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Originally Posted by Kolyan2k
I couldn't even watch that vid lol
Anyway, I know nothing about Vetts, are they reliable? I keep hearing lots of people and mechanics saying that GM products are not the same anyone and most cars are nowhere near Japanese or even German reliability
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It’s different.
The engine is old school pushrod. Very simple design, very easy to work on, and about as rock solid as 60+ years of engineering and refinement can get. It’s not like BMWs or Honda where they keep bringing out new tech and push the envelope on revs and stress the hell out of an engine to extract that last 1/10th of HP out of 3 liter of displacement or less.
Which isn’t to say the Corvette engine lacks modern tech. It has cam phase timing (think VANOS or V-tech, yo) and direct injection, two of the more modern technology to be found on DOHC type engines. And it has cylinder deactivation which is a new-ish tech that allows a 3,500 lbs, 6.2 liter V8 to get better than 30 miles per gallon. So it’s plenty modern and chock full of tech. Just the in block push rod design is so much simpler and cheaper compared to DOHC engines.
Imagine BMW using the same inline 6 block from the M20 and you’d have an idea.
For the power-train, because the engine is so simple, it’s relatively reliable. And the rest of the power-train is tried and true stuff, nothing cutting edge that no one else haven’t thought of or done. So in that regard, you can probably safely assume that it won’t likely leave you stranded with a bunch of error codes or limp home mode that BMW is notorious for, and WHEN stuff breaks out of warranty, the repair won’t make you want to get rid of your car.
But I’ve owned my C7 Corvette for a little over a year now, and tack on the Chevy Bolt EV I have had 2 GM products in the garage at the same time, and I wouldn’t go as far as calling GM products reliable. Sure, they’re not likely going to leave you stranded in the middle of the night on the side of the freeway. And the components that makes up how the car works generally are robust and work well as designed. But the engineering and the materials used for the rest of the car and the experience is probably “shoddy” at best and third tier at worst.
Example. You would think a 1 year old car with 3,000 miles should be relatively trouble free, but I’ve had more sh*t break on the Corvette than ANY OTHER CAR I’ve ever owned within the first year. And this includes the E60 545i, probably the shoddiest, poorly built BMW of all time. But instead of stuff that’s vital to the operation of the car, it’s little sh*t like the leather on the dash falling apart, or the windshield washer pump not working, or the infotainment screen randomly shuts down, or the heated seats not working, or the headliner delaminating. All within the first year. All less than 3,000 miles.
Now, I wish I can say “hey that’s what warranty is for,” but I can’t. I had the dealership fix the dash leather falling apart and the headliner delaminating, and when I got the car back there were multiple deep gauges and scratches on the carbon fiber dash. The dealership repair experience is only marginally better than having my car serviced at a FCA dealership. So I’ve learned to either live with it (the seat heater and the randomly inoperative infotainment system) or fix it myself ($20 washer fluid pump). I could chalk it up as that one in a million “lemon” and I just got s car built on the last shift before a Friday night, but my experience with the Bolt EV mirrors the Corvette. And the Bolt is only 4 months old and 1,400 miles in it.
The problems on the Bolt EV are either random enough (infotainment screen inoperative, no radio reception, can’t find media on iPhone etc) that I can’t get a dealership to replicate, but have all happened at least twice, or very poor design flaws (putting car in Park while vehicle not fully stopped induces a loud clunk and crunch from the back...WHY would you even allow the car to go into park if it’s not 100% stopped?), or just unexplainable glitches (like how sometimes pulling the left paddle to regen works, sometimes it doesn’t). Again, if I have more faith in the dealership network I might bring the car in to be looked at, but I suspect they’re not going to be able to replicate or it’s just something they didn’t bother to pay to have it engineered right.
So that’s been my experience so far. Both cars actually do what they do well, well enough that I’d swallow my pride and look the other way. That and they’re both so much cheaper than cars that I’d consider for each as competitors that you kinda just shrug and say “you get what you pay for.” Unless Porsche has a GT4 up their sleeves for $60k it’s kinda hard to say I made a poor choice in the Corvette...Because that’s what it goes up against and can punch a GT4 right in the mouth on track.
And unlike BMWs where owning one out of warranty means you’re just shoveling money into a giant pit, I suspect the repairs on either the Corvette or the Bolt EV are simple enough that I can make myself, or won’t cost $2,000 every time it sniffs the nearest independent mechanic.
And whatever else breaks you kinda just live with it.