This is a question on my newly acquired 01 convertible. As I posted before, the car have a number of small issues that I am handling one by one, but this is a question I can't fix myself.

I bought this car in Houston and drove it home to St. Louis. Please bear with me as I try to describe this -

With the ride control set to "tour", if I go over a small speed bump slowly or any sort of flaw in the road, I feel it quite hard. I figure thats the shocks, right? Not at all the sort of ride experience that is described in the owner's manual.

The bigger concern is the feeling when driving at say 60 or 70 miles an hour - I did not feel like I was in full control of the car. I had the sensation that the car was "coming out from under me", like it wasn't solidly on the road. All tires are good and properly inflated.

This is sort of an exaggeration, but I felt that if I wasn't holding on to the wheel really tight, the car was going to switch into a different lane on its own, like it would suddenly swing to the right or left like it was thinking on its own.

My friend has ridden in a similar corvette at a track, going 140 mph, and he described the ride as "being glued to the road".

Basically, that's what I want, and I certainly didn't feel like it. The best way I can describe it is that I felt like I wasn't in full control of the car.

I hope that this description makes sense, and that my experience is not normal or "that's just how corvettes ride".

Do I need to have this looked at by a specialist shop, or should a car-x type place be competent to handle diagnosing the problem?

Thanks in advance for your help.
-David

 

Get the car aligned at a good shop. If the car has been lowered, it will have a pretty stiff ride for some. If you have run-flats, they will add to the poor ride. If your F45 shocks are shot, get some good aftermarket shocks and dissable or tune out the F45 option. Stock shocks are big $$$$$$

 

Thank you for the feedback. What do you make of my description of feeling like the car was all over the road. Would that sensation be shock related as well?

 

My '02 Z tramlined like mad on most road surfaces. Tires looked ok but I wanted better ones. I changed them out to GY GSD3 and the car tracked perfect. No more wandering or tramlining. I didn't even get it aligned either.

 

Thank you so much. I just looked up the term "tramlining" as I hadn't heard of that word, and that seems to describe the sensation perfectly!

I need to go look, but I believe the front tires are Goodyear F1s and the rear are Falken of some sort. May need to look into new tires.

-David