Just did 1,500 miles in 8 days. Drove from VA to CT and all round. Here are some of my observations.
1. 05 LMB vert, F-55, A4 rides beautifully. Not like the wife's Lincoln, but quite enjoyable. My wife, a non Corvette enthusiast, said it didn't ride too bad. Car now has 12,600 miles.
2. Vette Wave: 4 of 7 Vettes I encountered returned the wave.
3. Roads in NJ, NY and CT suck. They have winter sized pot holes in August! Owners up there have my sympathy. I will be going in for a tire balance. Also, chips in the paint are inevitable
4. The car still gets countless stares from the motoring public.
5. Top down cruising is the way to go
6. Pack light.
7. Enjoy!

 

Indeed many of the more heavily traveled highways in NJ, NY and CT are in very poor condition... always have been and probably always will be.

There are sections of NJ and NY that I would NEVER even remotely considering taking my C6 through, under any circumstances. When I need to get through some of the bad areas, I will take detours, sometimes running 50 extra miles or more, just to avoid bad road conditions. It's worth it.

Sorry you had a bad experience on the NY and CT roads. There are actually a lot of excellent NY and CT scenic roads that are in acceptable or even better than average condition.

I am fearing that you may have run the worst possible roads through here... well, a good alignment should get you back in order. The car will survive... as long as you didn't slam the bottom on anything which is always a possibility through some of those disaster areas.

I haven't taken my C6 down toward VA yet, haven't been down there in a while actually, I do plan on making a Blue Ridge run at some point, maybe hit Bowling Green, etc... I know it's a bit tough to get from here to there and avoid ALL the bad roads... but there some ways that are better than others.

Without even looking at a map, I am predicting that it will require a good deal of "detouring" for me to get down to the VA area from L.I.... for instance, I would never take my C6 on the Cross Bronx Expressway / G.W. Bridge, or the Belt Parkway to the Verranzano, etc... that would be suicide... (hope you weren't on those roads - yikes!)... will probably need to shoot up north to I-84, then across and around somehow, etc.

Some of the bad roads in the tri-state area can be deadly. My last trip down the Cross Bronx was on a motorcycle (when I was younger and not so bright), I hit an unavoidable rut so bad my handlebars moved, mirrors shifted, it was very violent, I nearly lost control, it's amazing I didn't break the front wheel and tire... the large truck that was tailgating me surely would have done me in. I learned then and there that some roads you must simply AVOID at all COSTS.

Most of the roads in the five boroughs of NY, plus just about any roads surrounding the Manhattan area in general (in NJ, etc), are bad... in many cases, VERY bad. Out-of-town Vette people should seek advise before coming through here... it's not something to be taken lightly. It's not just the potholes and horrible road surface, but the heavy traffic and completely insane drivers too. It's no place for a Vette, motorcycle or any other semi-fragile vehicle that one cares about.

On a positive note, here's a link to a recent thread I posted... a road trip up from NY (Long Island), through CT, into VT and back... almost 100% excellent roads... overall very positive experience. You just gotta know where to go.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1775959

 

Are all the roads in the North East concrete? It's deafening.

 

Bad roads aren't limited to just the northeast. Any urban area is likely to have roads that have been dug up, patched, and dug up again. Rough as cobs. In Kentucky they don't even pretend to fix the roads, they just put up a sign saying "Dip in road" or "Break in pavement" that remains in place for years. Maybe it is different on the Left Coast, or in that part of Latin America called Florida, but in the rest of the USA, bad roads are a given. If you drive, you can't avoid them. All you can do is set your car up to handle them.

My prescription for driving a Corvette in America is to order the car with springs that allow full suspension travel, ie have a rate that is compatible with the weight of the car. The base springs fit this criteria, the Z51 and Z06 springs don't. Swap in shocks with adequate rebound damping (Bilstein). And raise the car an inch on the stock trim height adjusters. Those steps will give your car a fighting chance.

Ideally, smaller diameter wheels, and tires with a taller section height (50 or 60 series) would be preferred, but finding wheels and tires for the Corvette in those sizes is problematic. You just have to steel yourself to the notion that you are going to bend or break a rim from time to time if you're actually going to drive the car in America.