Odometer

[Crand]

Pulled into the local Target parking lot this morning and noticed a nice round number on the odometer. 2013 1LE. Lots of miles, still hasn't asploded. I'm going to try to catch it again right when it rolls over to 238,900 because that's a one-way drive to the Moon!

[Chevyjk33]

Dang! That's some impressive mileage on the car (the MOG isn't ad either for a fun machine). How does it feel after all those miles? Anything feel noticeably looser/ worn than new? I have an 09 GMC w/ 150k on it and it still amazes how solid it still feels.

[CamaroDreams76]

Wow. Talk about using the car.

So real question is...... what have you had to do to the car maintenance wise that was out of the ordinary (tires, brakes, oil). Any issues?

I'm at 59998 and I think that's a lot

[Crand]

A couple years ago the parking brake linkage snapped but other than that, no problems at all. I haven't done anything unusual to the car. When it says it wants clean oil, I obey its command. I always use Mobil1 oil and filters. I have two K&N filters, one to run and one to clean since AZ is has a lot of very fine dust. The only non-stock parts on the car are steel braided brake lines, a skip-shift defeater, and ZL1 rocker panels. I don't know if I got lucky with this one or if this is how reliable these cars are now. She feels the same as the first day I took delivery of her. The only things that changed since that day is the new car smell isn't there anymore and the front fascia has a bit of a lean caused by when I was on the highway and a toolbox jumped right out in front of me. Anybody else have any stories of longevity with these cars? Color me impressed

The only mod I've been considering is an aftermarket ECU in order to get rid of that (expletive deleted) hill start ASSist. It's almost killed me twice. Seriously. Killed. Fractions of seconds away from being obliterated because the car didn't react the way the car is supposed to, or even the way this car usually does, when in a time-sensitive situation. Anybody ever drive an Audi A3 from around 2011? They had this transmission problem where they wouldn't move in certain situations and that situation was almost always when accelerating from a stop while making a left turn in front of two 18 wheelers coming at you at 80mph in the rain. This HSA thing is the same. Only misbehaves when I'm in a situation where I need to GTFO. I hate it Why did GM put this stupid thing in a car designed for people who know how to drive a car with three pedals?! I can write about 2000 more words on the subject but I won't be saying anything that hasn't already been said a hundred times before. You get the idea.

Recently I started working on heel-toe shifting and man, that's some fun stuff to do! Makes you feel like you're driving a racecar while going to WalMart to buy diapers. I love this car and I'd have zero reservations about buying another. Well, one reservation, but it's still a great car and I've loved every second behind the wheel.

[Matty Ice]

No need to replace the ECU, just swap a yaw sensor from an automatic. There is a DYI in the DYI section. Or you can disable it by pulling the parking brake up one notch, that's what I do.

[Crand]

Thanks for the info! Looks like I know what I'll be doing next weekend!

Why did I wait 6 years to ask about disabling HSA in here? DOH! Excited to be able to pull into downhill driveways after I get that yaw'r sensor. Any time I have to go to a customer's house with a steep downhill driveway I'll reverse down into it because I can't get back out of the damn thing reversing up a hill. HSA prevents such silly endeavors. HSA also likes to kick in when I'm exiting the grocery store's parking lot. Makes it sound like it's my first day behind the wheel of a car with a manual transmission. So embarrass!

I'm kind of curious how other people drive their cars during casual every-day driving. I typically start out from a dead stop in 1st, shift into 3rd next, then 5th, then 6th when I reach my cruising speed. For a while I was going 2-4-6 because starting in 2nd better matched other cars on the road and every single BMW 3 series wouldn't think I was trying to race them. But sometimes, and it was very rare and would only happen at the WORST possible times, like when showing off, I'd start out in 2nd gear and although it felt like it was meshed, it wasn't fully engaged and as the revs came up it would pop out of gear with a "BANG!" Since my foot was deep into the throttle it would rev up to around 4 or 5 thousand rippm's. I'd yell "CONSARNIT!" and try to slam it back into gear real quick without letting the rotations come back down which then sounds like I'm trying to liberate all the gears in my transmission from being burdened with teeth. This would all happen in the span of about 4 or 5 seconds and if you try to visualize the whole ordeal, you'll realize how insanely embarrassing it is when that happens. So now I'm pretty much 1-3-5-6 when I'm driving casually.

Am I alone or has that sort of thing happened to anyone else?

Oh yeah, because of the miles on my car I've been able to try quite a few different tyres, rotors, and brake pads. I loved the Goodyear Eagle F1's but with the miles I drive they would need to be replaced in less than 12 months. My favourite tyres so far are Michelin Pilot Sport 4S because they're the best mix of grip and wear. I live in AZ so I don't concern myself with cold weather or wet performance. I've tried 4 different brands of rotors and probably 5 or 6 brands of pads. To me, it felt like nothing I ever ran was better than the OEM Brembo pads but one set of them leaves me with rotors below the minimum thickness to resurface. Painful when you do stupid things like send out for a set of Granatelli Racing drilled and slotted rotors. Now I run Autozone rotors and Brembo pads so I can stop good and not feel sad when I throw out the rotors. Since I've always done all my own maintenance on the car I've probably saved myself thousands in labour costs as well as knowing she's never been defiled by another man's wrench. Anybody else have experiences to share regarding consumable parts?

[Matty Ice]

I shift all different ways, depends on traffic. Usually I skip shift, 1st to 3rd. I had a a couple of embarrassing HSA events. I just click up the parking brake now, takes less than a second. It's really hard to improve on the stock brake set up. That is probably the best brake replacement for you since you drive so many miles. You change the diff and tyranny fluids?

[CamaroDreams76]

SRP race pedals. They are amazing. Make heel toe so amazing. I think these car are built to last. Only issue I've had with my car is the liscense plate bulb housing broke (theres a TSB) and was covered under warranty way back when.

[CHRISCAM]

Here in San Diego there are a lot of steep hills that all seem to have stop signs or lights at the top-- just what manual trans drivers want, right?
Anyway, every day I see the HSA light come on, but I just give it a little more gas than would normally be needed and it takes right off. Often spins the tires a little, which prompts drivers around me at the intersections to look like "why is this idiot taking off like that?", but I don't care about that too much.
As far as the shifting in traffic (my 1LE is my daily driver up and down I-5 traffic)-- I often start from 2nd even from a dead stop. Doesn't seem to mind, and it avoids the skip-shift light coming on. That said, I don't know if the original owner maybe disabled the skip-shift lockout feature, but even though the warning light comes on, 2nd gear never seems to get locked out.
Only other minor gripe with the stick has been the aftermarket Shift Dawg shifter ball/ adapter. It has kind of sloppy machining tolerance between the i.d. of the shaft adapter and the o.d. of the stock shifter rod, so it developed a rattle, especially when accelerating in 5th gear. So, I took it off, slathered on some RTV silicone and buttoned it back up. So far, feels great to the touch and no rattles!-- Just a tip for any of you who may be putting up with a similar shifter rattle.

[GONIF]

Nice to see they hold up with miles.