Would someone please talk me out of buying a C5 Corvette?

[MIE1992]

I keep seeing 'em for about $20k. Tell me why I shouldn't get one. Yeah, yeah, I know there's the MPGs, but they're around the same as the Honda Odyssey I drive from '08. And I know it's RWD, but even though I live in CT, it's probably snowed for less than seven days per year in my experience, let alone heavy snow that could seriously affect driving conditions. I am interested in the general reliability of the C5, though, as I'm told the C4 is the worst one.

I'm thinking that if I get one, I'll get the headlamps modded so that they're fixed instead of pop-up, for reliability's sake. (I know they do the same for any car with pop-ups when they race it - such as the AE86, the NA Roadster, and definitely the C5 - but I'm not exactly planning to join the SCCA at the moment.) Heck, I could maybe even visit Callaway Cars and get them to do it, since I basically live one town over from 'em.

 

[TFSI400]

Be honest, you’re hoping people talk you into it.

Well… I’ll get the ball rolling. Do it 😁

 

[05XR8]

Old workmate of mine lived in Rockland County with a gold C4 auto. Commuted to our work in The Bronx. He’d put weight in the rear during winter. Had bought an ‘80s Cherokee and was selling the C4. Tried to convince me to buy it(hindsight, I know). I was driving a Passat and living in a house with off street parking. It could have worked, but I also thought about dealing with the car in winter. Plus, if I wanted a V8 auto, I would have preferred a 928.
I had moved to Florida before moving here, to Australia. Wound up renting a C6 convertible for my honeymoon in Miami. Could not have foreseen that.

They don’t make those cars anymore. The panels won’t rust and who knows if you’ll stay in the northeast as you grow older. If you can afford it, just buy one.

 

[Tornado]

Why? If my insurance company had totaled Ryoko I was going to take the check and immediately buy a C5.

And I know it's RWD, but even though I live in CT, it's probably snowed for less than seven days per year in my experience, let alone heavy snow that could seriously affect driving conditions.

The C5 has standard stability control and limited slip and good weight balance. The main thing you need to concern yourself is that the C5, like the C4 before it, is a bottom breather; but the C5 also sits significantly lower than the previous generations with a larger footprint (with the caveat that you can raise the car about 2-ish inches from stock for that purpose in a couple hours).

I am interested in the general reliability of the C5, though, as I'm told the C4 is the worst one.

Any Corvette built prior to 1985 is significantly less reliable than any Corvette built after that. Any Corvette built after 1993 is basically just a modern car in terms of reliability; Optispark or no. Earlier, pre-2000 C5s have parts that are no longer available (believe stuff relating to the ABS and traction control being the main NLA items); but later C5s are basically completely rebuildable out of your local Autozone or NAPA and/or Eckler's. It also helps that the C6 was functionally the same car and has a lot of parts interchange.

I'm thinking that if I get one, I'll get the headlamps modded so that they're fixed instead of pop-up, for reliability's sake.

They aren't particularly unreliable units at all; and they are designed to be serviceable for the most common fault just like the later C4 units were. They use nylon bushings as wear items to keep the actual expensive parts from ever getting damaged.





The real improvement to be made with them is to convert the lenses to the E-Code units to get better light output; but as the C5 uses the common 9006/9005 combo you can also just get 9012 and 9011 for that purpose as well.

 

[SestoScudo]

Seriously i dont want anybody being stuck with a nightmare of a car.

But honestly deep down do it go with whatever your heart says. Life is too short to drive boring cars. I regret passing up the chance in buying a Alfa Romeo Gt which was automatic too with the selesspeed paddle shifters 😢

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

They have pretty nasty interiors, but its hard to argue with the rest of the car. I've driven a C5 Z06 and it was fantastic.

 

[Dennisch]

You should buy a C4. Much prettier.

 

[Tornado]

They have pretty nasty interiors

Truly horrendous interiors. Aside from also pretty crappy seats, it is the major #1 flaw of the car. Not even in the "if GM had spent only a grand or so more it would be so much better" argument that plagued the C6, eihter. It was awful at the time, it was awful compared to the cars it was competing against, it was a step back compared to the C4 (albeit maybe not the final C4 interior), it has only gotten worse as the individual cars have aged. It's the main point of evidence that the car only came out because people worked on it in secret defying GM's order to cancel the car in 1993-ish; in spite of how loudly GM yelled from the rooftops how great of a job the company did designing it.





You can replace the seats with much better items (even the also kind of crap early C6 seats are a substantial improvement and they drop right in) without too much fuss, but you need to sit in a C5 and fiddle with the controls and "feel" the cabin to see if you can overcome it. That 🤬 center stack...

Gros gross gross.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Truly horrendous interiors. Aside from also pretty crappy seats, it is the major #1 flaw of the car. Not even in the "if GM had spent only a grand or so more it would be so much better" argument that plagued the C6, eihter. It was awful at the time, it was awful compared to the cars it was competing against, it was a step back compared to the C4 (albeit maybe not the final C4 interior), it has only gotten worse as the individual cars have aged. It's the main point of evidence that the car only came out because people worked on it in secret defying GM's order to cancel the car in 1993-ish; in spite of how loudly GM yelled from the rooftops how great of a job the company did designing it.





You can replace the seats with much better items (even the also kind of crap early C6 seats are a substantial improvement and they drop right in) without too much fuss, but you need to sit in a C5 and fiddle with the controls and "feel" the cabin to see if you can overcome it. That 🤬 center stack...


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Gros gross gross.

This is all true, but at least the plastic was at least somewhat durable compared to what you got in a contemporary Chrysler which felt like those plastic trays you get in a package of Chips Ahoy cookies.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Go for it. You can put winter tyres on it for the winter and then you won't need to worry about snow.

 

[McLaren]

Can you spring a bit more for a C6? Get that instead.

(Probably not the 1st MY though with the ghastly steering wheel).

 

[Doog]

I don't agree with the prevailing opinion that the C6 interior is better than the C5's. The C6s I've been in feel cheap, plasticky, and extremely generic; they felt like rental car interiors. I like the materials used in the C5 interior better, although it's not put together nearly as well and seems to fall apart with age and use more than the C6 does. Last year my dad bought a 2003 Z06 in mint condition, and I found that the C5 interior is pretty tolerable when it's in good condition. The only trouble is that while the seats feel so nice and soft initially, they offer no support whatsoever and make you feel sore quickly.

 

[Tornado]

I dunno. I think that's more of a facet GM design philosophy in general:

Late 90s Corvette interior

Late 00s Corvette interior



Awful humongous hard black plastic panels (and plastic painted to look like aluminum) cynically molded with leather-looking grain put together with tight tolerances at least give the semblance of a level of solidity, even if to get "quality" so you needed to pay 5 grand or whatever it was to order the 4LT package to have GM wrap your C6 in padded leather like a doofus with access to the 996 special order catalog would have done 5 years earlier.

In comparison, 90s GM didn't seem terribly interested in making sure that the parts they designed to attach to the other parts they designed to put in their cars actually fit together except in the PR photos. I agree insofar as I do think the material choice is better (before you discover how flimsy the stuff on top of the plastic was as it ages, at least) in the C5 just like it was in seemingly all 90s GM cars vs their 2000s successors, but the actual component choices is still obscene for the type of car it was as well as the way it was integrated in. I don't think it can be understated how the C6 to its credit had a radio and HVAC controls that were actually bespoke pieces that actually fit the design of the center console, or switch gear and componentry that sits in the dash (rather than sitting roughly level with the rest of the dash with a big plastic frame covering up any slop in fitment), even if it did use a Cobalt steering wheel and door switches.







Overall I'd still choose a C5, but that's an amalgamation of my distate of GM 2000s interiors in general as well as greatly preferring the exterior styling of C5s over non-Grand Sport C6s. But the seats would have to go.

 

[Tornado]

Okay I went to the Corvette store today to do some investigative journalism because I'm still not convinced the insurance company are actually going to pay to fix my car. Sat in a bunch of C6s and C5s back to back.


C5:
Better feeling materials, much looser tolerances for the things actually being put together.
Mostly bespoke switchgear, most major components (HVAC, radio, gauge cluster) that look like they are lifted straight out of a Silverado or Venture even if they aren't actually direct part number identical.
Plastic feels much more solid, but looks much cheaper. I've no doubt it is actually fairly sturdy in practice because by the late 90s GM was A #1 at plastic strength.
Terrible, terrible seats; worse in every way than the early 90s C4 seats and mostly worse than the late 90s C4 seats. You sink into them like on a 90s Buick and no matter how much you put out the bolstering on the sport seats you don't feel held in place.
Door cards/gauges/center stack have much more of a cockpit feel to them; albeit nothing at all like the early 90s C4.
Everything that's not yanked out of a Silverado/Venture has a nice slightly blue lighting to it which I'd say could even be nicer than the amber that the refresh C4 had... except but the HVAC and radio they yanked out of other GM cars have the same slightly sickly yellow coloring as everything else GM of that time did. You can probably fix this for the HVAC FWIW, but I suspect it wouldn't be easy (the solution to fixing the radio is as easy as yanking that piece of crap out of there).
Better clutch, worse shifter.
HUD is simplistic, but the interface for it is better.


C6:
Chintzier materials built to suitably tight tolerances mostly
All of the switchgear looks and feels like it was yanked out of a Cobalt. All of the interior plastic that falls to hand feels like it was yanked out of a Cobalt. The steering wheel that isn't the Pillsbury dough boy is literally a Cobalt wheel with a different emblem. The HVAC and gauges, on the other hand, are all bespoke and the gauges are in slightly a different design direction than where GM went in the late 00s so it doesn't look like a Silverado piece. I don't care for the fake aluminum surround look vs the C5 gauges but they are basically identical other than that and font so that's entirely preference.
Plastic looks higher quality when you're looking at it (due to the tighter tolerances mostly) and most importantly to GM in glow up PR shots, but has a hollow/brittle feeling/sound that is up there with the absolute worst of 2000s Nissan and Dodge.
Terrible seats; but at least better in support than the C5 seats (probably just because the foam is firmer). Still no lateral support but it's not like a narrow a La-Z-Boy. Later C6 seats with the upper wings have decent shoulder support, at least; but a very stiff headrest
Lots more modern stuff. Keyless entry, push button start, heated seats, Double DIN stereo, electric doors. Some of these feel chintzy and the electric doors in particular definitely feel like GMs first pass at the concept (you have to push the outer door button in a very specific way to get it to open) and not an improvement over the mechanical linkage the C5 still had.
Door cards/gauges/center stack are laid out like in a Cobalt except the latter is slightly canted towards you.
All the interior lighting is white. Not LED white I'm pretty sure but was white as you can get with incandescents. I think this is worse than the C5, except it's at least all one color and not a mess of stuff they designed and stuff they were forced to work with.
Worse clutch, better shifter.
HUD is more advanced, but the interface for it is worse.





I'm pretty sure I'd get a C5 and spend a bunch of money on making it better (shorter throw shifter, making the headlights better, replacing the bezel with an aftermarket one for double DIN, throwing out those seats) while forgoing some things (heated seats, push button start) than a C6 and putting up with the stuff that I really can't do much with. Especially when the C5 is a better looking car that is easier to do maintenance on (compare headlight replacement).

 

[C6 Driver]

If you decide to get a c5, the dash can be modernized because a double-din touchscreen stereo can fit and work.
I would just get the newest model that you can afford. For example, getting a '07 c6 instead of let's say...a '04 c5.
Good luck w/ your decision, but do your homework and lots of research to make sure you get a feel for making the RIGHT decision. 👍

 

[GilesGuthrie]

C5:
Terrible, terrible seats; worse in every way than the early 90s C4 seats and mostly worse than the late 90s C4 seats. You sink into them like on a 90s Buick and no matter how much you put out the bolstering on the sport seats you don't feel held in place.

[snip]

I'm pretty sure I'd get a C5 and spend a bunch of money on making it better (shorter throw shifter, making the headlights better, replacing the bezel with an aftermarket one for double DIN, throwing out those seats) while forgoing some things (heated seats, push button start) than a C6 and putting up with the stuff that I really can't do much with. Especially when the C5 is a better looking car that is easier to do maintenance on (compare headlight replacement).

I may be working off a small sample size because I listen to The Smoking Tire, but isn't "replacing the seats" basically an essential mod on a C5?