I went to check out an 02 Z this week. Beautiful car, but I noticed the passenger side front fender had a noticeable gap toward the top where it meets the door. The bottom looked okay and the hood aligned with the fender just fine. Is this normal and can it be corrected? Carfax showed up clean.

 

According to "Evil Twin" GM took pains to have them uniform ??? My fenders are good but the headlight doors not perfect ??? I would guess any good body man could fix it. Not all accidents would end up on the car/fax ????

 

assuming nothing behind it is damaged it shouldn't be too hard to adjust, it shouldn't look like that though... there is a screw on the bottom corner where it bolts to the rocker panel, one behind the fender cove, and a couple on top of the fender near the cowl that could be causing it to stick out like that and they may not even be there to begin with

 

That is very true my friend.

 

It's possible the PO had the fender off doing some things also...

 

Will this be the first Corvette you have owned?

Gap issues with body panels on C5s are fairly common. You will find the absolute worst offenders are cars that have what appear to be "stretching" of the front and rear fascias where they join to the fenders and quarters. This wasn't much of an issue with the C4, since the joins from the fascias to the fenders and quarters were near completely horizontal with little curvature. It is more pronounced with C5s, and doesn't point to accidents or even removal of components.









The front fenders on the C5 are made out of RIMM Urethane - the same material that the fascias are made out of. At first glance they appear to be SMC like other harder body panels but what give the fenders the study appearance and structure is actually the underlying fender liner. The fender liner is a single molded piece that is "glued" to the chassis. It's position can dictate the position of the fender, hood, and their relation to the door and front fascia.

The trailing top edge of the fender is not uncommonly an issue to have an appearance of being out of lined from the door. In practice, you would want it sitting "ahead" of the door anyway, since the swing motion of the door pivots it under the fender. If the fender is pushed too far back to become more flush with the door, you may run into a situation where you begin to contact the two panels. The door is a single molded SMC piece, subjected to heavy weight, and frequently sags. A sagging door would have a tendency to potentially contact a fender that sits further inwards to flush point.

Ultimately little panel issues and gaps are not uncommon even on relatively low mileage and well-kept examples of C5. It's ultimately going to be a matter of how much you're willing to deal with or accept particular things.

 

I would agree that the door alignment is off on that car. A good body shop should be able to fix it - as to how much trouble it would be depends on why it is mismatched with the fender.

 

I would check the mounting tabs on the fender. Improper jacking or a curb strike could have caused one of the tabs to break.