spoolin03

Hi. Just seeing how you manual owners think of the manual gearbox in the C7?

How is the clutch engagement feel?

How is it to drive around the city

How is it to daily drive? Does it wear you out?

kywhitelightning

C7 Z06 clutch pedal is firm. Engagement is solid. H-pattern is tight. 1st gear has a bump to overcome when sitting at a red light. 7th gear has a really strong return spring. Very comfortable to cruise around town in overall. My mitsu has a single disc clutch that holds 700tq. That one will grow your left leg.

Iconic

Mine feels great and I almost always engage/roll off in 1st gear from a dead stop without reving the RPMs

3rd gear range is under 25 mph to 105 mph, so you could easily leave it in 3rd all day unless you have to stop.
I'm not certain how to answer that since I have never thought of shifting as stressful in the sense of wearing myself out. Maybe 12 hours at Sebring it would, but not around town. I'm not at an age where shifting has the slightest effect on me personally but can understand age works against us all and not everyone is physically up for it. I would think that most folks who can get in and out of these cars should have little trouble pushing in a power clutch, save any knee or hip related disability's.

I think the manual in a C7 Vette if very user friendly to anyone who wants to drive a manual, "want" being the operative word. However I must admit I am biased toward the M7. If the auto were standard and manual were a $1,700 option I still would have ordered all my Vettes with manuals.

Good luck in your search!

VetteDrmr

Since you didn't say what your experience is, I can tell you that I've used my C7 to teach kids how to drive a stick. LT1 motor has such great torque at idle that it's really easy to get started from a stop. Shifting gates are well-defined, and as mentioned, 7th has a strong centering spring, such that you have to intentionally shift into it. Pedal pressure is easy for a clutch that is designed to hold 500 ft. lb. of torque. Pedal engagement is different for each car, but even S&G traffic isn't an issue.

HTH, and have a good one,
Mike

Luzifer

For me starting off in 1st gear is not easy, it always wants to stall or buck like a bronco. I have to slip the clutch to start rolling. Sometime I don't do it right and the car takes off like a bat out of hell, so as to not look like I don't know what I'm doing I keep on the gas and do a mini pull. When I start using my old 4Runner in the winter it feels so damn different and I mash the gas and the truck goes nowhere fast!

Another problem is money shifting, I often skip a gear accidently by downshifting so now I'm always in rev match and I look at the gear before I let go of the clutch(well most of the time). Thankfully the car is able to take it.

I still prefer having a manual than an auto. If you are driving the car for pleasure even as a daily the manual is fine but if you are a delivery guy in rush hour bumper to bumper then and an auto will be better.

dvilin

The clutch is fairly firm but no problem in traffic or daily driving. Shifting gears is easy, 2nd gear is a bit clunky when cold but otherwise fine. Very easy to drive and live with day to day.

ny32182

My only gripes with it were:
1) 3rd and 4th ratios are way too far apart.
2) 7th gear is uselessly high and completely unnecessary anyway.... Should have been omitted.

Everything else in terms of ease of use and easy drivability was just fine, as mentioned I'd say the engagement is normal, great torque at idle makes taking off easy, finding the first six gears is easy, and the hill hold and rev match.. um.. crutches can make it idiot proof for almost anyone.

Corgidog1

Clutch is fairly easy to engage and the shifter has a nice feel to it when shifting. In my experience most manuals had a notchy 1st to second shift and my vette is no exception. I have to be a little careful getting it into reverse to back out of the garage when it is cold. Think of it as a 6 speed rather than a seven speed if you are keeping it under 100.

BELVIN20

No gripes with my M7 Z, so far 48K miles of daily driving fun, trans is great, as other have stated 1-2 shift is a little clunky cold, but goes away once warmed up. With the Rev match, just about no way to be a bad M7 driver.

As a side tid bit of fun information, my 2000 C5 the manual trans was a option & the Auto was standard, times have changed.

JMII

This is my main complaint. The way I get around it is to select 1st (clutch still in) as the car is rolling to a stop. I found if you stop in 2nd, then go for 1st to take off you'll grind - and sometimes it even pops out of gear. The best way to describe it is like a gate you have to push thru to select 1st.

Clutch engagement is what I would call "medium", my 350Z was stiff and heavy - that car sucked for daily driving, it was like going to the gym and doing leg presses. Contrast that against a Volvo I had whose clutch had the same resistance as a light switch (in other words none). So to me at least the C7 is perfectly between the two. Not as good as previous Honda's but overall very nice and smooth with good feel.

No problems in city driving. The shifter itself is a bit notchy and stiff, as indicated by others I'd characterize it as "tight". 7th gear is way off in no mans land and reverse can sometime be difficult to engage. The shifter is very short throw and is best moved by using your palm + forearm to shove it vs grabbing and using your wrist to flick it.

CraigStu

For me the shifting is on the stiff side especially when cold. Not terrible, I would have no problem commuting in it, but I am retired. It is definitely not as easy to shift as my wife's 15 Mustang GT 6 speed but I would buy it again 100%.

Maxpowers

The Tremec 6070 is one of the best manuals ive ever used given the power it has to handle. If I had to pick the negatives.... I wish it was a 6 speed, the extra gear makes the rows tight, and clutch engagement point is to far up.

Guard Dad

The clutch seems lighter than my old C6 GS 6 speed.

The shifter is excellent. Quite a few folks rave about the aftermarket MGW shifter (I have never had a chance to try one) but the stock shifter is quite good.

Many folks seem annoyed with 7th gear, not me, it improves mileage and reduces noise and engine wear. Besides, it’s not like you are going through all seven gears in normal driving, skipping gears is the norm with all of that LT1 torque. 7th doesn’t really come into play until you are cruising above 50 mph.

My only issue is that the clutch doesn’t have much “feel” to it, the effort throughout its travel is quite linear with no noticeable friction point, you have to develope the muscle memory to know where the engagement point is. Since my GS is not a daily driver this took some time.

If you are after as much sports car as possible get the manual but if you are after more of a luxury sports GT get the auto.

JMII

This might have been done on purpose, because on track these are pretty much the only two gears you need. 3rd is low enough to dig out of slower speed turns and 4th will carry you into triple digits for the straights. The skip shift ignores 3rd to optimize fuel economy so apparently it was not optimized with street driving in mind.

For the OP: two things I forgot to mention in my original post - between the engine torque and the rev matching you pretty much can't shift this car wrong. My wife is normally scared of stalling in traffic, but never in the C7, it can pull away from a stop in 3rd if desired. It will creep like an automatic by just slowing letting the clutch out in 1st... no throttle required, it basically moves at around 5 MPH at idle. Now you will see read reports of "lag", as the first 10-20% of throttle application (drive-by-wire) does nothing. An aftermarket throttle body or throttle controller will fix this feeling.

Bill Dearborn

Stock clutch is very easy to push in. Clutch engagement is near the top of the pedal travel. The Corvette New Owner school teaches students to just let the clutch out easily and get the car moving before applying throttle and that seems to work much better than applying throttle and bringing clutch up.

The car has a hill hold feature which makes starting on hills much easier.

Even though the clutch is easy to push in and out it can become a chore in heavy traffic where traffic is just creeping along and is moving at a speed slower than the car will run with the engine idling and the clutch all the way out. Then you are constantly playing with the clutch and just like holding your arms out in a horizontal position for a long time your leg gets tired.

As far as driving around town that varies depending on the speeds. Most of the area where I use the car the speed limits are 35, 45 or 50 mph. When running those roads I quickly take the car up to 6th gear and use it until I have to come to a stop.

As for the gear ratios that you get it depends on the features of the car. An M7 installed in a Stingray or a Z06 will have a nice spread between the gears. An M7 installed in a Z51 or GS will have lower gear ratios in the first three gears with a large gap to 4th gear and will also have lower overdrive ratios. The lower gearing in that transmission helps the LT1 engine get closer to the performance of the Z06.

In a Z06 third gear will take you from 10 mph to 123 (rev limiter) and fourth gear will take you from 10 mph to 154 mph (rev limiter). What is nice with the Z06 is the tremendous low rpm torque levels so you can be tooling along at 30 mph in fifth gear and just drop the throttle and the car will accelerate faster than most other cars on the street with you are capable of doing.

Bill

Let It Ride

2019 GS here, bought new. Clutch engagement is fine and smooth. The shifting is very notchy and not smooth at all. I swapped out the fluid to Redline and that made no difference, maybe a pinch worse but that could be in my head. I come from a 2013 GS that I also bought new and drove for 6 years, and that was butter smooth. One thing I can agree on is there is absolutely no need for the 7th gear.

blueray16

If anyone read the entire thread to this point they should be convinced that the M7 in the C7 is a gem. My experience over 70k miles confirms this. Even in traffic the great LT1 low end torque will reduce the number of shifts necessary. Clutch engagement just feels right.
As for the 7th gear, it is nice on the interstates where, honest calculated gas mileage will see 27+ mpg all day long.
Rev match, if you are so inclined, is flawless and hill assist, while not necessary for most drivers familiar with standard trannys, is unobtrusive and even convenient.

Only negative in my mind is the universally hated skip shift feature which is easily and permanently eliminated with a simple plug in eliminator for less than $100.

ersatz928

- Ist gear takeoffs are iffy (stalling/stumble) due to the poor off-idle airflow response of the stock throttle body. The aftermarket Soler throttlebody fixes 80% of this issue. Some people also report improved off-idle throttle response by installing the latest revised throttle pedal/sensor unit. In comparison, driving my C5 M6 was mindless around town....the C7 needs much more attention during 1st gear takeoffs, or reversing.

- Some of these M7 transmissions (mine) have poor synchro operation of the 2nd gear, resulting in some slight gear clash/crunch when shifting with a warm transmission. When cold, some 2nd gear engagement gear crunch, and/or additional shifting effort is normal, with many manual transmissions. Hot gear crunch is NOT normal.

- The addition of the CAGS Skip-Shift eliminator is highly recommended, about $10 and 10 minutes of your time.

sgt1372

THIS^ is my only gripe about the 7MT in my Z51.

Also agree w/a prior comment that 7th gear is useless. I've never used it but that's not a relevant complaint unless it has affected the gear ratios used from 1-6. BTW, I've almost never used 6th gear either; at least not on the highway where I find cruising in 5th works the best.

Otherwise, I have no issues w/the trans or the clutch in my car.

jimmbbo

IMO most M7 owners bought them because they prefer doing their own shifting, so any "inconveniences" are moot.

• C7 clutch and throttle coordination from a stop is mushy and indistinct and not befitting a $65k+ sports car. Clutch forces are medium-light. Many M7 owners to add a throttle body and/or controller. After adding a Soler TB and TC the clutch and throttle response is what it should have been out of the factory.
• No issues driving around town - been driving manual trans cars for decades and it's just muscle memory. It gets annoying when stuck in stop and go freeway traffic, but not to the point of wanting an A8.
• For me it's normal, so not a concern