Dissenting opinions are totally fine if they're well reasoned and well presented. This was uhhhh neither of those. "This car isn't a performance bargain because I overpaid and the interior sucks" isn't a reasonable claim. And I'm sorry but the "youtube video that should have been two paragraphs in a forum post" is the worst trend the internet has going on at the moment.
In reply to dps214 :
Actually the video was "this car isn't a performance bargain because you literally cannot buy tires in the OE size at all and getting different wheels that for and solve the tire issue costs thousands of dollars".
Everyone latches on to the interior part but no one appreciated that I took the damn valve cover off to show the defective valve springs or climbed into the car to show the harmonic balancer that splits.
SMH, I spent months working on that. Sorry I met my hero and it didn't live to the hype. Next time I won't try to warn you that a car isn't as good as the reviewers say it is.
one of the most E36 my pants moments I have ever had was riding along in my friends C5 that was running in BS, it was scary not really because of speed, but because the seat bushings were shot and was loose feeling and moving all over the place. Fast driver too.
Well if you put that into words instead of a video that I didn't have time to watch and then was deleted, I wouldn't have had to rely on someone else's summary of it. Even so, the things you're listing are all incredibly well known and fairly easy and cheap to rectify. Tire Rack has front wheels for less than $500 for a pair, or the replica/take off base rear wheels that everyone runs on the front are $300 or less a pair and then you have all the tire choices in the world.
In reply to dps214 :
I did have words with my video, but deleted it after getting called a "fraud".
Do you really think runnning mis-matched wheels all the time just to be able to buy tires *at all* is a bargain? Not to mention that that particular tire size has exactly 3 total tires available in stock: https://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?zip-code=98626&width=295/&ratio=35&diameter=18&rearWidth=295/&rearRatio=35&rearDiameter=18
Yeah, let's buy a $20,000+ car, then drop $600 on two mis-matched wheels even though there's nothing wrong with the 17x9.5 Speedlines up front and then buy $1,700 worth of PS2's, which is only a 220 TY tire. Meanwhile there's 22 different performance tires in stock for the Boxster which doesn't need to change it's wheels.
Seats are not easy to rectify, because when you buy aftermarket seats and rails (for thousands of dollars if you don't want to sit on Kirkey's or Wish knock-offs) you have to buy seatbelts because the C5 has weird double-tensioner belts that aren't compatible with anything else.
Valvesprings aren't exactly a walk in the park, either. Or a harmonic balancer. Then you still have to put fixed calipers all the way around to get more than a lap worth of braking out of it.
And yes, the TC off is stupid because everyone else just uses a warning light, GM has the warning as a printed word that blocks all of the other info (you know important stuff for track driving like oil pressure and water temp). But yeah, how exactly do you fix that? OBD dongle and tablet setup just to have functional gauges?
Okay, so I think the disconnect is that you're talking about it like a performance car but trying to use it as a normal street car. If it's a track/autocross car, who cares if the wheels don't match? And how many people are running on the stock wheels (on any car) anyway? Certainly nobody using one as a performance vehicle is running on stock width tires either, so the weird OE sizes are irrelevant. (plus I count nine tire options including one 200TW option on that list of rear tires...the fact that most of them are out of stock at the moment is far from a corvette specific issue) A serious track car is getting seats and harnesses regardless of how good or bad the stock ones are, a couple of gauges aren't a huge deal and most cars don't have oil temp/pressure gauges at all, etc. Nobody said they were ready to go set track records out of the box, but almost nothing under like $80k is. I was just at a scca champ tour, the fastest AS C5 Z06 would have placed second in SS, a class of GT3s and $80k C8s with some pretty good drivers. If that's not a performance bargain, I don't know what is.
Edit: 275/315 (the sizes people actually run on these cars) bfg rivals are in stock and even have a rebate at the moment. falken 660s are supposedly only about a week out and even have a 17" front size that might fit (275/40).
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
I don't think anyone thinks you are a fraud. They just don't necessarily agree with you.
It seemed to me to be a video posted to generate controversy and clicks. Even the thread title is pretty much clickbait. It certainly delivered the controversy. My guess is, it is doing rather well on the clicks also.
In reply to dps214 :
Apparently you are completely unfamiliar with the SCCA and rules for Solo and Time Trials competitions...
In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :
There was a very early reply in this thread saying exactly that, that has since been deleted.
Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to dps214 :
Apparently you are completely unfamiliar with the SCCA and rules for Solo and Time Trials competitions...
Yes, the rules that limit cars to almost no modifications and yet C5Z06s regularly manage to run times as fast or faster than much much more expensive performance cars?
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
You did kind of poke the bear. 
At least it was deleted.
Next time do one about why Miata and BMW suck. They will LOVE that video. 
In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :
Ooooh. I'd watch that.
In reply to Toyman01 + Sized and :
Nah, I'd rather do one on why twin turbo wagons are awesome.
You know... I wasn't going to comment but you did ask for people's opinion on the video, and aside from the fact that it sure looks like you had an agenda going in, the video was exactly what you said it wasn't, and not at all what you said it was.
And yet, despite getting almost exclusively negative feedback, then deleting the vid, your comments, and changing the title of the video, you doubled down on your premise, and why you're right, arguing it here, and on YouTube
Videos like this is exactly why I don't watch car videos. And here it is for those who missed it
Toyman01 + Sized and said:As a general rule, I don't watch videos that are dropped in a forum with no discussion. They are trying to generate youtube traffic on someone else's dime. The other forums I frequent don't allow it as well as many FB groups. If the first post is only a video, I just hit the back button and move on.
On the other hand, if there had been a wall of text stating the things someone didn't like about a C5 with an accompanying video, I probably would have read every word of it and watched the video.
This pretty much sums it up for me too. There's a difference between using videos to supplement your posts and using posts to generate traffic to your videos. I appreciate Javelin's words when he writes. I understand the time and effort that goes into making a typical monetized YouTube video, but honestly I usually don't care for that type of content.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah, but then everyone would agree with you.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
Don't buy factory size tires? Plenty of options that keep similar enough F/R ratio. With TCS off it's a non factor anyways.
Speaking of TCS....hit the reset button and now you have your display again.
2002 Corvettes are pretty awesome in that the traction control/ABS is smart enough that they don't need a proportioning valve. Its all done through the ABS/EBCM. So tire changes and caliper changes don't really upset the braking as much as they would on some cars. They are also old enough that you can turn off the TPMS with a TECH II on the non Z06 versions so you dont have that nanny bothering you - Z06 didnt get runflats so no TPMS there, no warnings, easy to swap different wheels and tires around if needed.
Credit where credit is due - the harmonic balancer is a known issue, but again with 120k miles, a lot of which were supercharged on the original 8 year old balancer, I did not run into issues on my 2002. Valve springs too - but thats a simple hand tool fix and a few hours in the garage on a Saturday morning. Good chance to do a trunnion bearing upgrade at the same time since its the same parts.
Maybe focus on some of the truly damning issues - no one is rebuilding the ABS/trac modules on the 98-00 cars, parts are NLA from GM, and there are no known fixes. Same story with the steering wheel position sensors for 99-00 - NLA, no known fixes, and used ones are close to $500 when you find them. At least with the engine parts I can put a phone call in to Summit Racing and get what I need off the shelf in a few days.
Calling the C5 Z06 not a performance bargain? Thats a bit one-sided. Calling it a good car that has a few things that keep it from greatness? I think that would be fair.
AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:Toyman01 + Sized and said:As a general rule, I don't watch videos that are dropped in a forum with no discussion. They are trying to generate youtube traffic on someone else's dime. The other forums I frequent don't allow it as well as many FB groups. If the first post is only a video, I just hit the back button and move on.
On the other hand, if there had been a wall of text stating the things someone didn't like about a C5 with an accompanying video, I probably would have read every word of it and watched the video.
This pretty much sums it up for me too. There's a difference between using videos to supplement your posts and using posts to generate traffic to your videos. I appreciate Javelin's words when he writes. I understand the time and effort that goes into making a typical monetized YouTube video, but honestly I usually don't care for that type of content.
That's really fair. Normally I am a forum poster that happens to have a supplemental video and this was the first time the video did more talking than I did and that rubbed everyone the wrong way. I should have had a discussion thread about the Z06 while I owned it and looked at those pros and cons in real time with you all rather than stewing in it alone and making a bitter video. My intent here was to share that I went with the general consensus that a C5 Z06 is a great performance bargain, damn the interior, and bought it with my own money only to find out that it really didn't measure up to me. I spent more money on that car than any other I had ever owned (which is a lot) and felt really underwhelmed and disappointed, so much so that I sold it.
There's also something about the content being monetized that changes people's perceptions (and for the record, my channel took two full years and over 130 videos to reach monetization and has generated exactly $131 total since it has, which isn't even enough to pay for the cheap knock-off camera I use). The crappy part is even if I turn monetization off, YouTube keeps playing ads and I just get nothing. It's not very friendly for people like me who just want to share and not become product hawkers.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
I ran Z06 sizes on my base model. Back then people were moving to a slightly different size to get the brand they wanted on a street car. Wasnt a big deal. As mentioned, most track guys I saw were running 275 or 285 and 315 or stock wheels or going to a 17s all around. Thats pretty standard for a track car though.
Seat are easy to fix. I did mine myself, they were much worse than just the normal bushings, and Im not near as capable as most guys on here. If you are talking about the seats not being good on the track then that applies to 99 percent of cars on the road. Road car seats are not good for the track in the vast majority of cases.
Harmonic balancer fails but its a 20 year old rubber piece. Mine failed and its not fun to change, but its the nature of the beast, when you are looking for a bargain you go older and you deal with older car repairs. If you want a perfect car you buy a new one, and its not a bargain anymore.
Valve spring failure has been a known thing on those for decades. Every performance car has its quirks though. C6z06s drop valves and munch engines. M cars and 3000GTs rod and main bearing are considered consumables. etc etc etc. I consider it the nature of the beast also. Ive done springs on these and 4th gen fbodies. They arent bad on a vette, of the potential problems of a high performance car Id take this over some of the others and change the springs preventatively
Opti said:In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
I ran Z06 sizes on my base model. Back then people were moving to a slightly different size to get the brand they wanted on a street car. Wasnt a big deal. As mentioned, most track guys I saw were running 275 or 285 and 315 or stock wheels or going to a 17s all around. Thats pretty standard for a track car though.
Seat are easy to fix. I did mine myself, they were much worse than just the normal bushings, and Im not near as capable as most guys on here. If you are talking about the seats not being good on the track then that applies to 99 percent of cars on the road. Road car seats are not good for the track in the vast majority of cases.
Harmonic balancer fails but its a 20 year old rubber piece. Mine failed and its not fun to change, but its the nature of the beast, when you are looking for a bargain you go older and you deal with older car repairs. If you want a perfect car you buy a new one, and its not a bargain anymore.
Valve spring failure has been a known thing on those for decades. Every performance car has its quirks though. C6z06s drop valves and munch engines. M cars and 3000GTs rod and main bearing are considered consumables. etc etc etc. I consider it the nature of the beast also. Ive done springs on these and 4th gen fbodies. They arent bad on a vette, of the potential problems of a high performance car Id take this over some of the others and change the springs preventatively
I'm going to echo this..
Tires.... I work on many rams... stick 20 size is a 275/60... Ford and gm run a 55 series. Guess which size gets put on? Because there is only a few making a 60 series and they all suck for a 1/2" in height difference.
Harmonic balancer has been a issue from the get go on ALL Ls's... They were bean counter'd to make warranty. Suck to fix in a vette but not impossible.
Valve springs are easier to fix by pulling the heads and reusing the gaskets and hardware.... Replace with some cheap pac's.
You can turn the traction control with a tune so it doesn't really come on anymore. I already did that with the tune in my Avalanche. Rarely comes on even turned down.
Interior plastics has never been a GM strong suit until recently. This is just opinion but after seeing them be junk for years....
In reply to Opti :
Your first point is my point now. Back when they were new, and even like 5-10 years ago, finding sizes of tires that worked and/or different wheels was relatively painless. That was to be expected and is not a big deal. Within the last few years that's changed (and no it's not just a constrained market overall, this is compared to the current limited selection for everything) and OE tire sizes have disappeared completely, alternative tire sizes are of limited choice and high cost, and the wheel selection has evaporated. That's a much different place to be than it used to.
How did you fix your seats from the seat back banging back and forth? That's the problem I had.
Anytime you get out in front of people and give an opinion, there's going to be a nonzero number of people that fling poo at you.
A lot of time success comes from being able to make your points and letting all the poo slide off of you.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
Bushings in the seat track they make an inexpensive kit with upgraded bushings, some people make them with nylon washers.
Doesnt take long at all.
I also had broken adjusters. I bought a cheap broken track on eBay and cannibalized it
I believe I showed the repair in my old build thread
My take away from a lot of this is that we as car people (guys, gals and however you feel most comfortable) all like cars and we do not always agree. I for one am cool with that. But I still see everyone as accepting and respecting each other as car people. I'm really looking forward to Javelin's 986 updates. I'm sad to the C5 go, but as someone that has owned and driven lots of Vettes I get it too. They are a paradox in performance cars. They are so fast, so sexy to look at, but so infuriating in some of their details. You add cost to run one to that, and sometimes you just walk away. Meeting your heroes can be a frightening reality check. My C4 ZR-1 was a similar experience. It's one of the best engines ever in a C4 Corvette that comes with all the oddities of owning a C4 Corvette.
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