"Scraping the Driveway" discussion
 

I am in the process of buying a new home and I am trying to observe hoe steep the driveways are at the curb so that i can minimize scraping (I know that it's just the airdam scraping, but still)

I was wondering if anyone has made modifications to their driveway to alleviate this issue...or any other ideas... Are there certain requirements for the sidewalk?

thanks.

This can be a tough one at times.............

Try entering and exiting your driveway at a 45º angle with the front wheels straight and well as keeping your speed down to a crawl.

Regards,

GSRANDY

just angel your car and you will keep the scrape to a minimum, or you can raise the front end a bit.

I would raise the front on my car if it didn't throw out the alignment, but all said and done it's cheaper to replace the air dam later on.

I've learned to live with it. I've confirmed its just the air dam that scrapes and not the actual nose of the car, so its no big deal to me. I just go slow. I'll replace the air dam when it wears down too far. However I'd never be able to have a ZR1 style front splitter on my car.

One suggestion I have is to look at the crown of the road in front of your driveway. Most of my trouble is due to the downward slope of the road itself due to the crown as it comes into my driveway. It puts the car into a nose down position just as my driveway is ramping upward. If I could do anything to reduce the crown of the road, it would help me a lot. But of course that's not going to happen. As to the actual driveway, most of this involves how much length you have to work with in your driveway. If you can move the house further back from the street to give you more driveway length, then you can make the transitions more gradually. Lastly, some neighborhoods have standard curbs with nice low driveway entrances. Others use the intermediate curbs everywhere so they don't have to try to match the location of the curb to where the driveway is put. For this case, there are products sold that will help bridge the intermediate curbs so they aren't so abrupt.

- Mark

these would be a great "safety" piece to install even if you do the 45 degree angle, which is the best method

http://www.westcoastcorvette.com/p-7...0-c6-only.aspx

You should see the ones out West, I don't know how those guys get their Vettes over them. I was scraping my family sedan on them.

Dont worry about wearing down the rubber air dam. As long as you arnt grinding down the plastic nose of the car. My rubber air dam rubs every day and I dont give a crap.

If the house is cool, ferget about it.....

This might work, little pricey
http://www.griotsgarage.com/product/...curb+bridge.do

:iagree:

The air dam on these cars is *tough*. My wife's car is *low* so that the air dam was scraping over all sorts of stuff for a couple of years (maybe 20k miles.) She'd finally had enough of everyone turning to stare at her when she drive in/out of a modest driveway so I crawled under there to trim the dam back a bit and I was amazed to find that the thing had barely been affected by years/miles of scraping! I was stunned by how good the condition of the dam was.

So, as long as you don't mind the occasional attention then I say just live with it. If you haven't lowered the car much (or at all) it really won't be a big deal anyway. It doesn't hurt anything and even if you have to replace the thing every 60k miles (which I doubt) the parts are *cheap*.

Z//

Not really a solution. If your car is so low it scrapes, then anything you add to the bottom will make contact even sooner - thus those places where you wouldn't normally have a problem will now scrape.

My car is very very low and the air damn scrapes now and then. So what? I just got used to it and take my time.

we all scrape everywhere we go and deal with it... its part of having the corvette. What i am saying is that if his driveway really is that much of an issue and he actually hits metal when coming in and going out, rolling over it would be a better option than not doing anything :thumbs:

Don't modify your driveway, make some ramps out of 2X12's :thumbs:

I really hate getting in and out of my driveway.

http://www.beforethearchitect.com/im...nstruction.jpg

The 45 degree angle thing works as well as anything for me, and like they said, it's only the flexible rubber part that scrapes anyway, just keep it SLOW!! I've got a new house too, and they're pretty much all like that. Griot's Garage does make an insert for the rain gutter at the end of your driveway, I may look into that myself.

I took my corners off, they would have been ground to dust anyway. Took care of my problem. I don't drive 190, so I've noticed no ill effects on highway stability, fuel economy, or braking.

Mine rarely scrapes and I am lowered .75"

My GS never scraps anything. Im very careful though. My 2002 TA scraps alot though even while being careful. Its lowered 2 inches though.

I looked into all of this before I bought my second vette. But I just leave and enter my driveway at an angle and in reverse (read: I back into it with no problems.) It's just cheaper not to modify the driveway, and since I live in a regular neighborhood there might be some restrictions including if you use those rubber ramps at the base of your driveway. Obviously, your mileage may differ. But if you don't have too steep of a driveway, you might just backup into it if it has one those driveway gutters that seem to be so common in most newer neighborhoods...

My C5 and C6 daily drivers rubbed or rub twice a day almost every single day for 6 years each. And I never had to replace any dam air dam!