Can You Daily Drive a Dodge Viper?

this is my 1997 Dodge Viper I've had it for nearly a year now and ever since I got it I've been getting one question more than any other can you daily drive a Dodge Viper can you drive a Viper everyday is it possible to commute in a Dodge Viper and most of all hey YouTube idiot can you drive a Viper everyday so today I've decided to answer that question with a series of tests and click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer for more of my thoughts about daily driving a Viper and first Rob about whether you can daily drive a few more other affordable exotics one of the most important questions you'll have for a car you want to drive every day is whether it can carry all of your stuff so today I've gone to Home Depot and I bought a bunch of stuff I know I'm going to fit it in the Viper we'll start with paper towels this thing duct I don't know if this is this little worm looking dryer connection day milk crate bubble wrap American flag this is after all a Viper squeezy rubber duck night light water bottle and tiki torch tada the Viper is more practical than you might say it's a low-slung exotic two-seat sports car but the backpack here is actually pretty big another thing that makes this Viper daily drivable is its reliability now if you've been following along the entire time I've had this car you'll know of it I've had some issues with it I've had to tow it a couple of times but that's mainly because this car had the original radiator and cooling hoses which are known to be crap once I replace them this car has been fine and there's a lot of support in the Viper community and forums in the clubs for all the common issues this car might have once you address them these things are pretty robust most importantly you don't need some specialized service center with specialized tools and some specialized mechanic who charges 547 specialized dollars per hour in order to work on this car I serviced this thing in a place called Tommy's I'm serious that's the name they also service my buddies a 36 m3 race car and I was thinking well this would be a great place to service the Viper but last time when I was in there they were also doing a Ford dump truck and that's what it is that's all you need in order to service one of these finally parts are cheap back when I had my Aston Martin last year new clutch was four thousand dollars in parts alone this car you can put in a new clutch including labor for under two nothing is all that expensive a lot of stuff is shared with regular dodge cars and the parts that aren't just are not incredibly expensive when this car came out you have to remember it was built by plucking Midwesterners and they just don't overcharge for stuff it simply isn't in their nature now for some people that's all there is is it reliable can it carry my stuff well then heck yak and daily drive it and if you're like that stop watching right now because the answer to this question is yes for the rest of us there are a few more tests that a daily driver must pass one of them is interior comfort now you'll notice that I have no trouble getting into the Viper it's not one of the exotic cars you have to do weird acrobatics to get inside and once you're inside I'm actually really impressed with how comfortable the seats are they're like this weird combination of overstuffed leather chair and grippy sport seat it's awesome but there are a few other comfort issues that the Viper suffers from now interestingly enough Headroom is not one of them because of the double bubble roof design which was created so that you could get inside the car with a helmet my head fits in here just fine I have a couple of inches between my head and the roof the problem comes with my knee non-tree tossin or you'll have this problem but if you are a taller person when you shut the door your needs suddenly is right up against the dashboard and the door which is not very comfortable it also makes it hard to put on the turn signal harder to make a left turn because your hand hits your knee but most importantly it's sort of like the safest thing in the world having your need literally has been inch away from all this stuff that would come into it if you were being an accident next up is ride comfort and I'm just going to tell you right now the Viper is not a car that you want to drive over bumpy roads allow me to demonstrate [Music] you think that look bad from the outside here's what it felt like on the inside [Music] now one of the things that many people look for in a daily driver is good fuel economy especially if it's a car that they have to commute in every single day and the Viper is just about as far from good fuel economy as you could possibly get now if he wants ago I did a video where I drove the pipe around the city to see what it's normal fuel economy would be and then I took it on the highway and hyper mild it to see the results under optimal condition in case you haven't seen that video here's a little refresher I think we get less than 11 don't you yeah there's no way especially in this kind of city driver this is the worst city drive okay all right here we go into the calculation here and the moment trick the final result is 5.6 miles per gallon city we got today driving road test five point six now I'm going to take it on the highway for a couple of hours then I'm going to hyper mileage just see what kind of gas mileage it could get under the best possible circumstance oh man we're about 1,500 rpm that is not where I want to live everybody's staring at it they're like why this guy does the wiper going 47 miles an hour I'll tell you why because I'm getting 30 miles per gallon and the number is who eighteen point seven that's as good as it's going to get I can't do any better than that eighteen point seven here are some numbers that will absolutely shock you the Dodge Viper has more ground clearance than the Honda Odyssey I'm serious I'm not making this up I'm not exaggerating look it up yourself if you want a Honda Odyssey has four and a half inches of ground clearance and the Dodge Viper has five inches which would be great for this car as practicality except that ground clearance doesn't really tell the whole story you see more important for driving around every day than ground clearance is approach angle and the approach angle on this Viper is really not so good on account of the fact that it has this giant front lip that sticks way out like the whole car has been having collagen injection all right are you gonna make it are you gonna make it yes okay so my Viper made it over that but if you go underneath and look around under the bumper you'll find if there have been some times in the past where my Viper wasn't quite so lucky which is not fun if you're driving it every day now some of you live in areas where the weather isn't so good some of the time like for example Chicago and some of you live in areas where the weather is so horrifically bad that you don't want to go outside for about 11 months of the year now I'm not going to name any names because I don't want to make anybody mad but I'm talking about Buffalo now if you live up there the Viper might not be the car for you as I demonstrated in an earlier video okay our first performance test is going to be flat-out acceleration I'm going to slam on the gas pedal and just see how the Viper handles well that went well no no try turning and flooring the accelerator because I'm sure that will do a lot better yet then I want attraction in these conditions [Applause] another problem with the Viper is sitting in traffic as I shall explain the thing about traffic in this car is the clutch is is pre heavy it's not obscenely heavy for a sports car but it's not light by any means it's not the kind of closure you want to operate and heavy traffic all the time the other thing is there's a ton of travel in the clutch when you push it down it just goes really really far down into the floor which can cause kind of an issue if you're short you got to be sitting really close so your legs can push all the way down but closely the really annoying thing about traffic in a car like this is just the fact that the stick shift and you've got to be on the clutch and off the clutch there on the question occupies we're going we're moving we're going like 18 and now back on the clutch and we come good stuff the other annoying thing about the Viper in traffic is it has this skip shift thing that I just can't imagine anybody intelligent would divine if you starting out at first as you always are you can't shift into second and let's go over a certain rpm until you get over that ok and it forces you going to fourth I think this pays gas and so you're constantly am I ready to shift in a second or they're going to force thing before coming on so now we go again let the clutch out push a pull and we're back up to a side now one of the things you might be interested in if you're looking for a car that you can drive every day is safety equipment in the event that you get into an accident here's my friend Filippo he has a list of safety features and you could read them off to me and I'm to let him know if the Viper pass them or not go ahead all right and I lost brakes no side a right no traction control no stability control know what a forward collision warning no parking sensors no backup camera no blind spot modern no does it have any safety features at all it has doors and so following this highly scientific test let it be decreed that you cannot drive a Dodge Viper every single day of course really it all kind of depends on your circumstances if you're living in upstate New York and you're looking for a car to drive you around your job at the paper towel Factory 47 miles one way this isn't it but if you live in Arizona where the roads are wide and the weather is warm and you don't have a commute you work for home like me wake up and your first thought every morning is whether you're going to put pants on that day then yes it could probably daily Drive a Viper as long as your drive light isn't too steep and you're not too tall and the roads around where you live aren't that rough then you don't mind paying a lot of money for fuel bills and maybe if you wear a helmet and also shoulder pads [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,356,187

Rating: 4.8275943 out of 5

Keywords: dodge viper, viper, dodge viper gts, viper gts, exotic daily driving, viper driving, dodge gts, 1997 viper, old dodge viper, doug demuro, demuro

Id: BBPM_4nQfvQ

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 20 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Maximus_Aurelius]

Betteridge's law of headlines suggests the answer is an emphatic No, but I'm sure the journey to that answer will be nevertheless entertaining.

[u/RoosterDentures]

I would love to see what the DougScore would look like on the good ole viper. I'm guessing it would score fairly low but it would be interesting nonetheless.

[u/failingboy]

I'll answer this question from personal experience. Even with the Gen V, which is unarguably easier to tolerate daily, I have no desire to drive the car every day. I could, and I've driven it to work occasionally during the week and on weekends when it's been a while since I've had it out. But at the end of the day, its purpose is not commuting, and I don't have fun driving it when it's in traffic.

All of what Doug says is true-it's miserable on all but the smoothest highways, bad enough that my coffee spills, and you feel like you're bouncing all over the place. It feels like overkill for such a mundane thing as a commute. It's also very loud, and early mornings are not my happy time, so the last thing I want is to be bouncing around, cleaning up coffee, having my ears pummeled with noise, all the while worrying about the people around me not stopping quick enough when traffic comes to a stop suddenly on the interstate.

If I were all of you who think you might want to daily drive a Viper, I'd be thinking 'look at this jerk who's worrying about coffee and just can't take a little discomfort a couple of times a day.' But if you have the option, you don't want to put yourself through that. My commute is so much more pleasant in a car better suited for that (usually the E400).

Even with all of that, the Viper is so amazing on the track, that if it's either Viper only (no 2nd car) or no Viper, choose Viper every time. I just drove 3 hours each way yesterday for 60 minutes of track time, and the punishing ride was 100% worth it.

[u/clkgtr]

I tend to think of 'daily driver' as a car that you could drive back and forth to work every day. So the viper seems like it would be fine for that and has enough room to handle small home depot trips. But I live somewhere where stop and go traffic is not an everyday thing.

I drove a 370Z daily for 5 years (I'm cheating a bit, I stored it in the winter) and the only time I really didn't like it was if I was on the Gardiner in Toronto when it was a parking lot. It had enough space to haul most of what I needed it to (cheating again, my wife has a 4Runner so I could take that if I needed to haul something big). I don't have 'weekend toy' money so I had to live with the Z every day and the good easily outweighed the bad. I do understand that a 370Z is probably a little easier to deal with than a 90s Dodge specialty car though.

I wouldn't own a two seat sports car if it was my only car.

[u/Noobasdfjkl]

Doug, how tall exactly are you? Does your height come from mostly your torso or legs?

[u/BrandonNeider]

Dailying a Gen 1 or 2 I wouldn't ever consider, 3 maybe but the 8.3L's got problems. Gen 4 or 5 daily them shits every day (Gen 5 being the real winner). Trunk space is much better in the 5 too.

[u/Neo_Crimson]

I forget, didn't Doug already sell this Viper?

[u/BrandanG]

I drove the Roadkill Viper for a while and used it to commute from the Valley into El Segundo and make parts runs for my Pontiac. It's perfectly practical.

[u/the_lamou]

I mean, it seems like a perfectly fine daily driver to me. But I also daily drove an SW20. The only advantage it has in the Viper was fuel mileage. Everything else was much much worse.