IAmCole

This is my full write up from the beginning of my Corvette journey to now. I will be writing this in several parts and will update the post here as I go. Part one is my journey leading up to ordering the car. There will be a lot of fluff here that many of you may not care about, so feel free to skip around and pick out just the parts you care about, or skip it all together. I don’t expect many people to read this, but I enjoy writing and I need a venue to express my excitement for the car. I wanted to be as thorough as possible because I feel like someone’s opinion/thoughts are much more valuable if you understand a little about the person. One final disclaimer….I enjoy writing but despise proof reading and editing. So please forgive any jumping around/typos/grammatical errors.

A little about me personally/starting to look for a new car
I’m a 25 year old male living in the Seattle area. My first car was a ’97 Camaro RS. For the last 6 years or so I’ve owned a 2007 Chevrolet Silverado Crew Cab (I got it when I still lived in Texas and brought it with me here). I really enjoy my truck and it’s pretty unique in this area of the country. That said, there were a few things that made me decide it was time to buy a new car. I really miss driving a manual transmission sports car (even if the Camaro wasn’t blazing fast, it was fun to drive). I also drive 20-25 miles to work one way 5 days a week, and the truck is quite the gas guzzler. My truck is a pretty poor vehicle for going into the city as I can’t get into half of the parking garages and the ones I can get into tend to be a nightmare to navigate. And finally, the truck is only 2WD and I figured it’d be nice to have an AWD car that I could take to the ski slopes and that could do a good job handling the wet hilly roads around here. So about a year and a half ago, I started to look for a new car.

I tend to shop around until I find a good deal or find something I just have to have whenever making a large purchase such as a car (hence still not having a car 1.5 years after beginning my search). Sometimes it takes me a very long time to find what I want for the right price, sometimes I find something within a week. So I took my checklist and started looking around for something that matched: AWD, good gas mileage, “sporty” and fun to drive. I looked at BMW’s, Audi’s, and Subaru’s for the most part. My friend has a WRX STI and loves the car so I was strongly considering one of those. I test drove it and my girlfriend at the time (now wife) was very unimpressed with the ride and noise and loathed the large spoiler that is included in the STI package. I thought it was a fun drive and very good value compared to the competition, but I was still hesitant since I hadn’t test driven any of the others I was considering and I wasn’t exactly floored with the interior of the WRX. The sales people at the Subaru dealership also got under my skin by overselling me on the car and pressuring me to buy one right away. Shortly after visiting the dealership, the salesman gave me a call and notified me that within a few months they’ll be announcing a new generation of WRX’s and so I “should buy one now so that I can get the current car before they stop making them” (ummm…what?). His poor sales pitch backfired as it cemented me wanting to wait until the new model comes out to see what it would offer. The following months took FOREVER to pass as I waited for them to announce the WRX. The current model had brought me to the edge of liking it enough to buy it, so a newly updated model was sure to push me over the edge. When they finally showed off the next generation WRX concept car, I was totally taken aback by how horrible it looked to me. I hadn’t expected this and was basically back to square one in my search. The Audi’s and BMW’s seemed overpriced for the performance and I still didn’t like the WRX enough to pull the trigger.

While at the Subaru dealer though, another car had caught my eye and my girlfriend’s. The BRZ looked like a nice little zippy thing. I had shrugged it off because it was Subaru’s only car without AWD, but the more I looked at it, the more drawn to it I was. I read up on it and decided that maybe a RWD two seater could work nicely for me. So naturally I decided to start looking at comparable cars. It was then that I stumbled on the C7 Corvette.

Initial Impressions
My reaction to previous Corvettes has always been a smile and nod of acknowledgement that it’s a nice fast car, but the price tag has always seemed to be higher than I would spend on it. I’ve never been much of a car guy, and every Corvette I’ve seen in showrooms came with a $70k price tag or higher (Z06’s and fully loaded cars tend to be dealership’s favorite choice of showroom eye candy). I never bothered to look at the performance numbers and what it would cost for any other car with comparable specs, because quite frankly it didn’t matter. If you’re spending 70k+ on a car, it needs that little extra something that you can’t quite put your finger on. The “x factor” if you will. For me to spend that kind of money, the car would need to elicit an emotional response, an involuntary grin, a magnetic attraction that makes it hard to walk away from after you get to your destination. I won’t spend $70k on a car. For $70k I’d have to be getting a unique experience and a car that would make me want to drive just to drive rather than to get somewhere. While previous generations were great cars, they were still just a car to me. I just couldn’t look at it and say “yeah, that’s worth it to me”.

And then I saw pictures of the C7. My jaw dropped. It was beautiful. I showed it to my WRX friend: “Holy **** dude.” It’s the kind of car that I would stop and stare at in the parking lot. In college it would’ve been the kinda car that made me pull out my cell phone and take a picture of it just so I could show my friends and say “look what I saw today” (doesn’t work as much anymore because I’m surrounded by a lot of very nice cars), and they would be jealous of me, just for getting close enough to such a beautiful machine to take a picture. The interior looked like it was crafted to make me smile. A cockpit to surround the pilot with advanced controls and information that is needed to tame a beast of a machine. The bar to quarantine off passengers from the rest of the car and says to them “This is my baby, not yours. You may look at the dials, but I am the one that controls everything that happens here. Oh yeah, and you’re going to want to hold on.” I started reading up on it, watching/reading every review I came across. It made me long to be behind the wheel and control the incredible music that the engine makes. And I started to consider spending twice as much as I thought I would on a car. I asked my wife if she thought it was ridiculous for me to be considering buying a Corvette. “A little bit…but if you want it that bad, then go ahead.” (This is why I married her).

The decision to buy
I finally decided that the C7 was worthy of a serious look past the mostly flippant browsing of the car I had been doing. I actively tracked down reviews, videos, and news. I joined this forum and read what people were saying on a daily basis. I was surprised that everyone who reviewed the car universally loved it. I tracked the progress GM was making as the launch date got closer and closer. As “real people” started getting their cars, I read the feedback they were giving, followed troubles they were having, and contemplated if risking similar issues on a first year model would be worth it. I got insurance and loan quotes. And finally decided that yes, this was the one. What I get out of this car is so much more than I could get out of any other car I can afford (Porshe’s just don’t interest me….they’re everywhere around Seattle and the styling on them just hasn’t evolved enough for me personally). But the real kicker that pushed me over the edge was that the C7 makes me want to be a car guy. I take my truck to an automatic car wash probably once per year, but with the C7, I wanted to research the best products for hand washing, polishing, and waxing. It’s completely cheesey and cliche and I’ve never understood it when others felt this way, but it’s more than just a car to me. It’s an incredible junction of art and engineering. It’s a topic I can’t talk about without smiling.

Here’s the best part though…it’s giving me this emotional response that I was looking for, and I don’t even own one yet. Hell, I haven’t even driven one. I’ve only seen one in person once and it was for about half a second as one turned in front of me. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m the type of person that absolutely hates spoilers (movie spoilers, not car spoilers). I want to know the genre of the movie, who’s in it, and if it’s good or not, and nothing else. I don’t even want to know the plot/premise. So to me, it will be the perfect first experience to get to look over my own personal Stingray and to get to first drive the car I decided I wanted, not some car a dealer had on his lot.

Finding the car
So after deciding to buy a new Stingray, I had to pick out which options I wanted. Of course I had thought about this already, but the choices were still tough. I was completely torn on the color. My truck is Black and I needed a change so black was out. My Camaro was red, so I didn’t want another red. Yellow is just a little too loud for me, and I don’t think I’ll ever buy a white car. LRG was unique, but I couldn’t help but remember seeing a Trans am many years ago in a similar color and thinking that it made the car age quicker. No offense to those of you with those colors, the C7 truly makes them all beautiful, but they were just not for me. So I was left with CGM, Silver, and NRB. I tend to prefer darker colors, but really loved the contrast on the Silver with black accents. I decided that if I were going to get Silver, I’d have to get an exposed CF roof, black mirrors/spoiler, and a black stinger stripe. My wife wasn’t a huge fan of NRB for some reason, so I went ahead and scratched that one off the list since I liked CGM quite a bit (her favorite). I decided that I would look around and see what I could find and/or look to order one. Note: this was in late September, so constraints were hitting hard and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find an allocation to order one.

I started out by contacting local dealerships. While I was sure that forum dealers were good, I preferred the convenience of dealing with someone locally if possible. I went through various discount programs to see if I could find a good deal (USAA, Costco Auto). I started receiving phone calls from dealers. “We have 1 Stingray, it’s yellow and we’re asking 10k over MSRP, but everyone else in town is asking 20k over”. I heard this pitch probably 3 or 4 times before giving up on local and going to the forums. I emailed 4 or 5 forum dealers, listing the options I was interested in and asking what they had available. Only 2 responded. Dan Houser with Rick Hendrick Chevrolet offered a triple black to me. I told him I didn’t really want black and was mainly interested in CGM or Silver and would look at NRB if he had it. He responded with a CGM that had almost everything I wanted on it plus some. Unfortunately, that raise the price by about 5k over what I would’ve gotten (it had 3LT instead of 2LT and had an exposed carbon fiber roof – which I like, but wouldn’t have spent 2k on it). I went back and forth on it, talked to my wife for a while, and finally decided that I wouldn’t regret spending a little extra money, having a fully loaded car, and getting it much sooner than if I would’ve ordered it (Dan told me it was at 3300). I contacted Dan and put down a deposit to claim the car as my own.



To be continued…
Up next will be full pictures, initial impressions upon getting the car, and my experience with my dealer.

IAmCole

Wow, it ended up being a long time before I got the opportunity to write part 2. My sincerest apologies for not being able to make time in the last couple of weeks. From driving the car across the country to trying to get back into the swing of things at work and home, I've ended up being quite busy with life. I'll try and finish up any subsequent parts much more quickly, but I'll avoid making promises this time around . Let me also say that I'm trying to give my completely honest feedback on things, so don't get offended if there are some negatives or anything that you don't necessarily agree with. I'm not trying to step on any toes or belittle good experiences that anyone has had, just giving an accurate representation of my own personal experience, that unfortunately that includes some frustrations and negative points.

Poor Communication and Order tracking
Picking up wher I left off, it was the first week of October. Putting down a significant deposit ($5k) on such a large purchase can be somewhat nerve racking; however, I felt quite confident directly after pulling the trigger that I had made the correct decision. I felt quite fortunate to find a car that ticked all of my boxes that was already at status 3300. I excitedly headed over to GMer's tracking post to have my order number added to his list. After being added, I noted that GMer was showing me at 3000. Naturally I decided to get a third opinion so I contacted Chevy Customer Support on this forum and was told that my status was at 3000. Unfortunately, after sending a deposit, my dealer instantly became harder to contact. It took 2 weeks to get a receipt for my deposit and a confirmation of my car's status. This was including multiple phone call, text, and email attempts. Upon finally replying, the dealer told me that the car was "still at 3000 status" acting as though he had never told me the status of 3300. I remember more than one phone call with the dealer about the car and being told that it was at 3300, and I have an email with it in writing, so I know I wasn't imagining or mishearing. I didn't push the issue because I figured it was just 1 status code difference and would hopefully only mean the difference of a week or 2. I should also mention that there was talk on the forum around this time frame where cars were going to 3300, then back to 3000 again. I never got any additional insight into what happened with the car (dealer mistake on status, dealer purposefully saying the car was further along in an attempt to move it easier, car moving status, or just everyone receiving inconsistent information), but I will say that GMer got my order added to his list very quickly (within about a day), and it never saw 3300.

Unfortunately around this time, GMer went dark leaving my only source of information on the order status to be the dealer who took forever to respond, Chevy Customer Service with about a day turn around, or chevrolet.com customer support, which was immediate, but didnt' give specific status codes (remember, the order tracking site wasn't working at this time). I don't remember when exactly, but I eventually came to the realization that the estimated late October time frame which I was originally quoted was likely not going to happen, so I started hoping for Thanksgiving time frame. I figured I could take off for Thanksgiving, see family (in Texas), and drive my car back. I rotated where I was getting my tracking information from via my 3 sources to try and avoid bugging the dealer too much. I figured he was likely very busy selling and delivering cars and he didn't reply in a timely manner anyways. Sometime close to Thanksgiving, I gave the dealer a call to get an updated status report, convinced that it was still going to be 3000. The dealer gave me the good news that the car had moved to 3400 10 days prior! "Excellent....thoguh why didn't you call me at the time?" I wondered to myself, but again, didn't push the issue. I'm not one to scream and shout at people or raise a ruckus over small things. I give people the benefit of the doubt when possible and acknowledge that in general, people are just doing the best job they can and don't deserve to be treated poorly when that's not quite up to my hopes or excpectations.

A couple of weeks later, I contacted the dealer again for another update. I was trying to plan a Christmas vacation where I was going to be in north Florida the week before Christmas and was hopeful that I would be able to pick up the car sometime during that trip. I got a reply from the dealer relatively quickly saying that the car was "...still at 3300". At this time I finally had gotten frustrated enough with the misinformation to reply and ask about it. I noted that he had stated that the status had gone to 3400 4 weeks ago and that it had supposedly been on the production line. He replied very noncomittally stating that he couldn't look at previous status and that he only knew that it was currently stating it had gone into production on the 6th (got this email on December 14th). He had also sent me some kind of official looking order status report that had all of the order information on it along with the order status of 3300, but nothing mentioning the 6th (something I hadn't received before). I forget some of the details, but at some point after that, the dealer told me that the targeted date for the car to be completed was the week when I was going to be in Florida, so I kept my fingers crossed but figured it likely wouldn't work out. In fact it didn't and I headed back to Seattle carless.

Shortly after the new year rolled over, the Chevy tracking site (now up) showed my car as being shipped (I had been checking the site regularly and never saw it go to production complete). Less than a week later and I got a call from the dealer that the car had arrived. The dealer told me that my car had been the longest car from time ordered to time delivered that they had seen. I had contemplated having the car shipped via enclosed transport since I had just taken a lot of time off from work for the Christmas holidays, but the timing of the car was close enough to a work related trip to Texas that I decided to combine the trips with an extra couple of days and a weekend and pick up the car in person and drive back. The dealer was much quicker in communication than he had been (he now needed additional information from me such as my driver's license). Unfortunately after I got him the information he needed, communication turnaround dropped off yet again. Which was problematic for me because I was finalizing my financing and my bank needed several items from the dealership. I booked a flight to fly into Atlanta late Sunday and was trying to get everything in order the week leading up to it. I started trying to finalize all the numbers with the bank at the beginning of the week, but because I couldn't get into contact with the dealer, I ended up not getting everything finished until Friday afternoon. Needless to say, this made the week leading up to my trip much more stressful than it really needed to be. Additionally, upon receiving the paperwork showing the final dollar amounts, there was a $500 document fee that had never been mentioned to me before. I had read stories about nonforum dealerships charging something like this and avoiding it was one of my reasons for going with a forum dealer. When I brought it up with my dealer, he claimed that he had told me about it and had mentioned it in a previous email. I looked through our entire backlog of emails (I don't ever delete emails) and there hadn't been a single mention. I recall talking to the dealer on the phone before placing the deposit and being assured that they don't charge a penny over MSRP. Because I didn't get that document until the bank was about to close on Friday, I ended up not fighting it. In the grand scheme of a $70k car, $500 isn't a lot, but I absolutely disdain being tricked out of my money...even if it's not a large amount.

Coping with the long wait
The 4 months of waiting was quite a rollercoaster. It was excitement, disappointment, anticipation, frustration, and elation throughout the wait. A quick tip for those who haven't ordered yet or who have just ordered: tell very few people about your order until it's actually delivered to your dealer. I made the mistake of telling many of my coworkers and friends about the car and got questions of "how much longer?" and "any news on the car yet?" for the entire time I was waiting. And the worst was never having any answers to give anyone! As part of my excitement, I continually checked the C7 forums, following others getting their cars, continually reading up on more and more people receiving their cars and their impressions. Shortly after placing my deposit, a thread about paint care caught my eye. Up until this point I had planned on taking the car to an automated car wash to keep it up . In fact, I was kinda bummed about not being able to order from one of the local dealerships because they offered free automated car wash runs for the life of the car when you purchase from them. But as I read I saw that the truer "car people" scoffed at automated washes and swore by hand washing by very specific methods that I hadn't even heard of (what's a two bucket wash?). Glen e made a comment to contact him for more information on recommended products that get great results and are very easy to apply. So I did.

Something a little extra about me that you should understand. My hobby is to be interested in hobbies. I really love talking to people about whatever they find most interesting. If someone has a passion for something, there's usually a reason for that passion and I find it very enjoyable to try and understand that. While there are a few things I've found that just don't grab me (I don't think I'll ever get abstract art enthusiasm), for the most part, I'm pretty susceptible to picking up others excitement for a hobby. So naturally, I started looking more and more into car detailing. I also have a tendency to go all out on things. For example, last summer I decided to plant some fruit plants in my yard, so I got 14 fruit trees, 30 raspberry plants, and 100 strawberry plants. Glen's list of products had the essentials and then a long list of "stuff that you can also get". After reading a novel's worth of information about car washing, comparing products, comparing different options of combos of what I could buy, I ended up buying basically everything on Glen's list. All in all, I spent about $400 on microfiber clothes, other various applicators, a bunch of BLACKFIRE products, and a dual action polisher. Of course, I didn't have the car to use them on so I tested them out on my truck in the meantime. My poor solid black truk hasn't gotten the care it deserves over the years, but I was very happy with the results, despite the products being intended for newer paints that aren't as damaged/worn. So thanks to Glen for the tips and willingness to share your passion with strangers on the internet.

I also bought some other odds and ends add ons for the car - jacking pucks, LED license plate light replacement, maybe some other stuff I can't remember right now. Oh yeah...and a Valentine One radar detector. I figured I'd need it...especially if I were to drive cross country. I hooked it up in my truck in the meantime so I could get used to it's alerts and see how it worked. I caught wind of a few bogies with it in several months of use, but it was very noisey around town. Sometime when driving my car back, I found out how to disable x band alerts (which are all false alarms unless you're in a few select areas) and since doing that, it's been much less noisy and more useful. That said, it still goes off for a lot of cars that have proximity detectors, but it's much better than it used to be. I'll talk more about the positive aspects of it later, because there have been several occasions when I was very happy to have it. But that comes after car delivery.

Going to get the car
Because of some unfortunate scheduling, I ended up not being able to fly to Atlanta to get the car until Sunday afternoon, which put me in Atlanta close to midnight on Sunday. This meant I was going to have to pick up the car and drive to Texas in the same day. This was where my dealer experience with Dan started to improve. First of all, when I spoke to Dan on Friday, I told him I was going to be in a hurry to get out so that I could get started on my long drive. He offered to have all the paperwork put together and fedex'd overnight to me so I could have it all signed and ready to go when I got there. I appreciate him going to the trouble to have that done at the last minute, though on the flip side, it wouldn't have needed to be such a rush job if had returned my calls a week earlier. That's really the perfect example of the junction of where the slow and misleading communication transitioned to great customer service for the rest of my interactions with Dan. Dan picked me and my wife up at the airport and take me to the hotel near the dealership. This ended up taking us until 1 a.m. after we had to wait for our checked bag and drive across the city, which are far later hours than I would've liked to work if I were him. He then came to the hotel the next morning at 8 a.m. and took us to the dealership to pick up the car. The paperwork they had overnighted didn't make it to my house before we left, so we ended up having to take care of it at the dealership, but they were pretty quick at going through it and didn't spend any additional time trying to upsell me on anything. The guy who was in charge of doing the paperwork was in a meeting for just a few minutes when we arrived, so Dan took me and my wife around to look at the different color combinations and packages they had available on their lot. They had quite a few cars - mostly base but I saw several Z51's. A lot of the base cars they had had upgraded spoilers (either the Z51 or the wing). Dan walked around with me and answered any questions I had, giving me 100% attention while I was there. They had a car with competition seats in it and I asked to sit in it to feel the difference. They felt a bit firmer. I don't think it'd be worth the price to get them unless you were planning to track your car.

As for how I'd rate my dealer experience, it started out at about a 'C' grade. Dan gave me his cell phone and said I could call anytime. I usually didn't get an answer on the first try (acceptable as he was probably with other customers). I would have, however, liked a faster turn response to messages I left, and as mentioned, the information I received wasn't always consistent. I don't blame the dealership for the long wait of course, but it could have been less of a roller coaster. Getting information isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things - knowing the status code isn't going to make the car arrive any faster or slower. But the week leading up to getting the car was frustrating as I was trying to get a lot of details ironed out and not having a "quick" (within a day) return call made it difficult/stressful at times. With that said, the grade shot up to an 'A+' while I was in town. Dan really made me and my wife feel like valued customers and catored to our needs to be in and out quickly. So for a final overall dealership grade, I'd have to go with a 'B+'. Most of the negatives were primarily annoyances, but the last week of my wait and the extra dealer doc fee prevented the experience from being as good as it could have been. If you live nearby, I'd look into their inventory and see if they have something available that draws you in. As I said, they had quite a few cars on the lot, and the face to face experience was really great. Below are some pictures (mostly taken by my wife) of the cars they had on the lot. Here's an album with more if that's not enough.













Well that seems like a good amount of writing for part 2. In the next section I'll talk more about my trip back to Seattle and my actual impressions after driving the car some, along with some pictures from the trip. Thanks again for everyone's patience and taking time to read about my experience. I'll do what I can to get out part 3 more quickly. Oh yeah, here's another pic of my baby right after signing the papers:

IAmCole

Reserved for additional content 2

IAmCole

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IAmCole

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astrotx

Great story--amazing looking C7! Love the colors.

HUGE congrats. Look forward to more feed back in your 'reserved' sections.

peter pan

Nice story and beautiful Vette

Torchsport

I hope you enjoy that new beauty.

MikeC4C5C6...C7

Thanks. Brings me and probably many of us back to when it started for us. Enjoy!

Zymurgy

In your color selection, you totally neglected Laguna Blue.

nh_mark

Good point...I mention that because my own experience. From the time I watched the unveiling video at last years auto show I knew that I wanted Velocity Yellow. The whole time I waited before finally placing my order I knew it would be VY.

I'm lucky enough to live close to MacMulkin and when they had their unveiling show they had a Laguna Blue in the showroom and I loved it! It was so nice, even more so in person than in pictures.

I ended up waiting a couple of weeks after that before placing my order but I seriously debating between the VY and LB...I ended up getting the VY and I have no regrets but the LB is definitely worth considering...it really is a nice color.

Oh, and OP...nice write up, I look forward to reading more.

-Mark

vincent_esq

Thanks for the great reading. I look forward to your future posts.

Glen e

well written bud, can't wait until you get to the griots polisher...LOL..just got a new one...am amazing tool........

Buzzardz_vette

Great story. I felt pretty much the same way when I first saw the C7. I thought it was crazy to spend more for the car than I spent for my first house, but after I saw the C7, I had to have it.

IAmCole

My mistake! I wrote almost all of that on the plane to Georgia, so it wasn't the best atmosphere for making sure I didn't leave anything out. As far as the Laguna blue goes, I think it shows in person much better than in pictures, and it just didn't catch me. After seeing it in person it's a great color, but probably still not for me. I tend to like darker colors, and am happy to say that after picking up my girl this morning, I'm very happy with my selection. I'm stopped for lunch in the middle of a very long drive today so I probably won't get a chance to write today. Probably tomorrow or the next day. Thanks to all who took time out of your day to read my lengthy post. Looking forward to talking more about the car in the next week as I take her across the country.

Greg00Coupe

I read your post......... lot of detail but hey its a Corvette so the more the better!!! When you eliminated colors I knew you where going to a silver or grey. I thought NO....... it's not my favorite....... but got to say with those calipers and black rims......WOW!!! Congrats.

Interesting only 2 Forum dealers had the courtesy and decency to get back to you..........

astrotx

Heck that's pretty good...some only get one reply :toe tap:

Even TommyJR takes one or two days between emails to reply (but hey at least he does--sometimes).

KenHorse

As you found out during your journey, Don't Stop Believin'

petecaballero

Great write up! I enjoyed reading it and can't wait for the follow up. You sir have been bitten by the vette bug without a doubt. Excellent choice.

rsvette12

Sharp looking car - congrats