killain

I had to use (RT.95 to come home from Baltimore) last night in my pickup and it's got 1'.5 road clearance, but man there were some real nasty road surfaces. How do you guys with slammed C5 Corvette's manage to navigate a road trip ? And why we can't get the roads fixed ? I means it's a simple concept ? Why can't it happen. It's getting cold early here in the Mid-Atlantic states and all that has been done is the cheap asphalt patching. Once it hit below 30 degrees, that stuff is coming up. Why can't something so simply be so impossible ?

oldC5

That sucks I hate crappy roads, most of the roads I drive in sunny Cali are smooth.Low temps at night this week 70, its 106 today in sunny Chino Hills CA. We have a couple of crappy roads don't get me wrong.

JR-01

We were out on the east coast a couple of weeks ago and it seemed like they were fixing every road we were on.

killain

Well that's the problem or part of the problem. And I'm not throwing rocks and I don't live in a glass house, but what there doing is patching, not structural fixing. About 2 years ago an engineering team from PENNDOT were looking the elevated portion of RT.95 in Tacony neighborhood, there two worker and one engineer. One of them point to a steel joint about 400 feet away and the engineer looked at it and as he got closer the worse it got and he took a radio with him as he had the guys raised him up in the bucket truck and now he was really scared The steel joint what only held in place by the rust and paint. PennDot immediately shut down all Northbound traffic.


There's 46 thousand cars and truck use that road. The police shut it down and PENNDOT started work on that joint and looking at all the others. I don't suppose you remember the Bridge that collapsed back in the 80's in Connecticut and I sure as held do. I was using out small panel truck, but they had closed it for it for two weeks and replaced it with a ramshackle little wooden bridge. Trucks could only go over it one at a time. The backup was all the way to the New York border I believe if memory serves, I saw truck driver fist fighting in the empty left lane till the Conn. State police came down and put it calm again. took 4 hours from me to cross.


Now imagine that happening all over the east coast. The more snow & ice. . . the more salt goes down. The more salt, the more rust. Just 3 months ago some company dumped illegal loads under Rt. 495 in Delaware. took 2.5 months to remover the illegal dumped soil & trash was so heavy it had caused the elevated Northbound to lean 16 inches away from the Southbound lanes. And that would have gone on till it collapsed. A maintenance crew noticed the wide craves while cleaning. It's a pretty tall section, 60 to 80 foot.
I was interested if your cruising along in your slammed Vette and you see a huge pothole or road dip or uneven roadway, what the Heck can you do, your doing 60 mph.

JR-01

I kept my Vette stock because I bought it for cruisin and one never knows what conditions we could run into out on the road. These cars are pretty low as it is.

killain

Just in case anyone think I'm a moron, Which I am, I had my cousin did up my driveway where the sidewalk end and street meets, and we repour the whole thing so my C5 air dam only drags just a tad. Township code calls for a 1" rise at the end. well we got some hot asphalt from one of his jobs and we finished it off with the asphalt. At the very end I'm exactly 1". Go ahead and throw some boulders ! I can take it.

Vetteman Jack

Not going to make excuses for the lack of road maintenance in the states, but it all comes down to money. Many states, including Missouri, are hurting for funds to do all the road maintenance that needs to be done. We had a tax issue on the ballot in August that was going to fix the roads (and a bunch of other that was included in the proposal) and it failed. Therefore, the highway department has to prioritize fixing all the problems that are out there.

Same issue with local governments. They do the asphalt patching with lasts only a short period of time before the roads are in crummy condition again.

I dream of vettes

I hear ya brother. I was lowered all the way on stock bolts with C6 z06 shocks for about 3 weeks before i put it back to basically stock height. The roads are just to rough around here to enjoy cruising at that point. I've accepted to live with the slight 4x4 look.

JrRifleCoach

I drove the 86 back to South Dakota and back.
I could go every where my cousins stock 99 could go.
The only tough part is driveways..

memmer

Our local governments are not spending our road taxes the way that they are supposed to.They spend some of the taxes on pet projects to help them get reelected and then claim that they just are not getting enough gas taxes to take care of the problems.We have to quit giving them more and hold them accountable.This is never going to come to an end.SAD but TRUE
Fred

akn224

I love the way the lowered Corvettes look and have debated getting that done. But even at stock height, I have to be careful on certain roads. I've scraped too many times and every time that I do makes me cringe.

Hombre

Killain, Man its good to see you post again, hope you are doing well.

Here in the south we simply do not ( for the most part ) have the problems with the roads like you folks in the North East. There are a few exceptions but we are much luckier than you guys are.

I will never forget the first time I ever drove in Boston. The first sign I saw that said "Frost Heave" had me wondering what in the hell that was. Didn't take but a couple of more miles and I understood perfectly what they were warning drivers about.

Roland

wardamncorvette

Come drive down here in Alabama...
You'll go back to Pennsylvania thinking the roads are smooth glass.
It's rediculous.
And my vette isn't even slammed...

laurent_zo6

I bet Governor Christie had something to do with it.

SaxyVette

.........

Hombre

Well you are just driving on the wrong roads in Alabama. I live out in the country a ways outside of Guntersville, Alabama and for the most part the roads around here are like Glass. It is one of the things my wife and I noticed when we first moved here.

Now with that said I suppose it is all about how you look at the roads, when you are used to driving up and down Interstate 5 in CA, just about any old cow track feels like glass.

You just gotta get out of them towns man. or maybe it's just a Auburn thing.

RS

Black 02

I think the roads in southern states, despite the stereotypes, are usually much better than up north. Without snow plows, hard freezes and other northern problems, they stay pretty nice . The infrastructure down here is also a little newer, which probably helps as well.

Velocity_Vette

I live in Arkansas.

Even down here, I have debated but I'm not entirely sure that I yet want to pursue a 'static' (as in fixed) drop on my C5. It's not that the roads are completely terrible down here; they are bad don't get me wrong. It's just even with my daily and fun commutes I seem to run into situations every so often that warrants a scrape or two. And I know that the front underside in the middle is designed to flex backwards to prevent damage, but the car can't just scrape and scrape and scrape forever and a day.

Driveways are the worse. Oh are they scary. My own driveway - which has an incredibly small upwards gradient - is like a endeavor trying to not scrape. It's an attack full-on sideways going both in and out.

Not4spd

Always wanted to drop my Vette, but have been paranoid for this very reason. It also doesn't help my driveway is a steep angle. Years ago I had a dropped S10 and remember getting tired of taking every speed bump at an angle.

calguy

When it comes to deplorable roads, I think the Los Angeles metro area would rank number one.
The roads here are really terrible.
I offered a solution to the city council, and the state, but that fell on deaf ears.
I don't think there is a city or state that isn't crunched when it comes to finances.
My solution was very simple.
A city, or state could have a weekly, or monthly lottery, and the proceeds would go for one purpose only, road construction.
People hate an increase in any tax, but would be more than willing to spend a few bucks on a lottery where they have a chance of winning big.
Money generated by such a lottery would go a long way in fixing deplorable roads.
Bob.