patentcad

I am mostly very happy with C7 Nav/infotainment System. I've followed threads where members who probably are comparing the C7 to better systems in other cars and found the audio quality wanting. I suppose that's probably true for them, but A.)I'm not that demanding for car audio B.) I don't have another car with a superior system and C.) I don't have a lot of expectations for car audio anyway. If I had to give the sound quality a rating on a scale of 1-10, I'd rate it a solid 7.5. Sure it could be better, and I'd guess that if anybody could figure out which SPEAKERS in the car to upgrade it would make a world of difference. Still looking for that thread, apparently it's not so simple with proprietary speaker impedance issues, etc. Happy to hear any suggestions, but the other day the bass response in the driver door speaker was rippling the fabric on my pants leg. So I don't think the system audio quality blows, it's more than adequate.

The Nav system has performed very well for me so far. Yesterday it alerted me ahead of time to traffic tie-ups - and I wasn't using the Nav. But I did have the Nav screen displaying while driving. Does it automatically give you those warnings if you have a different screen other than the Nav map displayed? I was impressed by the timing and accuracy of those alerts.

The hands free on the phone works great and generally the interface is easy to use and well thought out.

My one major gripe- and this drives me absolutely crazy- are the preset selection boxes that you're supposed to move around by swiping along the bottom of the screen. Somebody tell me the friggin secret to getting THAT to work because in three months of owning this car, I still can't figure it out. That is just brutal.

thill444

My major complaint is the speed and accuracy of the NAV system. My previous car (Golf R) was so much faster, and the touch screen was more accurate. I find myself pushing buttons more than once on the touchscreen of the Stingray.

Like most cars, I found the bluetooth audio streaming to be horrible. I almost always use Carplay with the physical cable, it improves audio quality by about 50%.

I am a huge audio guy (home audio) and while the Bose system is nothing to write home about, it is not the worst either. I would say it is a solid 6 out of 10. I don't know if it is worth spending the money on new speakers and and an amp, but it is something I will look into at some point. Honestly, I love to listen to the engine/exhaust note anyway

Saxobject

Maybe 10% of the time I can "swipe" the preset buttons. In my case though it's a pretty small nit for me to pick though on a really good car.

CT Grand Sport CE

Check out this video by Rick Conti. At about 9 minutes he addresses the radio presets. Hopefully it will help?

patentcad

Thanks, I'll check it out. I was focusing on it this morning and I think I figured out what I was doing wrong, now I think I can get the swipe motion to work as intended. But it's really not intuitive at all.

I think the real key is for me to just leave 15 presets up at a time, that displays more of the presets simultaneously, less swiping.

I'm not really knocking the car, it just drives me nuts when I'm driving 80 mph and I have to futz with a stupid touchscreen interface, that's called distracted driving. I think I figured out the right way to do it this morning.

Not for nothing boys, but I've owned like 30+ cars; the documentation that comes with this Corvette absolutely blows, I spent 10 minutes in the infotainment manual trying to figure out how to configure the presets, I couldn't find anything on it. The owner's manuals are so awful that henceforth I'm just googling it, one major C7 upside is how much info, videos, etc. are on the web.

But GM should fire the person that is in charge of the consumer documentation division and start over. Seriously. I'm a guy who DOES read owner's manuals. These are the worst, takes too long to find what you need and you're lucky if you do find it. Just. Friggin. Brutal.

Overall still by far the best car I've ever owned. I just can't fathom how GM gets the hard stuff (like engineering a world class sports car that retails for like $60K) right and the much easier stuff (like owner's manuals) wrong.

mpuzach

Completely agree re: the owners manuals. I work at a Chevrolet / Subaru dealership; the Subaru owners manuals are much, much better than the GM ones. BTW, Corvette is the only Chevy model that gets the imitation leather pouch for storing the manuals. All other models get a plastic bag. Subaru provides a very nice leatherette case with every car.

ZenicaPA

Couldn't watch that video from Rick....the car radio was playing that moron bieber!

Kidding, I skipped it because I don't need more than 5 presets! There aren't that many stations on XM or local airwaves I like!

patentcad

Oh well. Look they hit it out of the park with the C7, like I said, it's hard to figure Tadge and his boys could get this car so right and then GM drops the ball on aspects of marketing the car that should be much easier. Like you I've had experience with lots of new car consumer documentation, this has to be the worst I have ever seen. Not only is it hard to find things, unless I'm missing something they're just leaving stuff completely out of the manuals. And if I AM missing something, that's probably because whoever put together these books makes it too hard to find.

That's all kind of compensated for by the AMAZING Corvette community which is just astonishingly helpful with all the videos, forums, etc. What other high zoot sports car offers that?

At any rate the car is just a killer, I've barely driven it, (picked up the Z51 December 19, 2016, only about 1600 miles on the clock) now the weather here in southeastern NY has finally hit Spring and the temps are Z51 friendly so I have my car back. It has bean a long winter. Looking forward to some 60º days so I can carve some of my favorite local twisty bits without grip-o-phobia.

NavyBlue2

I just leave 15 presets up all the time: 2 AM & 2 FM stations, & with 2000+ songs on USB, the rest of the presets are of my fav songs...

mpuzach

I'm in complete agreement with you. The lousy manual is one of the very few things GM didn't ace. As far as I'm concerned they not only hit the ball out of the park, they whacked the cover off the ball. I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned the manual to Harlan? I think I'll casually run it past him at the NCM bash next month.

Larry/car

Really a great thread. I got answers to questions I didn't know I had.

patentcad

I never dreamed of having a sports car with the performance of the 2007 C6 Coupe I started with two years ago, this C7 just amps it up to some insane Ferrariesque level.

I like it.

But you know the drill, you get the fast car and now the only cars you see in the media that ring your bell are the ones that are faster than your C7, 'man wish I had that', which is completely ridiculous, because those cars are all $150K ++ and so far above my pay grade I should be censured for even admitting this in public, and my wife should divorce me.

I love my car, it is hotter **** than I ever thought I'd get to step in in my sorry pcad life.

patentcad

Thanks for all the cool responses, Corvette owners are my high octane brothers.

Right up until the car goes all electric c. 2028.

tcinla

I read an advert somewhere that said you can now use waze through spotify. Seems kind of clunky, BUT if you are a spotify user it seems like a small win.

defaria

What would "use waze through spotify" mean exactly? Why can't you simply use waze... and spotify?

defaria

My one gripe is the factory nav couldn't find the DMV by voice search if you drove to the DMV and say "See! It's right here!".

LucaBrasiAZ

The only issue i have is i wish the presets were assigned to the music source instead of having them all available regardless of if you are in FM, AM or XM.

vbdenny

They are. Mine have both satellite and one fm channel.

tcinla

Perhaps it's a back door to use waze via Apple CarPlay :

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/14/sp...te-seamlessly/

Frodo

FWIT, Nobody mentioned using the favorites paddles on the left of the steering wheel to move between presets. I rarely swipe the screen. Once you're familiar with your own selections you can use multiple clicks at a time to move around quickly and get to a preset you want.

Also, you can preset destinations. I have HOME set so once I'm done at my destination I can get instructions quickly to get me started for home in the right direction. Useful when I'm in an unfamiliar location.