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Hello All! Brand new C6 owner here and have questions that I hope I can get some help with. So I have a 2008 3LT F55 option car with 14,000 miles on the clock. I researched a little more about the F55 option as I thought great, I heard wonderful things about the Mag Ride setup. Well of course AFTER I purchase the car, I start fiddling with the Tour/Sport dial. Yeah stupid me for not testing it out before, but it was my dream color and 6 manual with low miles....shoot me. So when I do change the dial I feel ZERO difference in the ride at all. I do not feel the suspension any tighter, nor the steering any tighter. Is it just me or is there something wrong with car? I had a new Civic Si that you could really tell the difference when you selected the two different modes. To me the car feels "Floaty" on the road. Almost like I need to firm the car up as it feels real loose and couldn't imagine doing over 100mph in it. Even the steering is very vague feeling when going slow. Is this normal? Can anyone recommend something I should check out? The car currently has a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 3's (I think they are) and have great tread on them. I read about people going to the Z51 sway bars, but I was leaning more to the Hotchkis set. I am afraid that may be excessive as some said to not even use the Z06 bars. If I do find the shocks are bad, I will be replacing them with a non Mag shock for sure....just weighing my options now and working with limited budget at the moment. Thanks to these message boards I was able to fix the creaking top problem. Previous owner did not know you could adjust the rear rod I guess as both tops latched on WAY too easy.
Thank you!
as vette DD said, try it on rough road or, even better, a road dips.
I've got 150k miles on mine. not sure how they compare to when they were new, but there is a difference.
Thanks Vette. I am going to try and get under the car to verify the stock shocks are still on it. Those could have been changed as it did come with a Corsa exhaust (that someone did not line the muffler tips up). I would like to think much was not done to the car and was a garage queen, but you never really know. Like sometimes I swear when you let the clutch out you think the car will start shaking (like a slipping clutch) but it doesnt. I am still getting used to a clutch that releases at the bottom compared to the last that released high. Ironically in the Civic you had to shift a little slower as it was very notchy. This one I have to remember I do not have to delay the 1-2 shift (when warm) as its very smooth at any RPM.
I found this post and this person is saying exactly what I am feeling in the car. https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...hd-review.html
Ironically, he called it a "Floaty" feeling as well. Maybe I need to look for a shock and sway change in the near future. Bilstein HDs and Z51 sways look like they may be in my future. This is a daily driver, so I cannot go too crazy.
It certainly should not feel floaty. I think you would be getting messages on the DIC if there were any electrical problems with the shocks. They typically last a long time, longer than conventional shocks. If they have been replaced, the replacements should also be fine with only 14,000 miles.
Yeah that's why I am questioning them. If I knew someone local with a C6, I would have them drive the car and see what they think. Not getting any kind of messages at all. Now when the road is perfectly flat, the car rides great and same on the highway. When you are driving slower and in town...you hit a bump and the car wants to jump. It almost seemed to me the Tour setting was more hard on the bumps than Sport, but really you do not notice much of a difference. It's weird I know....
At the risk of sounding like a smart a**, which is not my intent, I'm guessing you don't know anything about the Mag Ride. It is NOT about a hard and soft shock difference. It is about computer controlled suspension "control". The idea is to have the car body feel like it is suspended by overhead cables no matter what the suspension is doing trying to cope with a road surface, common terminology is "sky hook".
Keep in mind that in the C6 the Mag Ride was not offered with the Z51 suspension until it was finally made available on the 2011 Grand Sport which replaced the Z51 option. So your '08 has the standard "soft ride" suspension, springs and sway bars. So it will not feel like a slot car with zero suspension. It rides very nicely. Even my wife liked riding in our '08 with Mag Ride. We considered it comparable to her BMW 5 series in road ride quality.
A common mod over the years was to swap the stock sway bars for Z51 bars which most owners liked a lot and felt that was all that was needed. You could go a little further and swap in a Z51 front spring then you would have a Z51 with Mag Ride. Your current rear spring is already a little firmer than the Z51 rear spring so you don't need to mess with that.
If you care to read up on the theory of Mag Ride, here is a 2003 article by Hib Halverson, a member of the Forum here, on the original iteration in the C5. That is considered "version 1". The C6 has an improved "version 2" and the C7 has the best yet, "version 3".
Hey Rick and thank you. Nope not taken at all like a "smart a" and I am getting the general idea of what it is supposed to do. The observation though is I do not think it is doing it. LOL Like with you saying it compares to a BMW 5 series. My car in no way reflects the ride of a BMW at all (had an ex girlfriend that had a 3 Series so can draw off that). So with this conclusion from that, I think something is wrong. My 2018 Civic Si even in Sport mode was really firm, but at the same time it could take the bumps and the car felt planted (no body jarring feel/noises when hitting a bump). On this one though, no matter the setting....you seem to feel the road at all times and the car just doesn't have a "tight" feeling to it. I plan on getting under the car this evening to do more investigating. Will see if I can find perhaps any leaks or maybe if someone swapped the original shocks out. Now I noticed in the CarFax it mentions some interior panel replacement at one point. Could they have possibly removed the console and didn't reconnect the dial? Wonder if that would show an error? Too bad it doesn't tell you on the dash what mode it is in. Would the Tech 2 tell you? I would have to find someone with one. Thanks!
There is another, very unlikely, possibility. The shocks might have shipping blocks in them.
We were told they would not, were never, used on the C6 but there have been several cases discussed here.
Here is an example on a 2010 with pics, as long as you are going under the car:
There is another, very unlikely, possibility. The shocks might have shipping blocks in them.
We were told they would not, were never, used on the C6 but there have been several cases discussed here.
Here is an example on a 2010 with pics, as long as you are going under the car:
OP - if you don't want to ride on a rough road, another way to test is to see how much the car leans in corners. when i turn mine on, it feels much tighter in a corner and doesn't roll (as much)
Thanks Hmmm, I will try that too. So without taking the tires off, I did not see any pucks. Also I could see they were all Delphi shocks. The rears had in white F8T and F8S
Last edited by Jetstream 08; 05-15-2019 at 05:32 PM.
I don't know how long you have owned your car; when I first bought my Centennial GS I would have said the same thing about the MRC. After I "learned" the car I can tell a significant difference in handling between Tour and Sport. I notice the biggest difference when taking curves, when the MRC on Sport basically stays flat. We have several roundabouts in town and on Sport I can take them at a higher speed without the rear sliding out.
Hey Bad, I just got the car on Saturday and it rained all weekend. I am finally getting the chance to drive the car more now. It does sound like I need to take some of our tight curves and test the two modes. Thanks for the info. It probably is just me and I need to get acclimated to the car more. I am still in shock (no pun intended) that I finally got one of my dream cars. I told my wife I always wanted a Corvette, but then I messed up and said it was one on my list. Yeah....when she heard I have a dream car "list", it went downhill from there. LOL Needless to say I am a car guy through and through, but she is the opposite in that respect. I told her I would compromise with a 2008 GT500 since it has back seats and a good sized trunk...that didn't go very far. haha
I found it easiest to feel the difference with speed bumps. Go somewhat slowly over one. In sport mode, one bounce and done. In tour mode, it took 2-3 bounces before it settled.
(I can feel for the OP's concern... I once bought a used 4-Runner and later discovered, when I needed it, the 4WD mode was completely broken!)
05-15-2019, 12:27 PM
F55 Questions
So when I do change the dial I feel ZERO difference in the ride at all. I do not feel the suspension any tighter, nor the steering any tighter. Is it just me or is there something wrong with car? I had a new Civic Si that you could really tell the difference when you selected the two different modes. To me the car feels "Floaty" on the road. Almost like I need to firm the car up as it feels real loose and couldn't imagine doing over 100mph in it. Even the steering is very vague feeling when going slow. Is this normal? Can anyone recommend something I should check out? The car currently has a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 3's (I think they are) and have great tread on them. I read about people going to the Z51 sway bars, but I was leaning more to the Hotchkis set. I am afraid that may be excessive as some said to not even use the Z06 bars. If I do find the shocks are bad, I will be replacing them with a non Mag shock for sure....just weighing my options now and working with limited budget at the moment. Thanks to these message boards I was able to fix the creaking top problem. Previous owner did not know you could adjust the rear rod I guess as both tops latched on WAY too easy.
I told her I would compromise with a 2008 GT500 since it has back seats and a good sized trunk...that didn't go very far. haha
