Daily Driving a C7 Corvette for 3 Months! (Review, Problems, Etc.)

what's going on guys and welcome back to another tree with garage video today I just want to make just a little short video just to put something out I'm kind of slacking on my content right now I'm still waiting for a time to get the arrow kit put on this car so right now it's just a little bit of an in-between there's not really a whole lot going on with any of my vehicles so but it would still want to be consistent and upload so I want to put this little short video together and give you guys kind of a three month update-ish on daily driving this so this is my 2014 C7 Corvette and I've owned this car for just a little over three months now so I bought this car right at the end of March so it's currently the beginning of July now so a little over three-ish months that I've owned this car and I've been daily driving it practically every single day now daily driving a Corvette especially a newer one like this a C7 it's not unheard of but it's not the most common thing in the world I think you have a lot of your Corvette drivers now specifically with these newer cars that have all the updated entertainment modern conveniences I guess you could say that are daily driving these cars more and I'm sure as many of you guys know I also own a C3 1976 Corvette and that car is not really that daily drivable but this car on the other hand has really got all the modern conveniences the engine is is kind of made to where it's made daily drive you can put a lot of miles on these cars I've seen them well over a hundred thousand miles and people not really having any issues with regular maintenance so I just kind of wanted to do a little three month update on what it's been like daily driving my C7 Corvette so if you're in the market for one of these cars or if you have one and you're considering daily driving it just tell you kind of some of the things that I've experienced while doing it so the first thing that I want to touch on is overall driving quality uh most people when you look at a Corvette you don't think oh that's a great daily driving car it's going to be comfortable it's going to be fuel efficient it's going to be all those and honestly before buying this car I really thought the same thing that was one of my big things when I was considering getting a new car to be my daily driver and you guys know that if you watch my original video and I talked about buying this car I was picking between this car and a Gen 2 Ford Raptor now I want to drive both of those cars before I pick which one I wanted to drive as my daily because again I mean I love this car it's a great performance car but is it going to be something that I'm going to enjoy driving every single day and I test drove one very similar to this It Was Here Local I decided you know let me go drive it before I really start searching out for one of these cars and drive a really long ways away just get up there and test drive it and go I don't think I can drive this as a daily driver and to my surprise I was absolutely Blown Away on how good of just an everyday car this is for those of you that may own a C7 or have driven one you'll know that it's a very comfortable car to drive just on the daily now this car is a z51 package so it is equipped with the Dual mode exhaust as well as the suspension that you can switch through you can change the suspension mode on this car which is really nice when it's coming to daily driving a sports car because it's almost like you're getting two different cars you can put the car in track mode you can have the loud exhaust you can have the really hard suspension really tight steering or you can put it in touring mode and it drives it's practically like a regular car now I've been driving this car in touring mode uh to me that's kind of the best for me you guys know what these MPP cars you can actually leave the exhaust open all the time you can just set it to stay open that way it doesn't switch with the modes and that's what I've been doing I've been driving this thing in touring mode it's honestly really comfortable I mean the suspension is not like your everyday regular car I mean if you're going to get like a Cadillac or a Tahoe or an SUV or just something like that it is a little bit rough for suspension now compared to my 2012 Camaro I could I will say that this car does ride a little bit rougher which is to be expected that car is a V6 it's got a lot bigger tires on it it's got an 18 inch wheel and I'm not exactly sure what size the tire is very different you can see we're working with a lot less rubber here on the Michelin Pilot Sport uh All Seasons now I'm sure there are some things that I could do to change that I could put you know an aftermarket suspension on it which I don't really want to do because I like having the availability to switch between the modes or I could you know get a smaller wheel and go with a little bit bigger tire and give me a little bit more cushion on the road but I really like the look of these I don't like the look of my 18 so it's not that big of a problem for me again it's a sports car so I know it's going to ride a little bit rougher than let's say a Cadillac or something like that so it's not a big concern for me but you can't put it in track mode and it does get really really rough so I live out in the country so we've got a little bit bumpy roads it's not the best roads ever when I'm driving in the city on the you know really good roads you can't tell the difference but out here on these Country Roads it does get a little bit bumpy sometimes even in the soft suspension mode but again I want to reiterate not really an issue I still love daily driving this car and it's not a burden at all all right so next I want to talk about probably the biggest question that everybody has when you're considering daily driving a V8 sports car is how is the gas mileage now before buying this car I did read some reviews online just to kind of see what people are getting the gas mileage wise and again that wasn't a you know a big selling point for me it wasn't like oh it gets terrible gas mileage I'm not buying a sports car I didn't really expect it out of a sports car but I was pleasantly surprised by reading the reviews and also owning this car on just how good a gas mileage it does get you have it on the interstate you put it in cruise I've gotten close to 400 miles on a tank which is really really good for a VA sports car now around the city I don't know exactly what my miles per gallon is you'd have to calculate that out but I can usually get about you know 300-ish miles on the tank depending on how I'm driving it's usually between 280 and 300 but then again when you get it on the interstate you put it in eco mode and you really just Cruise like I've had no issue getting 400 miles on a tank so actually just got back from a trip I took it all the way down to the beach and used an eighth of a tank so the beach is about it's about an hour and a half away from me so you know when you consider that really good gas mileage and I think a lot of that is due to the cylinder deactivation that this car has so if you don't know what cylinder deactivation is it's very similar to the auto start stop on a car however when this car gets to cruise in at a certain speed or a certain RPM it actually shuts off half of the engine so it's actually only running on four cylinders now I know that a lot of people are not fans of the cylinder deactivation honestly I'm not either it kind of sounds like a vacuum cleaner when you're dry driving all of a sudden it just like and your exhaust cuts out and if you dream one of these cars you'll know exactly what I'm talking about but a lot of people aren't fans because they say it does do a lot of harm to your engine and I can totally see that now I haven't done a whole lot of research I know that you know especially in later models in certain modes the cylinder deactivation is not as active but I did look into it to see if you could just turn it off like through the computer and the only way to do that is to actually retune the ECU and that's not really something I want to do right now but eventually down the road when we start putting some performance mods on this car we may have to get the car retuned anyway so if we do go down that road I'll probably will get rid of the cylinder deactivation which will hurt my gas mileage but you know it's better for the engine in the long term now the next thing I want to talk about is some issues that I've had with this car and they're nothing major like I said this car only has like right now about 33 000 miles on it so it's fairly new even though the age is a little bit old but I have had a few little minor issues that just kind of came with the car and the main one was being the rattle of this T-top so these early c7s were notorious for having a Radley T-top when you hit bumps and like I said living out where I do we do have a lot of bumps but I was actually a really simple process just getting those little O-rings if you haven't watched that video I actually link it up above that way you can watch that video of how I fix that and if you're having that problem it's a super simple easy and cheap fix that will save you a lot of headaches in the long run now I haven't done my research on this next topic so you guys will have to excuse me if this is a known common thing but when I'm driving at night and I have my headlights on you can see that they have these suspended the HID headlights on these Corvettes and when I'm driving on a bumpy road like when you're looking up at the road signs whenever you hit a bump the headlights are really shaky they really jump so I don't know if that's something with them being loose I don't know if that's how they're designed to keep from rattling and cracking or whatever but if any of you guys out there have experienced this problem or know about this problem drop a comment below because I'd really like to know like is this a thing is that somebody to get looked at or is it just a part that's on all these Corvettes that I just have to live with now I wanted to come inside and show you guys one more thing I don't know if you can see but right there there's a little crack in the screen now that crack was there when I got the car it started right here at the bottom and it's going up and it's just in this little uh plastic or acrylic cover that's covering the dash panel and I haven't really been able to tell uh if it spread since I got the car I'm sure that driving on the bumpy roads it is causing it to crack a little bit more I think that it is but I can't be for sure so I've been keeping a watch on it now and you know kind of seeing is it expanding and if so you know what's causing it it is really frustrating because like it's just in a little Annoying problem and I don't know if that's a common problem again I haven't really done a lot of research on it to see if other people have had the issue too but it's just something that's kind of annoying because I'm like you know it bothers me that it's cracked and if it's getting worse eventually I'm gonna have to replace it which probably means pulling the dash out and that's going to be a pain and I don't know if that's going to be covered under my warranty so I do have a warranty on this car and I would think that that would cover it if that's like a common no manufacturer issue but again I don't know it's just something that's slightly annoying now the next point I want to hit on is keeping this car clean you guys know with especially it's the stereotypical thing with Corvette drivers is they keep their cars perfect and pristine at all times now I've always been one to like to keep my cars clean but I kind of neglect them and as much as I drive them it's just it's hard for me I'm not really OCD enough to wash my car every time I drive it because realistically I'd be washing a car every single day but overall the car has not been awful to keep clean you can see it's obviously a bug magnet as pretty much every car is especially this time weather in the South there's flies everywhere it's it's awful and a main problem that was hard to keep that really showed up on this white paint early was brake dust this car was Notorious for having brake dust all up the sides but after I installed these uh mud splash guards here it actually has helped out a ton and I also did a video on installing those I'll link that up here as well if you want to watch that video I would highly recommend any C7 owner getting them I actually think they kind of improve the looks of the car a little bit and they definitely only are more functional and I think I bought mine a kit on eBay for like 20 bucks so they're super cheap super easy to install again I'll link that video up here above that way you can watch that video and I'll show you how easy of an install it really was but for those of you that may have you know problems with brake dust or it really bothers you it actually has helped a lot with you know just Road Grime and all that kind of stuff another thing about this car that was not something I was necessarily looking to have it was not something I had to have but I actually had a really good one on my Camaro was the sound system so this car was equipped with the the Bose sound system which it sounds really really good I had the premium audio on my 2012 Camaro and it was really really great just for driving around listening to music and again it was not something that I had to have I just like to listen to music when I'm driving sometimes but coming from the audio visual world you know I really like a good sound system so the sound system in this car is great so if you're daily driving this car and you want to listen to music or whatever you're gonna have no problem having a really good sound system in this car like I touched on a little bit earlier this car is equipped with the MPP dual mode exhaust so it's got the valves you can make it super quiet super loud whatever you want and I know a lot of people when driving a sports car every day they don't want to be loud they don't want to be obnoxious they just want to enjoy it and not feel like they're making a scene now for me personally and I'm sure a lot of the rest of you out there I like to make noise I like my cars to sound good so but with the Dual mode exhaust really you can switch it make it dead quiet pretty much makes no noise or you can have the valves open and when you get on it it's a pretty good sound and exhaust now speaking of the MPP if any of you guys have this C7 you'll know that there's a fuse that you can pull in the fuse panel because even when you have the exhaust all the way open certain RPMs and speeds it kind of half closes the valves and it really doesn't sound that good so that was one of the first things I did was I pretty much pulled the fuse so now my exhaust is wide open all the time now the cylinder deactivation still does cut the exhaust a little bit but it's nothing super major and again if anytime I want to use the exhaust and you know close the valves all I gotta do is throw the fuse back in and I've got the full MPP dual mode exhaust again now eventually I do want to do an aftermarket exhaust system on this car but right now it really is good for what I'm using it for and it gives me that availability to be either quiet or loud if I want to which again when you're just driving and cruising you don't want a super loud car all the time you don't want any drone anything like that so this car really does a great job at that with that MPP dual mode exhaust and lastly I just want to talk about just kind of the easability of driving this car every day so I know that you know for people that haven't really owned a sports car like this or are not familiar with driving sports cars it could be a little bit intimidating thinking like oh I'm going to push the gas it's just going to take off I'm going to be flying around town and this car is really not like that this car in my opinion is very simple like you if you push the gas and you really get on it it's going to go but just driving through everyday traffic it's really not bad you can you can ease on and off the throttle it's not going to jolt it's not really rough the transmission is super smooth even though I have the 2014 which has the six speed instead of the eight speed I'm sure that one's even more comfortable to drive every day but it's really comfortable it's really great driver like I said it's not intimidating I mean it can be if you get in this car and you don't know what you're doing and you hit the throttle on it like if you were driving a Toyota Camry or something like that like it's going to go it's going to get you in trouble but especially with these newer cars all the safety features they have on them like the ABS the traction control all that you're not really going to have any problems unless you're really being stupid all right so I just want to wrap this video up I just want to make a quick video just kind of updating you guys on kind of my three-month experience on daily driving a Corvette which is a little bit new for me I have daily driven a sports car like I said ever since I was 15 but this is kind of a whole different Beast than a V6 Camaro to say and overall obviously if you're in the market for a really good sports car around the Forty fifty thousand dollars range this is a great one I mean it's it's a Chevrolet it's reliable haven't had any major issues with it yet and if I do I'll be covered under warranty a lot of these companies will offer good warranty Chevy's really good with working people with warranties and it's just fun I mean it's it's a good looking car it's going to get attention wherever you go I always have people stopping wanting to talk to me at the gas station people really enjoy the looks of this car and in my opinion it's got a lot of performance as well as a lot of you know luxurious features and everyday drivability Comforts they made this car a really good daily driver despite the fact that you know it's a top-tier Chevrolet sports car now again this is just the stingray with the z51 performance package I can't really speak on if you're daily driving a Z06 Grand Sport or ZR1 I'm sure that's going to be a little bit more a little bit more power a little bit more intimidating to drive every day but this car in my opinion it's a great balance between you know comfort and you still got your performance there when you need it so anyway guys I hope you enjoyed this video found it entertaining or you know maybe we're able to learn something if you're in the market for a C7 or a similar car that's just kind of some of my experiences and honestly I would say go for it it makes a good daily driver if you enjoy driving a smaller sports car and you want something that can kind of do both this is a really good car and it's a really good value right now you can pick these things up relatively cheap and I'm really happy with the decision I made and I've thoroughly enjoyed daily driving this car for the last three months so again I hope you enjoyed thank you for watching like comment subscribe let me know what you want to see next it'll help us grow the channel and kind of get us where we want to go get us to be able to do some really cool stuff with this car and some of the other cars that I own and again thank you for watching hope you enjoyed and we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Trawick Garage

Views: 49,219

Keywords: c7, corvette, stingray, z51, daily driver, daily driving, car, automotive, vlog, video, chevrolet, sports car, trawick garage

Id: TdsuOaWVX4Y

Length: 15min 33sec (933 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2023