Edd didn't really have his heart in it last year.  He just wasn't interested anymore...