Those folks at those mags, are low paid, and usually not at knowlegeable as they would like to believe.
This is a very good point and one I'd like to expand on.
I have worked, on and off, for almost my entire life in the automotive industry in one form or another. At different points, I worked for 2 of the largest musclecar restoration parts suppliers and in that capacity, I met a lot of people in the business/hobby.
First point I should make it that magazines exist to sell advertising. Not to teach you things, or make the hobby easier. They sell advertising by offering a product that they hope will attract the most people.
So how do you attract the largest group of people? Tell them what they want to hear!
In the Nineties, when the 5-liter Mustangs were the fast street cars of choice, a # of magazines popped up to feed this huge market. And inevitably, they would write some stupid article about how to run 12's for $1K or something like that.
So we (the sales dept. at a Mustang parts supplier) would get these calls asking if we had certain parts, etc. And they'd ask us "Is this going to work?" and we'd have to say "no" and they would say "BUT WHY, THE MAGAZINE SAID THIS WOULD WORK?!".
To which we would have to say "Did you buy the magazine?"
"yes"
"Then they've got their money, they don't care if you put a 300 horsepower nitrous kit on your totally stock Mustang and blow the head gaskets out, melt all 8 pistons, explode the T-5, pretzel the driveshaft and split the ring gear in half, all on one launch. It's no hair off their back. In fact, they know you will buy next months magazine where they describe how to rebuild your T-5 for the cost of a hamburger."
Ever noticed how all the magazines aimed at old cars repeat the mantra about old cars being simple and not requiring thousands of dollars of specialized tools? It couldn't be because that's what people want to believe and if they spoke the truth "If you wanna' play with old cars, you're gonna need a 1200 sq. ft. shop and $20K worth of tools" they would lose readers to the other magazines who are happy to lie and say "Oh, anyone can do this with a socket set"?
What hogwash. Only specialized tools you won't need is a scanner for the ECM. Otherwise, you will still needs thousands of dollars worth of tools. When I bought my house, my insurance company wanted a list of my tools and their replacement value for the homeowner's policy and it exceeded $20K.
Second part is that magazines hire writers. Not professionals in the industry. It doesn't matter how much you know about the subject matter if you don't understand the different between there, their and they're. If the article a writer submits looks like an illiterate monkey wrote it, they can't publish it, regardless of how accurate it is. So they typically look for writers and if they can find them with automotive knowledge, it's a plus. Not a requirement.
Bottom line? read everything you can, but take it with a grain of salt.
