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A SURVEY - on your motivations and interests in 'Autoshite' cars


doctor924

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I didn't complete the survey because it's just too fucking stupid.

I mean, honestly, what a concentrated pile of meaningless horseshit.

 

I suggest a new survey:

 

Why do you think the intellectual level at Universities deteriorated so unbelievably in the past 30 years?

Or: Why do you think every student nowadays needs a proper kick in the balls?

 

Problem is those soy boys wouldn't even notice it.

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Having assisted with designing online questionnaires previously for a psychology thesis (attitudes toward organ donation in different hypothetical scenarios), I can confirm it's a nightmare trying to strike a balance between responses that can be meaningfully analysed by the software to show clear patterns, and not making it sound really odd and convoluted to the respondent.

 

That said, I would have deep concerns that putatively offering a total base-spec Fiesta to the bASe lickers on here may potentially skew the results somewhat...

 

Mrs DC's first Yaris started life as a competition prize, and was some commercial spec well below showroom level - vinyl a-go-go inside and not even proper carpet... that caused a few expressions of wantage on these hallowed pages.

 

Yes it is. The framework here is based upon an established structure adapted and tinkered with for these purposes. It won't be everyone's cup of tea and the selection of a Fiesta is a compromise compared to what else we considered...

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Comments are erm interesting!

But the premise of the work is to try to gather information on what moves a 'car' from being 'just'  a means of getting from A to B  into something that a buyer might invest some time in looking for (for varying reasons) if a bit of cash was on offer or alterative temptations. When does that happen and why?  

 

There is lots known about what motivates buyers across a range of products but not much known (tested, explored) about why we may delay our buying decisions, especially for goods that can depreciate then appreciate after a period of time.

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Comments are erm interesting!

But the premise of the work is to try to gather information on what moves a 'car' from being 'just'  a means of getting from A to B  into something that a buyer might invest some time in looking for (for varying reasons) if a bit of cash was on offer or alterative temptations. When does that happen and why?  

 

 

I suppose the simple answer is enthusiasm. Most people here are 'enthusiastic' about transport, i.e. taking a keen interest in cars and specifically certain types.

 

 

There is lots known about what motivates buyers across a range of products but not much known (tested, explored) about why we may delay our buying decisions, especially for goods that can depreciate then appreciate after a period of time.

 

You might not buy something for any number of reasons, the list is endless. Things only start to appreciate once the consumer capitalist 'society' we live in uses something up, destroys most examples, outlaws or otherwise erodes their numbers until one day, years after these things have been commonplace, the Great British Public point and stare at the remaining examples and gawp 'my granddad had one of those' when they don't even know what it is. Or, the clever folks at AS see the (non-financial) value of things and hoarde them.

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doctor924, on 12 Dec 2017 - 1:24 PM, said:

There is lots known about what motivates buyers across a range of products but not much known (tested, explored) about why we may delay our buying decisions, especially for goods that can depreciate then appreciate after a period of time.

 

I doubt autoshite will be able to shed light on how - or, indeed, whether - the unwashed masses think when making purchasing decisions. We like old beige stuff that's almost free, not shiny new stuff on an expensive lease.

 

And I suspect we don't like being viewed as "buyers", something to be farmed for our disposable income by faceless corporations generating purchasing profiles, either.

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I doubt autoshite will be able to shed light on how - or, indeed, whether - the unwashed masses think when making purchasing decisions. We like old beige stuff that's almost free, not shiny new stuff on an expensive lease.

 

And I suspect we don't like being viewed as "buyers", something to be farmed for our disposable income by faceless corporations generating purchasing profiles, either.

 

It's an interesting question, nonetheless - I'm not sure whether this piece of research is motivated by marketing for 'hard to reach' consumers, or whether it's trying to prove that for a tiny subset of people, financial considerations are secondary to sheer bloody-mindedness.

 

If survey responses show consistency in attaching a lesser value to a freebie modern (the Fiesta) against the hypothetical £7k classic desired for reasons other than practicality, then it may go some way to demonstrating that some people are basically immune to the shiny glitz of consumerist dreams, instead ploughing their own individualistic furrow of brushed-nylon upholstery and dicking around with feeler gauges out in the cold. But it's hard to tell without reading the abstract for the research piece, or knowing how the data generated will be analysed (SPSS was quite common 15 years back, and wording the questions to generate meaningful outputs was a definite challenge).

 

We're a diverse lot on here, with some very much motivated by Bangernomics and wringing every last drop of worth from an old nail, others by a love of spannering and ingenuity, while others come across more as classic connoisseurs with an eye for luxury and/or performance while others still seem driven by a perverse love of the kicked and scabacious automotive underdogs of yesteryear - so a genuine Autoshite user survey (which this survey is explicitly not) could make for quite interesting reading...

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It's an interesting question, nonetheless - I'm not sure whether this piece of research is motivated by marketing for 'hard to reach' consumers, or whether it's trying to prove that for a tiny subset of people, financial considerations are secondary to sheer bloody-mindedness.

 

If survey responses show consistency in attaching a lesser value to a freebie modern (the Fiesta) against the hypothetical £7k classic desired for reasons other than practicality, then it may go some way to demonstrating that some people are basically immune to the shiny glitz of consumerist dreams, instead ploughing their own individualistic furrow of brushed-nylon upholstery and dicking around with feeler gauges out in the cold. But it's hard to tell without reading the abstract for the research piece, or knowing how the data generated will be analysed (SPSS was quite common 15 years back, and wording the questions to generate meaningful outputs was a definite challenge).

 

We're a diverse lot on here, with some very much motivated by Bangernomics and wringing every last drop of worth from an old nail, others by a love of spannering and ingenuity, while others come across more as classic connoisseurs with an eye for luxury and/or performance while others still seem driven by a perverse love of the kicked and scabacious automotive underdogs of yesteryear - so a genuine Autoshite user survey (which this survey is explicitly not) could make for quite interesting reading...

You sound like you knwo what your talking about!

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You sound like you knwo what your talking about!

 

I can assure you, any veneer of competence is purely an illusion!

 

I made the mistake of offering to help my then-girlfriend with the Research Methods module of her Psychology degree, and it was a right old palaver... but made me realise how tricky it is to run a statistical analysis of values-based responses - turning opinions and feelings into numbers, then analysing those numbers using specialist software against stated variables to try to generate correlations, and then examining whether these correlations (or causations) support or confound the hypothesis under investigation... it's a right bloody nightmare, and I don't envy doctor924 one little bit!

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Completed. Might have been easier if the questions had specified a type of classic car, for example repairs to a £7000 MGB are "enhancements" whereas repairs to a £7000 Maserati Biturbo would merely be a precursor to a further series of repairs. After which the car wouldn't be sold but instead thrown into a canal or offered on here as a Roffle.

 

It could do with a section to mark out which responses were definitely from Autoshite. Namely "Would you buy a Renault Laguna Diesel Automatic for £95 off a bloke in a pub car park?" Which would cue several answers of "10-yes absolutely"

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That was a little strange.  I've completed Uni surveys in the past and it's on a par with those tbh.  The questions asked will line up with the rest of the thing they're writing, no doubt, but make virtually no sense to anyone taking the survey.  That just seems to be a University thing.

 

The questions actually seemed to be:

How much do you value a brand new base model car you've been given?

How much do you value a classic/collectible car you've been given?

How much would you sell either for if you had to?

How tolerant would you be of repairs to your brand new free car?

How tolerant would you be of repairs to your desirable classic/collectible free car?

How much compensation do you want when people don't keep up their end of the bargain?

 

It's much more to do with money and the value of goods than it is to do with old cars.  It felt more aimed at the classic car speculator that might find a base model city car an insult rather than a benefit.  It felt very much as though it was written by an outsider to the old car hobby/lifestyle than someone who actually understood their audience and that is were it fell down hardest.  Again, this isn't unusual for University type surveys, they very often feel like they're missing the point and are rather designed to tick a box than actually ask or answer any meaningful questions.

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