[Eshan Joshi]

Happy Birthday Team-BHP.

This is such a lovely place. The content is amazing , the help and support is on a whole new level. I appreciate all the time and effort taken by the mods and members while writing their reviews.

I just have one small request . We don't have a sub forum dedicated to motorcycle reviews. Hopefully we could get one soon for all of those amazing reviews. They also deserve a sub forum in my opinion.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Hayek

... the fact that Team BHP has survived in its current format for 2/3rds of the life of the World Wide Web (which I date to the Netflix IPO in 1995) really says something about the passion and commitment to quality that underlies this forum.

+1 to that. Never viewed it from this perspective.

- Quality posts - of course on cars, but also on various other topics like Economics, Aircraft (no Mr Narayan, they are not an extension of cars), Covid et al

Now, now now Hayek you've got it backside front. Aircrafts are the real thing, cars are aircrafts without those wing thingies

If I were in trouble in some part of India, I do have the confidence that friends from this forum would be as likely to help me out as batchmates from college

Great point. Something for each of us to keep in mind both for receiving assistance and giving assistance.

- Lack of Video Reviews - Yes, we have some high quality posts by folks like Karan, and some shares of posts by other magazines / You Tubers etc - but video is the future, and having official video reviews would help.

+1

- Poor Searchability - Certainly something that could be much better. A Google Search often finds Team BHP content better than the search function in the forum

You too. Often when I want to search for an article on Team BHP I key in the key words onto Google Chaccha and add Team BHP and viola. But hunting for it through our search function can be a challenge. Rehaan help.

Disappearing / Banned Members - can list quite a few, folks whose posts I liked a lot, but left or were forced to leave for various reasons.

Oh! I miss Sutripta and his cynicism. We have to have room for idiosyncratic personalities. I have a vested interest here as I am cultivating my idiosyncracies to be in full bloom for my 8th decade.

[Scarlet_Rider]

Many Happy Returns of the Day, Team-BHP!!

Hats off to GTO, all the mods and the support team for maintaining the quality of the forum! Not an easy task at all.

At times I read other forums but none of them are as comforting to the eye as Team-BHP. Keep up the good work!

[bkc]

Happy Birthday Team-Bhp!
We shall be 18 year old (adult) next year.

[JoshMachine]

Happy birthday, Team-BHP!

What I like

• Unbiased, top-class quality content

• Honest, long-term ownership reviews. Really helps anyone out there to make an informed decision

• The sheer breadth of topics to discuss, write about or simply read and be amazed

• Very good moderation, no-compromise rules in certain areas

• Clean, easy-on-the-eyes UI

• In some cases, bragging rights that of being a member

What I don't like/What I would like to be incorporated

• Mobile app - can't do without one in today's age

• Searchability - need to be more predictive and intuitive (possible to show up related words while typing, like Google?). I sometimes have to search on Google to route to the topic I want

• Ads - of late, seeing too many ads popping up even after login.
  Understand the revenue model, but possible to optimize for member logins?

• Video review - this is increasingly getting vital. Don't think upload size of the video is an issue (with video compression galore these days).
  Maybe a checklist can be prepared or even sought for, from BHPians. Short clips of exteriors / interiors etc could be very, very useful.

[viscosity]

Happy 17th Birthday : Team-BHP !

Many thanks to all the mods and fellow members for creating and keeping this forum alive & kicking. For me, Team-BHP is a WAY OF LIFE ! It is a brotherhood and forum beyond automobiles. By finding Team-BHP I have found myself and this is not a hyperbole

What I Like :
The quality of the forum content, the people and their attitude and passion towards sharing & caring is simply unmatched.
In a world where everything has a price, remaining truly unbiased.
Moderation is simple superb and maintaining the quality for such a long time.

Possible Improvement :
Apart from the members meets, is there any other way we can make the discovery and on the go connection between fellow BHPIans more easy in this world of always connected technology ? This may also help in welcoming newbies and will take camaraderie to a whole new level is what I feel.

For example, when I see Team BHP cars in my apartment I am always curious to know who they are. Similarly when I see Team BHP cars on roads, parked somewhere, is there a way to find who they are ? I personally find approaching members directly in person at the moment a bit too intrusive and is always not possible also, so can we find some way to enable this ? Is it possible to have some member only access and voluntary car number based directory which we can search to find about the members on the go ?

Way to go and cheers everyone !

[guyfrmblr]

Happy 17th birthday Team-BHP!

Likes:

• Travelogues! This section is just a lovely treasure. One just can’t find any places that are yet to be explored.
• Ownership reviews - It’s my favorite pass time to read the logs of all owners taking care of their precious possessions with a great attention to detail.
• Overall quality of the content in the forum.

Areas of improvement:

• I’m aware that the moderators work on the official reviews in their spare time and I greatly appreciate and respect their efforts but the latest reviews somehow don’t feel as free flowing as the previous ones. I don’t like the idea of merging the threads from the media events/unveils with the actual review of the car.
• Discussions in most of the threads these days veer towards one’s patriotic feelings. I think we need to keep such feelings aside and just discuss about the cars irrespective of the country of origin in this forum. I have seen few threads where most of the discussions are related to the country of origin of the car rather than the actual car.

[fhdowntheline]

Dear BHPians, Wish you all a very happy birthday!

Here's to many more years of sharing, debating, arguing and agreeing on everything that moves (not necessarily on wheels!) !

[ST172]

Well, Team-BHP is as old as me at this point . I've wanted to join this forum since I was 15, as I was blown away by the depth of the official reviews, and whilst I understand why they need to be trimmed to size, I'm gonna miss reading the long ones. The knowledge imparted by the members of this forum is truly astounding, and I am honoured to be a part of this forum.

Now I just hope that I'm able to pen a review of my own as soon as I can.

Happy 17th Team-BHP!


P.S - Please don't change the layout GTO, this website has a certain old-school and "official" charm that makes it what it is

[guruji]

Happy birthday! Awesome content is the highlight of team bhp. Possible improvement areas:

1. Quality of photos in official reviews can be better
2. More video content, especially in reviews
3. A decent mobile app

[anand_saraf]

I love team-bhp! Happy birthday to my favourite automotive forum.

Another major like for me is the road-trip forums. No Goa or Kerala trip starts without me reviewing all the recent posts on the forum for the latest on road conditions.

The desktop scrolling ad is my major pet peeve, that's really irritating.

Keep going strong!

[Shiftlock]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEAM BHP!

I am so grateful to be part of such an expansive forum that houses so many wonderful people and machines. I agree with many people here on the general opinion about the layout of the posts and it's uniqueness in today's modernistic UI's, which is what sets this forum apart.

Likes
1. The informative and enthralling reviews and travelogues on this forum are a welcome refreshment from all the YouTube videos that I see.
2. The wide variety of content that is shared on this platform both inclusive and exclusive of the Automobile world.

Scope for Improvement
So far, the only aspect that I feel should be adapted is the addition of a dark mode type interface for mobile users since many of us use this in other applications and may have gotten accustomed to it.

[subhro1988]

Happy Birthday Team BHP!

Likes:
1) Depth of reviews - for example when I bought my Dzire, I read the Team-BHP review quite a number of times along with video reviews of others. Only Team BHP review had mentioned that the rear AC vent is misaligned in all media cars. I actually found the same to be true in the test drive vehicle and even the one I took delivery. Small thing, but goes on to show the hawk eye view of the reviewers.
2) Knowledge - The knowledge one can gather from the forum is enormous. Be it Route Queries or anything related to servicing or scam on Indian roads; I have found answers to 99% of my queries on the forum

Areas of improvement:
1) Social media presence and user interface can be improved
2) I personally feel, many forum members bash Tata cars a lot, even when that much bashing is not warranted for.

[kung_foo_fanta]

So, I was admitted to team-BHP in November 2020 and to be honest, I was quite surprised to see that I was accepted in my first try itself, because over the last few years when I have been keeping tabs on the forum, there were quite a few mentions of people who had been saying that they had to try a few times to be accepted. Maybe, it helps to imbibe the spirit and get addicted before trying to become a member!

I am based in Dubai and like it's for many others, Team-BHP is my window into the Indian automotive industry. And of course, I love how unbiased the view is.

But of course, this isn't about me, it's about Team-BHP, for it's your happy birthday! It's about celebrating 17 years of the journey that began as a small MSN Community called "Formula India", that has snowballed into the force that's shaping India's automotive industry, post by post, review by review, light-bulb by light-bulb and shaping the mindsets of executives in the conference rooms of automotive giants.

🎂

HAAAAPPY BUUUURTHDAY CHUUUU YOOOOOU!
Belated birthday wishes to GTO!
Happy birthday dear Team-BHP!
Happy birthday to you!

May fuel prices be low,
And drives be not so slow!
Let great cars be cheap,
Not just to buy, but also to upkeep!

🎂

What I LOVE about Team-BHP

- This might be an unpopular opinion, but I like the old layout, I really do. Of course, tagging other members is difficult (read, impossible) if you aren't quoting their posts and it doesn't look like a website that's endowed with the fanciest functionalities, but it feels right. Like, one of those old gloves or jackets that you have worn so many times and has been molded just right to your stature and fits snugly. And yes, this might be just the old soul in me speaking, because I fall asleep in a thundering Ambassador with the winds buffeting through the wide open windows and find modern cars with automatics and all the fancy-schmancy electronics as a little distracting to drive.

- The LIKES and DISLIKES in each and every review. This does stem from the first point, that every review & view is unbiased, but when the entire internet is awash with posts and vlogs by reviewers who just cannot tick off the automotive marketing agencies in fear of losing their contracts and money, it's super difficult to understand what they are stating as pros and cons of the car because either they themselves don't take the trouble of trying to understand the car or they cannot outright talk about it. None of that wish-wash here. Heck, even a very particular car review channel on youtube that we talk about a bit, the one that has a name which begins with "car" and ends with "wow", which is one of the most quoted and liked review channels out there is being backed by Daimler-Chrysler, which can of course tint their reviews, that little bit.

- The way the different threads are organized and the painstaking efforts the moderators take to keep pushing around the posts on an existing thread to a new thread when it warrants a dedicated discussion space and creating new threads according to the trends in the industry.

- I personally haven't had a chance to interact with any other member, outside the space of this forum, but I have read about so many experiences out here of members helping each other out, be it route enquiries, advice about a new set of wheels, vacation planning and what not.

What doesn't work for me

- As much as I love the old vibe out here, the post editor can do with a little more love. It's nice, it's clean, but I think it deserves a little sprucing up! As a techie, I understand the advanced editor because I develop a bit and I like the added flexibility of playing around with the tags and vB code. But I think for others who just want to come and tap out a review and add photos, gifs, etc. along with lists, numbered lists and links, it's going to be a little difficult and the difficulty might even put off some of them from taking the trouble of sitting and modifying and updating their posts. Also, I think one of the major demons that the moderators are dealing with is getting people to use multi-quotes, so maybe let's make it a little more easier?

- Not sure how doable this is, but how about a Team-BHP head-to-head comparison drive when a new vehicle comes up? We do have polls about people's opinions about the cars, but other than passing comments by moderators and posts in the Test-Drives & Initial Ownership Threads, I don't think we have had many head-to-head comparisons which I think might help a lot of people in shortlisting cars a little quicker. Especially with Team-BHP's no-holds-barred take, I think a lot more niggles and specialties of each car can be discovered when compared to it's peers side-by-side, especially under our reviewers' practiced eyes!

- I read in one of the earlier comments that some of the posts are no longer as unbiased as before. And of course, this is not about the posts of the moderators, but rather of Team-BHPians in general. I myself, have been guilty of this, having posted a couple of times in defense of brands that I have had personal experience with and I had mentioned this too. But yes, as long as the posts are backed by either personal experience or extensive knowledge about the situation/technology, it's great. Otherwise...

- While almost all the Team-BHP reviews follow a very similar pattern, some reviews have a few more photos than others while some don't have as many as others, which sometimes helps in building a better picture of the vehicle and sometimes takes away from the rest of the review. But how about having a fixed number of images within the review itself which shows the same functionalities of different cars, like seat design, cockpits, center console, AC controls, seat controls, seat support, while we could have a gallery section at the end for the images that don't fall within these categories, like the pose, the headlights in different configurations, the toolkit included? Just thinking off the top of my head for this... trying to balance the loves and not-so-loves here!

Here's to many, many, many more years of automoti-wittiness!

[AMKAM]

Happy Birthday TEAM-BHP.
Another year has gone by !!
Thanks to the lockdown, I got time to browse deep and wide through the TeamBHP forums.
My thoughts :
- TeamBHP forum has become the equivalent of "comfort food" for me. Often, at work or at home, in times of stress or fatigue , a quick browse through the forums has a calming effect on the mind.
- Possibly due to lockdown, but recently , travelogues seem to have reduced. Reading about the detailed travel itineraries / experiences of fellow BHPians is a wonderful way to spend time. I'm hoping to see ( or possibly post one of my own) more travelogues in the year ahead.
- Availability of TeamBHP merchandise needs to be improved. In fact, the quality of the TeamBHP T-shirts has turned out to be exceptional and I wish I had bought more when I could. But alas , I'm desperately waiting for my size to be available again, particularly in the customizable T-shirts.

All in all , proud to be a member of TeamBHP !!
Cheers .