This used to be my favorite TV car show and now they are ripping it apart in the interest of making more money.
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Wheeler Dealers without Edd is NOT Wheeler Dealers. Edd China was a big part of the show. Any replacement is going to have to be even better than Edd (not likely) or the show will end, IMHO.
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After watching that videoā¦I feel a large lump in pit of my stomach. It feels like a good friend has just passed away.
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I read about that the other day. The very thing that separates Wheeler Dealers from swill like Fast N Loud and similar shows was that Edd showed the nuts and bolts of repairs, he showed the troubleshooting steps as well. Some of us want to see him change out that bimetallic spring in the air cleaner assembly. Thatās what made Wheeler Dealers a superior show. Itās shame that Discovery(Velocity) thinks that the very thing that separates Wheeler Dealers from the other car repair shows is the part that needs to go.
With that said, the show seems to have lost its way in recent seasons. They are doing more and more expensive cars. I liked it better when they would do interesting , but not over the top cars and actually fix them, rather than doing more customizing. I donāt mind some understated upgrades here and there, but when they go all out with a neon paint job, one-off wheels, and what have you, itās not as interesting to me because I can see that on just about every other car-related show.
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Eddās mechanical work was the only reason I watched. Many practical fixes performed, not āletās put in a crate engine and paint jobā projects, like so many other shows. It was my favorite car show. Oh, wellā¦
maybe it was money. edās garage went bankrupt pretty quickly. I think he tried to capitalize on his name and expect customers to roll in and it didnāt happen.
I hadnāt heard about that - any links with more info?
I watched to see the diagnosis and repair work that Edd did. The rest of the show was just fluff to me. And they never made enough money on their deals to support the effort. If you do it for the pleasure of fiddling around in your garage thatās fine, and if youāre lucky enough to have access to the tools and shop equipment Edd has, then off you go. But I sure donāt have all those devices and space, and paying someone to do the work would pretty much eat up all the āprofitā.
I think anyone can replace Edd since whoever does will not do anything like the detailed work he did. His attention to detail really was the best thing about the show. It provided detailed information about how to repair older cars. If Wheeler Dealer ends up like Fast n Loud, Iāll just stop watching. Most of those shows strike me as advertisements for the shops they cover, even great shows like Chasing Classic Cars. Wheeler Dealer is one of the very few that arenāt infomercials. I hope I like the new one, but Iām not enthusiastic.
BTW, I also appreciate how hard Mike Brewer works to find the cars they work on. He knows how to find cars that can be repaired for little enough that they can sell without losing money. At least before adding in his and Eddās time.
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Yes, you nailed it WD and Chasing Classic cars are the two I watch.
I record " My Classis Car " with Dennis Gage . The show is 1/2 product promotion but the rest is entertaining.
FantomWorks is my other show. Fair amount of detailed work, and honest dealing with costs, including labor.
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I donāt think Wheeler Dealers has ever been carried in my area as Iāve never heard of it; and weāve had Discovery for quite a few years.
I also enjoyed My Classic Car with Dennis Gage. The 50% devoted to peddling parts was annoying but the other 50% was pretty good.
He even did a segment in my area about the Hajek car operation and museum in lowly Ames, OK. The place is absolutely mind blowing for an old or performance oriented person.
Iām a car nut but I donāt like many car-related TV shows. I love this one. It was clear after the show moved to California that something was up. The reduction in Eddās shop parts and Mikeās more active role in minor repairs was the hint. I love Mike Brewer and I enjoy his separate shows, but not nearly as much as the Wheeler Dealer shows. Going to miss it. It was the only program on Velocity I watched. My favorite episode was the one when Edd fixed the gearbox of the Audi TT with a custom-made rivet press and a single off-the-shelf fastener for about $5 and a half-day of shop work time. Amazing. My least favorite, were the recent ones and the stupid Cadillac and Ford Bronco shows in particular where they bailed on the actual cars they were working on and just bought new ones to get the show done. Terrible.
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Iāve watched both the english shows AND the california shows
In the english shows, it was BLATANT that they were in many cases losing money, when it came time to sell the cars
At least they werenāt trying to hide the truth
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The thing about the shows in England were seeing some of the old crafts that still could be done.
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@ok4450; You can catch full episodes on youtube. Pick your car of choice and watch them do the work, let us know what you think because I think as a great mechanic your point of view would be interesting to us.
I also agree that the older episodes were more fun. Even though they did not make much money and sometimes lost money, the cars were more down to earth cars with budgets that we could relate to as a hobby car.
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I like the episode where they diagnosed a worn camshaft, and Mike brought it to a shop, where they built up the worn lobes and machined them back to factory specs, apparently for a reasonable price
That was a California episode, perhaps one of the better ones . . . ?
They made some minor changes to that Z, but IMO tasteful and smart changes
āTastefulā was not always the case:
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The $600 cam for the Z car was not a good buy when u can get new cams from edelbrock for $250.