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How Does Your C7 Track Down the Road

12808 Views 50 Replies 18 Participants Last post by  GTB/ZR-1
I probably have close to 1/2 million miles on Corvettes which were C3, C4, C5's. I put over 172,000 miles on the C5.

I'm very familiar with suspensions and alignment, as on all the cars that I road raced, I have the manual equipment for alignment and I did them.

It was apparent with my 2015 C7 it was pulling very slightly to the right when on the right side of the road, and it would track straight when on the left side of the road. Because of the crown of most roads, the car should pull slightly to the left on the left side. In most cases, unless there is more crown than normal, a well set up car should track straight no matter what side of the road it's on.

With a 4000 mile trip planned, I called my dealer and said that on the way out on my trip, I would like to stop there and have the alignment checked. He said fine.

With car loaded, I stopped in and then they told me that because I only had 325 miles on the car, GM would not cover an alignment until the car had 500 miles on it and the suspension had a chance to settle. Finally with the stipulation that if the car started to pull the other way after it had accumulated more miles, I would have to pay to correct it.
I agreed, and it went on the alignment rack.
They found the left caster was off 1/2', and made the correction. This seemed in my mind enough to correct the problem.

5 miles from the dealer I was on the Interstate and on my way to Florida.

Soon became apparent that the car was pulling to the right no matter what side of the road I was on. Soon began to wonder if my wrists would hold out for 4000 miles of this.
Also became apparent as the miles accumulated, that sometimes the car was just fine, then it would return to the right pull even though the crown appeared to same in all cases.
For example, once I reached I-75 in Florida, car was perfect, but a few miles before it was not.

All my race cars were 4 wheel independent, and the most critical adjustment was the fact that the rear had to have toe-in, or it would be unstable. Am beginning to wonder if I might have this problem.

My questions are;
1. How does your C7 track? My C5 didn't seem to care, it would track straight unless the road was grooved from the 18 wheelers, and the wide tires did not like that
2. Has anyone experienced my problems, and was it corrected?

I'll be back home next week and am looking for information to pass on to the dealer, who by the way to this point had been most co-operative.

BTW, when the car was tracking straight on I-75, yes, it is a much better handling car than the C5.

Thanks
Jack
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Jack my non-Z51 Stingray tracks straight at all speeds (ie: 'hands off' straight down the road without having to correct drift) and has from new to current.
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Jack, sorry to read of your continuing issues on tracking. When you say your wrists were getting sore I would like to suggest you change your driving mode to "tour" if you are not in that at the current time. The steering requires far less effort in Tour than in Sport (and Track) until it gets fixed.
Dang Jeff
Wish I had known that before I left on the trip. Would have gladly given up that start off roar!!
Thanks
Jack
Jack, you could have still had the 'start off roar' if you had set your NPP to be always open (that is not associated with the Drive Mode), and then could have set the drive mode to Tour and had the best of both worlds :cool:
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Jeff
Can you walk me through how to do this? Can it be done on a 1LT?
Thanks
Jack
Go into your personal setting Jack. Press Setting. Press Driving Mode. Select Engine Sound Management. Select Off (Auto links the NPP to whatever Drive Mode you are in). That should do it for you. It should sound great on start up and any time you are on the accelerator. When you are not on the accelerator it will settle back into "quite".
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