Daily Driver

[Dime]

I'm finally gonna get myself a C4 this summer. If I can I'd like to get a ZR-1, and just wanted to know what veteran z owners think of using a ZR-1 as a daily driver (and I mean every single day). Reliabilty, over life and longevity or the car, etc.

[sammy]

between my 2 car i have put on 175 thousand miles on them and use 1 of the 2 of them every day. i have only been stranded once when the tranny in the black car blew up . if you take care of her she will be a very dependable little gal .jmho

[sammy]

ps thats been since 2004

[tomtom72]

When my DD quit working a few yrs back I had to use my Z everyday, except for the snow months here in NYS. I do not use a car to get to work either. So my use was purely to do personal chores and then go play.

The only issues I had were that the roads take a beating up here in the winter and it takes most of the spring to get them fixed. The car probably doesn't suffer from bad roads as much as the driver does. It was an uncomfortable ride over true broken pavement, and painful for the owner to feel the car take the potholes....it creaked & groaned & rattled & generally was not a pleasant experience. I always felt as though my Z was questioning my treatment of her. One other bad side effect of using her everyday was that it almost stopped being special to drive her. I think partly due to the bad roads and the fact that in 04 she cost me 25K..the mental trauma of abusing a 25k car was too much cognitive dissonance for me to handle. After two years I bought another DD, and me and my Z are much happier.

She never let me down as a DD. It's JMHO that unless the roads are smooth you will have accelerated suspension wear and that can become expensive. Oh, one other thing. You will never forget the sound of the asphalt patch pebbles hitting your rockers or mud flaps in my case at 30 mph.....ever...for hundreds of yards at a clip! However, at today's prices maybe I would feel differently? Hard for me to say for sure because vettes were always special to me and a ZR-1 well it's unique among special cars. JMHO.


Tom

[Aurora40]

I've never been concerned about using mine as a daily driver, though I didn't drive it every single day. But in nice weather I always drove it to work. The old-tech headlights, slow wipers, rain rolling in the door when you open it, etc meant it wasn't all that fun to drive in bad weather, so I didn't. But then driving other cars in rain isn't all that fun either, but they are better at it.

Bottom line, I didn't have any concerns about driving it every day, I just didn't choose to.

[xlr8nflorida]

I would not hesitate to drive one daily. It's very reliable. If you drive daily though, I'd buy yourself a fairly low mileage one say 35,000 miles, one that has had everything gone through. In most cases it will be 20-25k mile car that just depreciates as you put miles on but even if you rack up the mileage, you will still get 10k to mid teens especially if taken care of. It won't exactly be the chepest daily driver for sure, tires etc but it will be fun.

For me personally, I have a different approach. Driving the zr-1 is a treat to me. Driving a corvette daily bores me quickly. When I do take my z out, it gets fully cleaned and put away with a cover. It has probably only been washed 3 times in 10 years and it looks like it came from the factory.

I purchased my c5 corvette with 11,000 miles on it, it had never seen rain. I drive that sucker daily in all types of weather. I drive my 93 corvette when I'm taking a real Long trip or my daily driver has been all washed up and it's messy out.

There is no right or wrong answer, everybody is different. Some will say if you don't drive the wheels off, you are wasting money and losing out on fun.

Driving the z minimally keeps it special to me. Driving my c5 daily is boring and it's not anything special. When a car gets all used up and looks rough, I don't feel the same way about it either.

Durability and longevity is not an issue, lt-5 motor go 200,000 miles no problem. Tranny is tough too.


Good luck

[Kb7tif]

Daily driver I dont know, to me the car is too special for that. For me its an event to drive the Zr-1. Daily driving here would be rough Speed-bumps, traffic, elements, Royal Pain. I tend to destroy my daily drivers here. Beat on them regularly. So i would say in my case NO.
Thank goodness some people feel that way or we would have all daily high mile drivers left.

[GOLDCYLON]

Mines a daily driver. Lifes to short to drive anything else. I bought it for that reason. GC

[todesengel]

I put 8,000 miles on mine in a 3 month period, driving it all over the country. It didn't work well for me due to space limitations (luggage for two week trips, tools, laptops, printers, etc) but she never gave me a mechanical issue, got great fuel mileage, and even handled the rain with little issue. Not nearly the time some have driven, but it was a lot of miles in a very short time.

[sammy]

Originally Posted by GOLDCYLON

Mines a daily driver. Lifes to short to drive anything else. I bought it for that reason. GC

darrel , i am with you, thats why i ended up with2 so i hopefully would never be without a z under my foot . but as other have said we each have our own reasons for owning this ,to me most special vet EVER BUILT