[Mark R]

This car, performance-wise and appearance-wise, is everything I was hoping it would be. Sleek, beautiful, powerful, with great features and such. Every time I get into it, it is a special experience and real sense of occasion. But I have to gripe a little bit about the build quality, and some engineering elements that I think are really puzzling.

First, build quality, and as reference, my car was built in May of 2018: headliner too short at windshield, A/C fan switch not working all the time, covered in mud when arrived at dealer, top of supercharger lid corroded on the machined aluminum areas, stabilizer bar ends needed nuts replaced due to clunk at low speed. Not a great track record for the first 500 miles.

Engineering: Thankfully, GM put the money in the right places, building a great drive train and transmission and overall great car. Also, thankfully, the places where they blew it are easy to fix in the aftermarket: The lack of a catch can type of device to prevent intake valve build up. And in researching the reason why my car felt fairly unstable at high speed, I found the rear suspension components pretty spindly and wobbly. (See BMR YouTube videos of the suspension twisting under load). I ended up ordering a BMR rear suspension setup with cradle bushings and various suspension arms to fix that. Not a long list of upgrades, but significant, I think.

Every vehicle has weak spots that the aftermarket provides fixes for. Motorcycles and high performance cars are no exception, and every motorcycle I own has many upgraded suspension and other parts on them.

Thus, upgrading the Camaro here and there seems reasonable. GM had to hit a price point, and this is surely the greatest performance car value of this decade, but it’s not really ready for prime time as it comes from the factory, IMHO.

Just my 2 cents.

Mark R.
Albuquerque, NM

[TRZ06]

Originally Posted by Mark R

This car, performance-wise and appearance-wise, is everything I was hoping it would be. Sleek, beautiful, powerful, with great features and such. Every time I get into it, it is a special experience and real sense of occasion. But I have to gripe a little bit about the build quality, and some engineering elements that I think are really puzzling.

First, build quality, and as reference, my car was built in May of 2018: headliner too short at windshield, A/C fan switch not working all the time, covered in mud when arrived at dealer, top of supercharger lid corroded on the machined aluminum areas, stabilizer bar ends needed nuts replaced due to clunk at low speed. Not a great track record for the first 500 miles.

Engineering: Thankfully, GM put the money in the right places, building a great drive train and transmission and overall great car. Also, thankfully, the places where they blew it are easy to fix in the aftermarket: The lack of a catch can type of device to prevent intake valve build up. And in researching the reason why my car felt fairly unstable at high speed, I found the rear suspension components pretty spindly and wobbly. (See BMR YouTube videos of the suspension twisting under load). I ended up ordering a BMR rear suspension setup with cradle bushings and various suspension arms to fix that. Not a long list of upgrades, but significant, I think.

Every vehicle has weak spots that the aftermarket provides fixes for. Motorcycles and high performance cars are no exception, and every motorcycle I own has many upgraded suspension and other parts on them.

Thus, upgrading the Camaro here and there seems reasonable. GM had to hit a price point, and this is surely the greatest performance car value of this decade, but it’s not really ready for prime time as it comes from the factory, IMHO.

Just my 2 cents.

Mark R.
Albuquerque, NM

Suspension/stability issues are fixed if you ordered the 1LE

[Zl1+911]

OP can you educate me on what suspension parts specifically you changed? And any results? Thx

[Mark R]

Originally Posted by Zl1+911

OP can you educate me on what suspension parts specifically you changed? And any results? Thx

These are on order. Installation soon.

BK063 Rear Cradle Bushing lock Out Kit

TCA059 Lower Trailing Arms, Poly Non-adjustable

UTCA058 Upper Trailing Arms, Poly Non-adjustable

UTCA061 Upper Control Arms, Poly Non-adjustable

SUL-41150 Super-Lube Grease for use with poly bushings

[Mark R]

Originally Posted by TRZ06

Suspension/stability issues are fixed if you ordered the 1LE

I understand that, but I wanted the Automatic, and I'm not tracking the car.

[collinms]

Originally Posted by Mark R

This car, performance-wise and appearance-wise, is everything I was hoping it would be. Sleek, beautiful, powerful, with great features and such. Every time I get into it, it is a special experience and real sense of occasion. But I have to gripe a little bit about the build quality, and some engineering elements that I think are really puzzling.

First, build quality, and as reference, my car was built in May of 2018: headliner too short at windshield, A/C fan switch not working all the time, covered in mud when arrived at dealer, top of supercharger lid corroded on the machined aluminum areas, stabilizer bar ends needed nuts replaced due to clunk at low speed. Not a great track record for the first 500 miles.

Engineering: Thankfully, GM put the money in the right places, building a great drive train and transmission and overall great car. Also, thankfully, the places where they blew it are easy to fix in the aftermarket: The lack of a catch can type of device to prevent intake valve build up. And in researching the reason why my car felt fairly unstable at high speed, I found the rear suspension components pretty spindly and wobbly. (See BMR YouTube videos of the suspension twisting under load). I ended up ordering a BMR rear suspension setup with cradle bushings and various suspension arms to fix that. Not a long list of upgrades, but significant, I think.

Every vehicle has weak spots that the aftermarket provides fixes for. Motorcycles and high performance cars are no exception, and every motorcycle I own has many upgraded suspension and other parts on them.

Thus, upgrading the Camaro here and there seems reasonable. GM had to hit a price point, and this is surely the greatest performance car value of this decade, but it’s not really ready for prime time as it comes from the factory, IMHO.

Just my 2 cents.

Mark R.
Albuquerque, NM

I installed a ported throttle body yesterday and noticed there was zero oil in the intake tube nor on the throttle body. I am in the boat that the catch can is not needed. My prior car was a gen 2 CTSV and that would have oil all up in there. My car has 3800 miles btw.

[DangerZL1]

Mark, sorry to hear about the short headliner. It doesn't make sense that this problem hasn't gone away. Come on GM! Replacement requires removing the windshield, but I'd be disappointed too. Haven't read about the AC switch problems. I'd take it back in when the first oil change is due and have them order a headliner and look at the switch.

How the car got covered in mud has me envisioning the transport driver off roading with a car load of Camaros, Larry the Cable guy style.

[DANACO]

Originally Posted by DangerZL1

Mark, sorry to hear about the short headliner. It doesn't make sense that this problem hasn't gone away. Come on GM! Replacement requires removing the windshield, but I'd be disappointed too. Haven't read about the AC switch problems. I'd take it back in when the first oil change is due and have them order a headliner and look at the switch.

How the car got covered in mud has me envisioning the transport driver off roading with a car load of Camaros, Larry the Cable guy style.

Seriously, the windshield has to be removed to change out the headliner ? I wanted to cover mine in Alcantra, but hat ain’t happening if the windshield has to come out.

[camaro5]

Originally Posted by Mark R

First, build quality, and as reference, my car was built in May of 2018: headliner too short at windshield, A/C fan switch not working all the time, covered in mud when arrived at dealer, top of supercharger lid corroded on the machined aluminum areas, stabilizer bar ends needed nuts replaced due to clunk at low speed. Not a great track record for the first 500 miles.

The headliners are sometimes short in the front, sometimes sides;
Lansing just keeps shipping them out. Shabby GM management. They know, they just don't care enough to return defective parts to the mfr.

Windshield must be removed.

They break most times, and dealers don't stock them.

Here's the kicker: The replacement headliners are just as bad or worse much of time. Random suck.

One poster recommends dealer have a stack of headliners to choose from to get 1 good one.


Stab. bar end links are another shabby issue that has never been resolved.
Properly torquing the new style nuts, even with loctite and nordlock washers does not work for long.
The mounting hole for the stud is too large and slops back and forth (CLUNK!) sooner or later no matter what.
Solution: All the above with thin-wall bushings to take up the slop.

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by Mark R

This car, performance-wise and appearance-wise, is everything I was hoping it would be. Sleek, beautiful, powerful, with great features and such. Every time I get into it, it is a special experience and real sense of occasion. But I have to gripe a little bit about the build quality, and some engineering elements that I think are really puzzling.

First, build quality, and as reference, my car was built in May of 2018: headliner too short at windshield, A/C fan switch not working all the time, covered in mud when arrived at dealer, top of supercharger lid corroded on the machined aluminum areas, stabilizer bar ends needed nuts replaced due to clunk at low speed. Not a great track record for the first 500 miles.

Headliner: Although mine doesn't have that problem I have been hearing about this with other 6th Gen owners. Perhaps it was a quality control issue or an oversight in the design. I don't know. But it seems like something that should be covered in the warranty or at least reimbursed.

A/C: Again, I have not experienced this. And I haven't seen this with others. So it seems like a warranty issue again. Mass produced vehicles will always have a handful of them with problems that are not common and this seems like one of those. I would bring it in and have it taken care of.

Mud: The dealership should have detailed the car for you. There is no way they should have had you come up there to see your new car when it was covered in mud...unless you were already there as it arrived. If that was the case then that is out of their control but they still should have detailed it before you drove off. So it basically sounds to me like they took your car out and had some fun in it before you arrived to pick it up. All in all, very disrespectful. I would bring it up to the manager and tell him how disappointing this is.

Supercharger lid: I would not ping them for this if that was a sole issue. But with everything else that you mentioned this would piss me off. They should at least order a new one. It wouldn't cost the dealership a dime. After seeing how badly everything went, they should have offered to fix this one minor problem for you.

Stabilizer bar: This would drive me nuts. It should be repaired under warranty.

It sounds to me like you need to make a list of these things and bring it in and tell them you want it all fixed within a reasonable amount of time. And after that I would not keep this particular car after it's warranty is up. With all these problems within the first 500 miles you have no idea what will happen at 5 or 50 thousand miles. And if they were out abusing it within the break in period then there could be other issues as well. You're paying for this car so have them fix these problems.

[mlee]

Originally Posted by Mark R

I understand that, but I wanted the Automatic, and I'm not tracking the car.

Good choice and great review!!

The ZL1 A10 is hard to beat... on the track too.

[GT-ER]

I totally agree with this. My car has had a loose driver's side mirror (made a lot of wind noise), a loose passenger side AC vent (rattles like crazy), two loose bolts on radiator support cover (no ill effects, but the bolts were completely backed out about to fall off) and a wiper bolt cover fell off and disappeared.

Crazy stuff.

[Fraxum]

We will have to disagree about spindly and wobbly. There is some slight bushing compression under full power but hardly noticeable. At least up to 130 mph.

Harder bushings will stiffen things up a little but you will experience more NVH with those parts. Nothing wrong with doing that but there is nothing that needs fixing on the stock ZL1. Most of just desire a little more power, of course. But what you are feeling might be a fixable tire/balance/alignment problem.

Hope you get it sorted OP.

[Boost or bust]

Originally Posted by Mark R

This car, performance-wise and appearance-wise, is everything I was hoping it would be. Sleek, beautiful, powerful, with great features and such. Every time I get into it, it is a special experience and real sense of occasion. But I have to gripe a little bit about the build quality, and some engineering elements that I think are really puzzling.

First, build quality, and as reference, my car was built in May of 2018: headliner too short at windshield, A/C fan switch not working all the time, covered in mud when arrived at dealer, top of supercharger lid corroded on the machined aluminum areas, stabilizer bar ends needed nuts replaced due to clunk at low speed. Not a great track record for the first 500 miles.

Engineering: Thankfully, GM put the money in the right places, building a great drive train and transmission and overall great car. Also, thankfully, the places where they blew it are easy to fix in the aftermarket: The lack of a catch can type of device to prevent intake valve build up. And in researching the reason why my car felt fairly unstable at high speed, I found the rear suspension components pretty spindly and wobbly. (See BMR YouTube videos of the suspension twisting under load). I ended up ordering a BMR rear suspension setup with cradle bushings and various suspension arms to fix that. Not a long list of upgrades, but significant, I think.

Every vehicle has weak spots that the aftermarket provides fixes for. Motorcycles and high performance cars are no exception, and every motorcycle I own has many upgraded suspension and other parts on them.

Thus, upgrading the Camaro here and there seems reasonable. GM had to hit a price point, and this is surely the greatest performance car value of this decade, but it’s not really ready for prime time as it comes from the factory, IMHO.

Just my 2 cents.

Mark R.
Albuquerque, NM

Agreed, but hope you don’t get stranded like some of us due to known oil pump failures.