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Cliff notes for those who don’t want to read everything:
1: New continental sports are awesome
2: pioneer avic5200nex is awesome
3: vettenuts double din bezel has mixed feelings from me
4: is a surprise for those who read that far
Well, now that I have about 1000 miles on the new tires I feel like I can give them a good review:
The tires are continental extreme contact sports, and they’re replacing my old extreme contact DW’s. I drive a decent amount, and don’t have much disposable income, so some tire longevity is a requirement on my part. However, I would rather drive the car a little less rather than choke the performance with sub-par rubber. I bought my old DW’s after beating on a friends SL55 amg that was wearing them, and overall I thought they were great. I put about 25k miles on the DW’s before the wet traction was compromised, then another 5k miles of tire slaying fun to kill off the last little bit of life. I couldn’t believe how well those held up, and the new sports were supposed to fix all my complaints with the DW, while retaining all of the good things about them.
It was still early spring when I got the Sports on, so the roads were still pretty cold. On the DW’s I had no traction issues even down into the 40° temps (until they were 4 years and 25k miles old) but the sports just didn’t give me as much straight line traction at 60° as I was expecting. I got to my friends house and checked tire pressure and found out they were at 42 psi (hot) so I let them cool and dropped them to 29. I figured that might be a reason for the lack of traction, but a monsoon ensued on the way home so I didn’t get a chance to verify. I counted 11 cars stopped on the side of the interstate with hazards on due to the rain within a 5 mile period, that’s how hard it rained.
The tires were perfect in the rain, my only worry was visibility, but the car felt very planted. It kept raining for weeks straight, then finally dried up and warmed up. At 70° the tires had excellent traction, but still weren’t quite the dead hook of the DW’s. However, they were much better than the eagle F1’s that I originally had. Everything else about the new Sports felt awesome, the mushy turn in caused by the DW soft sidewalk was gone, handling was much improved, road noise was pretty good, and the wet traction/grip was absolutely insane. I cannot get these tires to spin in the rain in second gear, and my ***** shrink long before wet grip gives way thus far.
That brings us to today, where overnight temps are finally staying above 50° and the roads aren’t constantly cool. I now have that same dead hook feeling I got from the old DW’s when new, and I get worried long before the limit of these tires (on the street)
Overall, it seems to me that continental has made these tires a much more legitimate “extreme summer performance” tire. The DW’s had much better traction at cold temps, but that came at a tradeoff: the turn in felt mushy, especially on hard left-to-right or right-to-left maneuvers. At proper temps, the new sports are the best tire I’ve ever experienced for the car, surpassing eagle f1’s, DW’s, and even PS2’s. I haven’t driven on the PSS so I can’t speak for those, however. Keep in mind: I only drive on the street, and although I drive hard, I don’t drive past my own limits, and at max only 80% what I would feel comfortable doing on a track.
That brings me to my next review: the pioneer avic5200nex. This radio is great, best aftermarket radio interface I’ve experienced. Sound isn’t great yet, but I still have some tuning to do. I wasn’t willing to tap into my VSS wire, but the GPS is still perfectly accurate.
The next thing up to review is the vettenuts double din bezel. I was a part of the original preorder for these, and have spent hours upon hours on install. Finish on it is better than oem. Texture looks factory and it feels higher quality than the factory bezel. However, I can’t quite get fitment right. Around the passenger corner there’s a small gap, and the bar underneath the headunit Bowes out. I’ve worked on it and gotten it 90% right, but I just can’t claim it to be excellent considering the hype behind it and the price premium. The old double d mods conversion was better, but we all know how that ended. It still seems worlds above the metra unit, however.
And finally, my last review: nationwide insurance (or at least the nationwide insurance customer named Melissa.) Melissa smacked the everliving **** out of my car on the way home from a meeting. Poor parking lot design (in my opinion) and she didn’t see me, and backed into me hard. 100% her fault, and she admitted to it. I honestly don’t want to see anyone post anything bad about her, it was completely an accident and I could see it happening to anyone.
No one was injured, I had my arm out the window at the time but saw her backing out at the last second and reacted quick enough to avoid injury. It must have taken me 5 times telling her that it was okay before she stopped worrying about damaging my car. After everything she gave me her direct cell phone number “in case nationwide didn’t fix it fast enough or did something wrong” so she could call them on my behalf.
We sat and talked for a little bit after all that, and I found out a ton about her that made me glad it was me she backed into rather than some d-bag. Her mother (who is 94 now) has dementia and is in an assisted living facility 3 hours from where Melissa lives. She’s apparently made the drive every week for the last 3 years since her father died, because when she’s not there for too long her mother starts to think she’s in college and needs a car to escape. Oddly enough, my grandmother (who was blind and had altzheimers) used to always think she was in a hotel being chased by bad people, trying to get away.
I’m not trying to take this story too deep or anything, and Melissa told me all this well after her insurance knew she was at fault, so it’s not like it was a sob story to keep me from contacting insurance. I’m just sitting here thinking to myself “what if she had backed into someone who acted an a$$? Would she have stopped going to visit her mother?”
All in all, I hope I’ve written a decent review of some of the products currently available to the c5 market. I take care of all of my possessions, but the corvette is one of probably 3 earthly possessions I truly care about, so seeing damage to it would normally make me sick to my stomach. Hopefully it’ll be back on the road in perfect condition again soon.
I give you huge kudos for your response to the accident and for representing Corvette owners - and humanity - with such grace and maturity.
I painfully empathize with Melissa as we went through a similar Alzheimer's situation with my father for 13 years. Thanks for your understanding.
Unfortunately I went through it with 2 of my grandparents. One was when I was very young so I hardly remember, but my grandmother passed right when I left for college.
Someday when you see the prices that Speedway ‘01z06s bring you can look back and know you drove the frigging wheels off of one.
I used to daily drive my 01z (red) until it became a project. Kinda wish I’d left it stock, then again it’s a treat on the sunny days I drive it to the mountains. Ran the hell out of it yesterday.
Ouch, parking lots are the scariest places. Glad you didn't have to battle about who was at fault, good luck with the repair. I recently installed a Pioneer Avic-8400 and so happy I did. So much better than the single din Kenwood I had.
I also installed the Vettenuts bezel and had the same problem with the middle bar bowing and inhibiting the screen from opening. A little shaving with a utility knife fixed that. The biggest negative was the absolutely useless 3d printed brackets that came with it. He was kind enough to send me a second set, but they were as bad as the first ones. I ended biting the bullet and ordering the unreasonably expensive metal ones on eBay. Even those had to be modified because they covered the alignment holes.
Always appreciate detailed reviews, definitely helps making decisions on products.
Very nice of you to handle the situation the way that you did. Of course it wasn't intentional or malicious and Melissa was sincerely sorry.
I am sorry for Melissa and her Mom, she is a good daughter.
Best of luck with the repairs.
05-20-2019, 05:43 PM
A day full of reviews
