So the answer is no, then? 'Cause it’s an American writing, praising it as a car Americans should love.
Reliability.
German engineering vs Detroit engineering.
Also, American cars tend to be great on expressways. Shall we take your Vette and my Audi up some mountain roads in Colorado?
Top speed is seldom very interesting. So it does 190 mph. Wow. When are you going to drive like that. Ever. You wanna burn some rubber at the next traffic light? Go ahead. I prefer a machine that handles well in extreme situations. YMobviouslyV
I don’t think that Audi is the company you want to point to if you are looking for rock-solid reliability.
And yeah, I would take a Vette any day on Colorado mountain roads against an S5 (as long as it is summer). The Chevy will eat the Audi alive. Corvette != Mustang.
Thanks, everybody, for your feedback. If I bought a Corvette, I’d be driving it mostly on my daily commute, which is 20-30 mins. each way, depending upon traffic. Would that be an issue as to reliability, either short- or long-term? I realize that it’s “more car than I need” for such short distances, but as I said, I’ve always liked Corvettes.
There is not sufficient reliability data on the LS3 engine and the 2008 Corvette, but it’s expected that overall it would be similar to all other LS2 model C6 Corvettes.
I mean, you’re sort of asking us to be psychics here. Let me tell you about the practicalities again:
luggage space is ample but you have to get to it via the boot.
the car rides surprisingly comfortably, but it’s definitely not a “soft” ride.
it’s a very quiet car until you step on it. There is less wind noise at even 100 mph than any car I’ve ever sat in - it’s extremely quiet.
it has a very low ground clearance for the front spoiler as I posted.
if you are taller than 5’6" or weigh more than 180 pounds it’s sort of a tight fit (thankfully both Fierra and I are small).
the stereo sound is good but not stellar, even if you opt for the highest-end system.
the controls are very well-placed and easy to read, especially the heads-up. The shifter is in a great place, and I really like it.
the first-fourth skip-shift is GOD DAMN annoying. Pay the $20 to get it removed.
the roof panel is cool to take off but it needs two people (or a strong person, I guess) to do it safely.
the view from the front and sides is good and clear, with great boundary awareness, but vision out the rear is reduced.
the climate controls work excellently, and the heated seats are great on cold mornings.
the OnStar safety features, run-flat tires, front and side airbags, and large crush zones are confidence-inspiring.
the handling is phenomenal, the braking powerful and smooth, and acceleration frightening.
when you drive it, you feel like the queen of the road.
Given its size and similar performance, it’s possible that the Audi would be a better everyday car. The Corvette is more of a dream car.
This is statement is laughable and it is clear that you know nothing about “German Engineering”.
As Necros has already indicated, abso-fucking-lutely. Corvettes have always been very good handling cars, the new generation Corvettes are some of the best in the world. A $300k Ferrari F430 would have trouble shaking off a base model Vette, and be easily brushed aside by a Z06. Your porkier, less powerful S5 with it’s peakier, gutless (compared to the LS3) engine and typical nose heavy Audi understeer would have no chance against a Corvette. None.
As an alleged “gas saving” feature to avoid the “gas guzzler tax”, Corvettes have this annoying thing where at low rpm, when you try to shift from 1st to 4th, it tries to push the stick over to 4th. Since the car weighs so little and has 428-something foot-stomping ft-lbf of torque, it can drive very happily from 10mph in 4th. However, the shift motion is strange, and you end up fighting it, resulting in it finally, grudgingly, going into 2nd or 4th with a “crunch”. If you don’t fight it, it works OK, but it’s not instinctive. Fierra prefers instead to do 1st-3rd at low rpms, which works a hell of a lot better.
Just responding to the Audi v. Corvette debates here. Agreed that the Corvette will probably be more reliable than the high-tech S5. Disagreed that the Corvette could easily shake off an S5 on a winding mountain road: notwithstanding the fact that the C5 and C6 are miles apart from their wobbly predecessors, they’re still gonna have a hard time with a 4WD car with plenty of grunt. The amount of grip and traction an Audi with Quattro system provides is quite astonishing. It also make for a slightly less challenging drive, but given a winding road, you’ll be struggling to get the power down in your 'Vette, as the S5 gets away from you effortlessly with its 4WD and foolproof traction control.
Having said that, I’d take the ’ Vette for that kind of money, it’s just a hell of a lot more fun than a glorified Volkswagen.
BTW, that 1st-to-4th thingamabob sounds extremely annoying. I hate car gadgets that are meddlesome. Wanna save the planet? Buy a Prius (not really, it’s probably for more environmentally unfriendly than your average Honda Civic, but that’s a rant for another day). Who the hell buys a Corvette to save fuel? Floor the damn thing!
Agree with you there. My 06 Pathfinder has Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC). It does work quite well, but it took me a while to realize that there are times when I need to turn it off.
For instance, going up my drive in deep snow sometimes you just have to punch it and go for it. If the VDC detects slip, I loose the ‘punch’.
I suppose it depends on how the hypothetical mountain road is laid out. Paved or unpaved? Average slope? Straightaway to corner ratio? Since the vast majority of vehicle miles are probably driven on paved roads with a 0-5% slope, I’m guessing Charlie Tan is probably thinking about something like a Pike’s Peak challenge.
Note that the skip-shift only comes into play if rpm are low - if you even are moderately accelerating, it’s disabled. And it is about a $20 5-minute fix, which even the dealer will install and it doesn’t void the warranty (need to do that…) so it’s not a critical failing.
The car has a huge amount of torque available at all engine speeds. I’m looking at the NPP curves right now, and they show about 290 ft-lbf at WOT at 800 rpm. :eek:
Forget the Audi. If you’re coming out of a Saturn and want a high-performance commuter vehicle, you might want to consider the new Mitsubishi Evo.
Seriously, this thing is amazing. It finally crushed its main competitor, the Subaru WRX STi. It’s got a better AWD system than the Audi. You can get the MR version with a dual clutch SMG transmission like the BMW M cars have. It’ll go 0-60 in under 5 seconds, and it will hang with any car in the world on a twisty road, and crush most of them in the wet or in snow or on harsh roads.
At the end of the day, it’s still a 4-door sedan with a large trunk, and you won’t look like a boy racer or a middle aged man trying to recapture his youth. And the new body style is very handsome - especially compared to the butt-ugly new Subaru.
You can hypothetically design a scenario to get any result you want, but the Audi’s front wheel drive A4 underpinnings make it an inherently poor handler. The layout of the longitudinal mounted engine and transmission means that most of the weight sits afore of the front axle, resulting in front biased weight distribution. The high polar moment of inertia dulls steering response and results in understeer - more weight in the nose means it’s harder to change direction, that’s why the best handling cars have their engines mounted in the middle. FWD derived performance cars like Subarus and Lancer Evolutions have the same problem.
The Corvette, with its low slung engine behind the front axle, rear transaxle and even weight distribution, is inherently a much better design (at the expense of interior space).
Audi has been trying for decades to match the handling performance of its’ German RWD competitors. Some of the stuff they’ve come up with is very much ahead of the curve - The Quattro AWD system adds weight, so the chassis is made of aluminum to keep the weight on par with a RWD BMW; since the heavier engine affects handling more when it’s further in the nose, the new aluminum 4.2l FSI V8 is just as powerful as the new BMW V8 but weighs over 100lbs less (in the RS4/R8, the S5 uses a cheaper variant) and has an even better power to weight ratio than the LS7, but they still get panned for their handling compared to BMW.
Sam A couple of things. That Mitsu has a max torque that is 21 foot lbs more than the Vette does at idle. (see Una’s post) Color me underwhelmed. Secondly the OP mentioned reliability as one of the things he was looking for. If this is the case run as fast and as far as you can from the Mitsubishi dealer. We had a service rep that came over from Mitsubishi. Some of our people were bitching about engine reliability and his comment was, you guys don’t know what poor reliability is. My last day at Mitsubishi, I went to a dealer to inspect 13 engines that were torn down for rebuilds. At Volvo I look at maybe one a month. :eek: Lastly according to the MMNA website that model is not currently available in the US, which kinda puts it out of the running.
As far as the Audi vs Vette debate goes, Satch Carlson wrote an interesting column on this topic many years ago for Autoweek. He drove a Lotus, and the discussion was on a windy road his lotus vs a Muscle car. IIRC his summation went something like this: “I finally realized that it didn’t matter if the guy driving the muscle car had to get out and look both ways for Indians before he pushed his car around the corner. Soon or later there was going to be a straight stretch, and he would disappear.”
The Vette most assuredly won’t have to stop and look for Indians in the corners, and it has world class brakes and handling.
From the Car and Driver road test of the 2008 Corvette
IMHO the Audi doesn’t stand a chance unless the rules say you have to transport 4 people in the race.
This seems to be an apropos spot to link to one of my all time favorite videos, where a (looks like) race prepared Lotus Elise does its absolute best to catch up to and pass a street Corvette on a lap around the Nurburgring. The Lotus is one of the best cornering cars you can buy and even though it catches up to the 'vette on a couple of twisty spots he doesn’t have enough oomph to get by and as soon as a straightaway comes up the 'vette is nothing but a vanishing speck in the distance. Also note that the 'vette is by no means a dog in the curves, I only saw one definite back end break. I love the reaction shots of the driver in the Lotus–he looks pretty impressed.
There’s a lot to be said for a flagship model that’s been in continuous production for over fifty years! The Corvette is GM’s baby and the 'vette team has always been the superstar.
Yup, that’s a great video. Only, I interpret it differently.
To me, it shows that a small and light mid-engined car (a four cilinder mind you!) will easily outclass a much more powerful, but heavier front-engined car. Of course, on the stretches the Corvette reigns surpreme.
I’m not a Corvette basher by any means, I should add. I think it’s great that finally, a really competent sports car can also be from America. Their bang-for-your-buck ratio is sensational compared with European rivals.
TM: your points on weight distribution are well taken, and I agree that in that regard, the Corvette’s layout trumps the S5’s. That still doesn’t mean it has the same amount of traction coming out of slow bends - which is where the Audi would reign surpreme. You can simply step on the gas sooner without wiping out, than in a Corvette. And yeah, it’s all theoretical, but my guess is that the Audi therefore has the edge on very twisty bits.
Reminds me of an old Top Gear episode. They took a stretch of windy road somewhere in the moors, and put two cars on it. A RWD Lamborghini Diablo with 400+ horsepower, and a FWD Peugeot 106 GTI with about 120. The latter being a hell of a lot lighter, and a hell of a lot easier to get the power down.
Try as it might, the Diablo could not get the little Peugeot off its tail the entire run.
See, what I was seeing is a street car versus one that’s been set up for racing, and a driver who presumably is more familiar with a street car versus one who obviously spends some time on the track. Under those circumstances I would’ve expected the Lotus to take the Corvette, if only in the twisties. The 'vette not only kicked much ass, it also had such nice manners that the driver felt comfortable letting it go all out and there wasn’t a consequence for doing so.
That’s what I like about the Corvette so much–it’s a serious performance car that doesn’t have prima donna road manners. There’s enough power there to kill a n00b in a hot NY minute but the fact that so many n00bs survive the 'vette says a lot about the car. There aren’t many performance cars that do equally well as daily drivers as the Corvette does–I’ve known people who treat them like a beater and they still keep performing. Corvettes are not fussy ass cars!
I also notice that the Lotus Elise and the Corvette have about the same price tag–but the 'vette has twice the engine and more than twice the horsepower; okay, I’ll admit to being a size queen, but there is no replacement for displacement in my garage…
The Elise is just an entirely different car. To understand it, you have to know the late Colin Chapman’s motto: “Add more lightness”. They don’t excel in horsepower (although bigger brother Exige does), but my goodness, that’s seriously one of the best handling cars I have ever had the pleasure to drive. Unbelievable fun, even with the 120 bhp engine in the 1998 mark 1 that I tested.
An entirely different kick than you’d get from a high output engine, such as in the Corvette. I’m not playing favourites, I like both thrills.
Oh hey, I’m with you–I like my lightweight little skippy cars almost as much as the overpowered road monsters, but if I could only have one of the two it’d be the 'vette just because it’s going to be more reliable overall and have lower repair costs. I can take a brand new Corvette to my extremely good mechanic and have him work on it at sixty bucks an hour rather than having to take a Lotus to the local exotic shop and bend over 'til I bleed for every oil change!
And it was a serious trip watching the Exige dodge the Apache on Top Gear–what an amazing piece of video THAT was!
You’d be surprised: early Elises use Toyota engines, so their maintenance isn’t that horrible at all. In fact, it’s one of the cars I definitely keep scouring the classifieds for, as they’re becoming quite affordable now…
Still, best fix up my Alfa Spider first and then we’ll see.
