These may have been kind of cute or clever in the past, misleading as they were. But now they’re just plain obnoxious.
When I bought my new car last year there was a car salesman at one dealership who only seemed concerned with what other options I was looking at. He tried to tell me that I shouldn’t buy an Audi because they’re unreliable. And so were BMWs. His friend had one and a wheel fell off. The engines “explode” sometimes he said.
And you know what? Maybe he really did have a friend who had a wheel fall off somehow, maybe he left a dealership or a mechanic and they’d forgotten to properly reattach one of them. I know he didn’t like it when I mentioned I’d heard a similar story years ago from a friend with the brand of car he was trying to sell me. I also know there were a tiny handful of people who did have problems with the old BMW M3 engines breaking on them (”exploding” being a technically correct, but incredibly misleading characterization). Years ago I saw a website devoted entirely to people who’d experienced the problem. There were about 60 of them, who all posted various pictured of their damaged engines for all to see.
There’s also a site like that for TTs. And one for Mercedes SLs.
The thing is, he was never going to convince me that Audis were “unreliable” since I’d already owned 3 of them - each of which worked magnificently, and the ownership experience was always a great one. Of course, I never miss any scheduled maintenance and always have any warning lights checked out immediately, which I’m sure greatly reduced the chances I’d have a problem. He told me, “Well you must be lucky.” I nearly told him to shove it.
What I really wanted to know when I went there was why I should buy the car he was trying to sell me. Not why the other ones I told him I liked were bad choices. It’s strange, but John Hodgeman is starting to remind me of that guy, which is funny because he plays the role of the PC. But he’s really the only one of the two that even talks in the ads anymore, and he’s always going on about problems “he” has running Vista that I have never seen on any of my machines.
Just like that salesman, these ads are having the opposite of the intended effect on me. You see, I’m planning to buy a new laptop in the next month or two. I was waiting to hear what Apple is going to release. But Dell’s recent announcements have had me start to seriously consider their new machines, like the new Latitude models - and I’ve seen some really nice lightweight Lenovo models recently as well. So I’ve been torn… do I replace my trusty Macbook with another Mac? Or do I save money and get a better system from Dell or Lenovo?
Watching these latest Mac ads is actually pushing me even more toward the latter.
