Well, it's now been a full week with the car, so I'm quickly becoming a seasoned C8 expert. 😂. Yes, there is a learning curve but it's not as daunting as I had anticipated.

I am still learning the in car navigation system and, like most other factory navigation setups, it's not quite intuitive. I am getting the hang of it, but am still referring to the manual for specific functions. CarPlay is always available, and that is very easy to use, but mastering the car's own system has become my latest challenge.

First mystery, and WTF? moment, was the heated steering wheel having a mind of its own. I know I didn’t turn it on, yet there it is warming my cold dead fingers. So, off it goes only to be on again at some future point. It took some research to finally figure out that this would not require a trip to the dealer. The wheel is linked to the heated seats, which are enabled as automatic seat heating in the settings menu. So, when it's below an as yet unknown temperature threshold, the heated seats automatically turn on. They are linked to the heated wheel, and both come on. I never noticed the heated seats turning on automatically, but they do. The manual only mentions this as a function in remote start.

Now, my horn on locking the car. The setup on the car was lights and horn on locking, but I only got the lights. Was something not working right? I finally found one rather obtuse line in the manual that explained this. One click of the fob button gives you flashing lights, while a second click gives you the horn. I tried it and it works. I don’t really want to hear the horn every time I lock the car, but I wondered why that feature wasn’t working. It works.

Other than that, the car's features have been fairly easy to master and enjoy. Driver modes are fun to play with, and Z mode is smile inducing. I have learned, however, to start the car with my garage door closed. That opening cold start roar is enough to loosen tooth fillings. I just wait a minute or so, until the car regains its composure, and then drive away having fulfilled my considerate neighbor obligations. I have tried the various NPP exhaust settings and the difference in sound between the mildest and most aggressive modes is really impressive. In fact, all the various modes have profound effects on the way the car behaves. My wife can putter around in her GM version of a Miata while I tool around in my bad *** track car .. it's fun.

The Bose/Harmon/Alpine hybrid sound system is much better than I had expected. Stereo separation is excellent and frequency response is clean with good high and low end response. At lower speeds, top down, it's easy to listen to without cranking up the volume … which brings me to another observation. This car is quiet on the road. I had read numerous complaints about how noisy the C8 was, but I can only conclude that the complainers drove over primarily very rough road surfaces. On any decent pavement, this car is really quiet. No wind noise, no rattles.

Even with the Z51 suspension, I find this car surprisingly compliant over surface road imperfections. Pavement breaks are more heard than felt, and I assume at least some of that is the mag ride at work. Moving to more aggressive modes, of course, impacts ride quality negatively. The DCT shifts very smoothly until, again, it is switched to a more aggressive mode. Steering, I find always solid and direct. The steering weight can be changed, but it does not offer quite the feedback of my Porsche. Still, it is very good and feels good.

My gas mileage, so far, has been unimpressive. I hit 24.7 mpg on my first 90 mile ride back from the dealer, but have seem mostly less than 20 mpg in mixed driving since then. The car is not broken in yet, so I am hoping that gets better as the miles pile on.

Build quality is pretty good, with nice panel fit on the body. Spacing around the headlights looks fine, so hopefully won’t see any paint chipping there. Interior is good, but I did have to trim some loose carpet threads that were hanging down from the console. I did order the Stealth interior package, but the black parts are not really black, but rather blackened aluminum. From some angles and lighting they look black, at other times they look like dark anodized aluminum. I still prefer the darker color to bright metal, but it's not really a true black. The GT2 seats I ordered look good and are comfortable. I probably would have been just as pleased with the GT1 seats, but I did want the leather seating surfaces. Regardless, the seats are good and I have no issues with them. At 6’3”, I have plenty of leg room with just enough head room to give me an inch or so above my head. Entrance and exit is not as much of a challenge as I had feared, but I do seem to favor hitting my head on the roof whenever I get into the car. Greatly looking forward to top down weather.

My OEM mud flaps and rocker extensions just arrived at the dealer, so will head back next week to have those parts installed. That's another 150 mile round trip, but no choice since I did a courtesy delivery through MacMulkin, and that was their closest dealer. After that I can use my local dealer for service.

Yes, the C8 is a truly impressive achievement for the Corvette design team. It looks, feels, and performs like a world class sports car. Although there are certainly many more on the road now than there were a couple of years ago, it still turns heads and starts conversations. This car will do anything you ask of it, and I find it impossible to end any drive without a smile.

 

Enjoy your great C8. The smiles and interest from others are unending.

 

enjoy your new car

 

Enjoy your beautiful car. Curious about your unimpressive gas mileage comment. Don't know what you were expecting but the car is a 495HP V8 and when driven accordingly will give you accordingly gas mileage. I got 32 on my trip home from the museum driving in the rain the whole way practically and I'm still averaging 22.7 after 2 years of driving. Admittedly most of it is cruising two lane country roads and the interstate with very little in town stop and go traffic. My GT350 averaged 17 driven the same way. I'm impressed.

 

I'm going on 14 months in my HTC and can report mileage in the mid 20s. Interestingly, my old C7 Stingray averaged about 4mpg better than my C8...

 

Good post, Stan. You've read the manual better than I did.

My biggest issue is dealing with the tranny when I “punch it”. Let’s say I want to accelerate hard onto a highway. I step hard on the gas, the engine spins up to, say, 4,000 rpm and the transmission downshifts a gear to two. When I take my foot off the gas at my desired speed the rpms just hang there around 4,000 and the car doesn’t upshift for too long a time, in my opinion. I have been dealing with this by using the paddles to upshift a gear or two to bring the rpms down into a reasonable range. I’m wondering if this is normal?

 

My C8 did the same thing.....

 

Yes, this is normal. The computer is expecting you to continue with your spirited driving since you jumped on it. It's giving you a few seconds in a low gear, high RPM in case you jump on it again. And if not, it'll up shift after a few seconds. Perfectly normal.

 

Thanks for the review. If you download the manual from the Chevy website, you can search it for keywords such as heated steering wheel. You will discover that there are details scattered around in the manual, such as the fact that the heated steering wheel does follow the automatic enabling of the heated seats, not just during remote start. That little nugget is tucked away in the discussion of the auto heated and ventilated seats, and appears on page 44 of the 2023 manual.

 

I assume its OK to up-shift on the paddles to lower RPM so its not screaming?

 

Good assumption

 

The car has rpm limits for upshifts and downshifts using the paddles - that will prevent both over revving a lugging. If it lets you upshift, its ok. I think there is a table in the manual that lists the limits for upshifts and downshifts.

 

This is your "driver influenced gear selection". It will happen in any drive mode, even in Tour mode - and will downshift more aggressively on acceleration as well as hang in a gear longer when coasting. There is even a light on the dash that indicates when this condition is enabled.

 

Yes, but not required. It'll up-shift on it's own after a few seconds if you don't jump on it again.

 

11k miles 12.7 mpg since birth 23 months into ownership. FYI the tri odo stops at 9999.9 and I haven't seen MPG or avg MPH change so I think it stops calculation once reaching 9999.9

 

I have had mine just over a year now and nothing but smiles, glad we got the HTC as it will be 70s today so going for a top down ride

 

Nice review and glad you are really enjoying your C8. Hope you get many miles of smiles from the car.

 

I don't know how you people get such great gas mileage. My '22 Z51 running on 91 octane in SoCal gets about 14 mpg around town, which is 90% of my driving. Highway is 25 at best. I rarely do any spirited driving, usually in tour mode.

 

Before I sold mine I was averaging 20-22 combo driving and 28 highway. I don't have a light foot either.

 

I thought I was the only one. I do use the track mode for engine/shift - and I think in my case its partly that. I have now, when taking a highway trip, switched to tour mode, but I have not paid enough attention to whether or not I get better mileage. My driving is not so much around town but it is on rural roads that are not good for high speeds. I don't really drive it aggressively on those roads.