dice1998's 2012 Caprice PPV + 1994 Subaru Dump

[dice1998]

4 month update:

I have done nothing to the car since my post above. I did take the car AutoXing in Palm Beach International and it was really fun in the car:

With living with the car, I did notice some glaring small things that really bug me:

• There are two cup holders, one of which is larger due to the shape of the center console. The other one is unusable for any bottles or cups and is usually hidden under the center arm rest.
• There is nowhere to store my phone when it's plugged in and I'm using it for music. The cup holders are too small for it and the center cubby hole is also too small and thus the phone sticks out and when I shift the car into park or reverse, the lever slams the bottom of the phone.
• Only the passenger-side mirror tilts down - the Lexus spoiled me.
• The transmission, while a very nice GM transmission, is very lurchy from cold start.
• That exhaust butterfly valve slamming open or closed scares me because that's definitely a failure part
• If I get a new phone with no Aux port, i'm kind of screwed because there's no way to use USB music - an issue I would have with the Lexus but at least the aftermarket unit would fit in the same screen space as the factory screen and not be an addon to the top of the dashboard as I've seen in the aftermarket market for my car that doesn't have the iDrive screen.
• I thought with a smaller car and a big engine, my fuel economy would be better. It's not. It's about the same.
• At higher RPM's something, which I'm assuming is the power steering or water pump, whines like a supercharger.
• Lack of parking sensors/backup camera makes me sad panda when parking. As small of a car it is, these drivers here are terrible at parallel parking so it would be nice to have.
• The emergency brake doesn't work (this is my fault )

I really don't want to live with this car for much longer. It drives great and I appreciate it but I don't love it like I did my Lexus. If it was a 135i, maybe I could live with it because the aftermarket base is there instead of the 128 but, at this moment, I'm heavily leaning towards the Aussie-Merican police car or a Camaro SS (5th gen 2SS so I get the parking sensors and backup camera and a Manual Transmission because LS3).

Maybe when this car is paid off in November/December, things will be different, only time will tell.



Or I'm out of the car at the end of this month/next month.

 

[eiriksmil]

Remember the E87 came out in 2004 and was designed in the early 2000s. People were playing music with CDs back then and phones had 2" screens.

Also Germans are not great on cup holders, especially not US standard drinks. Most euro bottles have the same footprint as 12oz Coke cans.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Also Germans are not great on cup holders, especially not US standard drinks.

No doubt, the E46 solution in the U,S. is to install the euro tray, which deletes the cup-holders altogether. They're not bad if the car was an automatic. They're workable in a manual car, but I don't like the interference so I don't use them. And other than the glove-box, there is not much of a place for a water bottle.

 

[Clark]

What do you mean by fuel economy not being better?

I used to be able to get 36-37 mpg (imp) on a sensible motorway run in my 130i, that was a more powerful version of the same engine in a 1500kg 5 door body.

Overall in my time with the car I averaged just over 30mpg which is quite good for that size engine .

 

[dice1998]

What do you mean by fuel economy not being better?

I used to be able to get 36-37 mpg (imp) on a sensible motorway run in my 130i, that was a more powerful version of the same engine in a 1500kg 5 door body.

Overall in my time with the car I averaged just over 30mpg which is quite good for that size engine .

On the highway, I'm averaging about 400 miles to the tank on a 80mph drive. With the Lexus, at the same speed and on the same highway stretch, I was averaging about 420 miles to the tank even though it had a big honking V8 and a lot of weight to carry. That being said, the Lexus also had around a 22 gallon tank to help it's extreme thirst so it did cost me much more to run that car versus the 128.

 

[eiriksmil]

On the highway, I'm averaging about 400 miles to the tank on a 80mph drive. With the Lexus, at the same speed and on the same highway stretch, I was averaging about 420 miles to the tank even though it had a big honking V8 and a lot of weight to carry. That being said, the Lexus also had around a 22 gallon tank to help it's extreme thirst so it did cost me much more to run that car versus the 128.

There is a reason why one should use miles per gallon and not miles per tank, because comparing apples to apples makes more sense than comparing oranges to pineapples.

 

[dice1998]

There is a reason why one should use miles per gallon and not miles per tank, because comparing apples to apples makes more sense than comparing oranges to pineapples.

You're absolutely right.

 

[dice1998]

You're absolutely right.

And so, I rid myself of the BMW and got this:

 

[SVX]

Gorgeous colour.

 

[Doog]

Nice, a V8

 

[zr1chris]

And so, I rid myself of the BMW and got this:

Car looks great! It was good meeting you this past Sunday btw... You should have moved over when the spot beside me opened up lol.

 

[dice1998]

Car looks great! It was good meeting you this past Sunday btw... You should have moved over when the spot beside me opened up lol.
View attachment 869487

Noooo it felt weird since I was technically on my dealer plate and it wasn't officially mine until the next day . It was definitely great meeting you and i really do like your 'vette.

 

[dice1998]

2 week update:

A spoiler has been added to the car by my dealership. They were planning on adding one before I leased it, as well as white stripes (the viper-like ones) but I opted out of it. The spoiler is a factory SS spoiler painted my body color. Pardon the terrible pictures. I'm planning on getting paint correction and Ceramic Coating very soon and I didn't want to pull out my good camera just yet.

You can see on this last picture how bad the dealer-installed swirl package is.

Chevrolet dictates that I should be gentle on the car for 1.500 miles and I just turned over 800 so I'm over halfway there:

That being said, I'm being a little more spirited in my driving but not too rough just yet. I'm excited for my 1,500 mile oil change

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

You spelled Camaro wrong in your thread title. FYI.

 

[Terronium-12]

You spelled Camaro wrong in your thread title. FYI.

Unfortunately, this bonehead did that on purpose.

 

[dice1998]

Unfortunately, this bonehead did that on purpose.

Rude.

 

[Doog]

Rude.

You're supposed to call him an egg too.

 

[dice1998]

You're supposed to call him an egg too.

@Terronium-12 is a rude egg.

I'm 300 miles away from being "broken in" *

*Since Corvettes and 1LE Camaros have a 500 mile period, I felt that around 800-900 miles was enough and have been somewhat rougher with the car since then. Not too rough but rough.

I've been wanting to use my camera and take some really nice pictures but it's been crappy weather all month here or i'm at work so I haven't been able to. I'll get around to it though. Maybe on new year's day if it's great weather since I'm off.

Since driving the car, I've discovered my lower back aches (no lumbar adjustment) and I squirm around a lot more now, my knees also hurt somewhat too, visibility is terrible and it's a gas hog.

I love it.

 

[dice1998]

Update:

Added a GM Performance Intake:

This'll probably be my only performance modification for now unless I figure out I want to keep the car or not.

 

[David]

I'm 300 miles away from being "broken in" *

*Since Corvettes and 1LE Camaros have a 500 mile period, I felt that around 800-900 miles was enough and have been somewhat rougher with the car since then. Not too rough but rough.

I know you’re way past it now but the break in on those cars is still recommended to be about 1500 miles. It’s just that the dry sump cars are supposed to get a very early first oil change at 500 miles.

 

[dice1998]

I know you’re way past it now but the break in on those cars is still recommended to be about 1500 miles. It’s just that the dry sump cars are supposed to get a very early first oil change at 500 miles.

This I didn't know so today I learned (i'm still doing GM training ). I'm currently sitting at 1,800 miles. I'm absolutely loving the car!

 

[dice1998]

So kind-of update.

Still love the car.

Car currently has 2,800 miles on it and took a long trip to Mexico the other day. Learned the top speed for Camaro LT1's is 149mph. It is electronically limited as a message pops up on the info screen in the gauge cluster stating as such. Next time in Mexico, I'll take a picture of it.


Aside from that, the car (as it should since it's a brand new car) has been extremely reliable. I've been beating on this car because, well, it's a gosh darn Camaro with a V8 and it responds in kind asking for more.

 

[dice1998]

I haven't done anything major to the car to report. Only thing since last post is I had it professionally detailed including a paint correction and added a graphene coat to "seal" it.

I just wanted to make a post to show it off.

 

[Brutaka]

I haven't done anything major to the car to report. Only thing since last post is I had it professionally detailed including a paint correction and added a graphene coat to "seal" it.

I just wanted to make a post to show it off.

I gotta say you're really doing the Camaro justice, I am loving that green 👍

If I had the opportunity to get one of that Generation I would get your same spec in Silver, no rear spoiler.

 

[dice1998]

I gotta say you're really doing the Camaro justice, I am loving that green 👍

If I had the opportunity to get one of that Generation I would get your same spec in Silver, no rear spoiler.

The ONLY thing I wish I took instead of what I have now is the 6 speed Manual vs the 10 speed auto. The 10 speed is really nice though.

 

[dice1998]

Couple of things have happened in the last few months. Firstly, I've learned the top speed of my car:

This was done in a safe environment in Mexico away from any civilization, The car felt completely stable too.


I have also purchased tickets to Palm Beach International raceway to take the car to a track event. I don't plan on beating on the car as I won't have the correct tires and no nothing about the track. I'll be there to have fun, mostly.

 

[dice1998]

Couple of things have happened in the last few months. Firstly, I've learned the top speed of my car:

This was done in a safe environment in Mexico away from any civilization, The car felt completely stable too.


I have also purchased tickets to Palm Beach International raceway to take the car to a track event. I don't plan on beating on the car as I won't have the correct tires and no nothing about the track. I'll be there to have fun, mostly.

It's been a while. That track event in PBIR ended up cancelled due to ongoing COVID. The city of Palm Beach wouldn't allow the track to open during that time. I was stoked to do the event too and went out and bought a GoPro Hero 8 and external microphone.

Fast forward to last week, I decided I need to do a track event. I thought about if I should keep the car bone stock or invest in tires. I *really* wasn't confident with the factory-equipped all-season run flat tires the car came with so I went out and bought time tires:

Continental ExtremeContact Sport. What's neat about the LT1 Camaros versus 1SS/2SS/1LE/ZL1 variants is that I don't have a staggered tire setup. The LT1's are equipped with the same 245/40 tires for 20in wheels which means:

• I can perform tire rotations
• Tires are cheaper overall

After having them installed, I felt immensely more confident in the car and was happy. I also have been waiting on an exhaust part covered under warranty as my factory exhaust had this terrible rattle at low speeds like the catalytic converter was melted. That came in day-of the event and was able to have it installed.

On to the meat of this post: Palm Beach International Raceway AutoCross.

I have only done this event once before in the BMW which was an awesome experience. My goal coming into this is learn the car and better my time from when I had the BMW. It rained right before the event started so the track was still soaked:



(That's my buddy's C5. 2002 Z51. Has about 275k miles on it. runs like a champ)

It was a little weird doing this course in the Camaro. The car wants to put the power down but I couldn't without the car wanting to break loose:



As the night wore on and more laps were put down, the track eventually started drying up and I was able to put down times below 60 seconds which excited me. Here's the final few runs I was able to record before my GoPro ran out of juice:




Best time I ran: 55.658 seconds. I beat my 128i time and that was good enough for me. My class included my buddy's corvette, a big body chevy that always lays down the law (it won 8cyl NA, my class), another LT1 and, funnily enough, a Tesla Model S...

I have a dashboard cam video of the flying lap but I'm currently too lazy to go get it off of the camera. I'll do it eventually.

TL;DR: Took the car to an AutoX event, had fun. Didn't mess with tire pressure or anything. Drove it how I took it home and brought it to the track.

 

[dice1998]

And so, while I had equity in the Camaro, I have given the car up. I have future goals and this vehicle will help me get there:

2021 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. Little 4 banger diesel would make this my first experience with:

• Trucks
• High ground clearance
• Diesel
• Practicality

I am genuinely stoked to learn more about this truck's limits and how I can have fun with it!

 

[wfooshee]

I was reading this thread with interest, right up to the truck...

Actually, I was going to contribute my Camaro thoughts, as while on a jobsite in Texas this week, Enterprise did not have a car in the category I rented so I got a Camaro V6 convertible.

I wouldn't buy that color, it's called "Shock." I didn't find myself as uncomfortable in the car as you seemed to be, except that the stinking floor underfoot is really really lumpy! The V6 is stronger than I expected, and VERY smooth, as 60-degree V6s will be. I was astonished to look it up and find it rated at 335 HP!

One thing that would almost definitely turn me away from the car were I looking at one to buy, just for longevity concerns, is the fact the the windows drop an inch when you open the doors. Pull the handle, windows drop, open door. Except that's not the sequence you get. Pull the handle, open the door, window catches on the roof as the door opens because nobody waits that half-second after pulling on the handle to actually open the door. I don't know if that's a convertible-only thing because the top's different. Also, I can't get in and out without a severe rub on the seat's side bolster, which means there's gonna be a hole there in a few years.

But with the rental rate I had and getting this as a free upgrade, I'm not going to complain. Too much.

 

[dice1998]

I was reading this thread with interest, right up to the truck...

Actually, I was going to contribute my Camaro thoughts, as while on a jobsite in Texas this week, Enterprise did not have a car in the category I rented so I got a Camaro V6 convertible.

I wouldn't buy that color, it's called "Shock." I didn't find myself as uncomfortable in the car as you seemed to be, except that the stinking floor underfoot is really really lumpy! The V6 is stronger than I expected, and VERY smooth, as 60-degree V6s will be. I was astonished to look it up and find it rated at 335 HP!

One thing that would almost definitely turn me away from the car were I looking at one to buy, just for longevity concerns, is the fact the the windows drop an inch when you open the doors. Pull the handle, windows drop, open door. Except that's not the sequence you get. Pull the handle, open the door, window catches on the roof as the door opens because nobody waits that half-second after pulling on the handle to actually open the door. I don't know if that's a convertible-only thing because the top's different. Also, I can't get in and out without a severe rub on the seat's side bolster, which means there's gonna be a hole there in a few years.

But with the rental rate I had and getting this as a free upgrade, I'm not going to complain. Too much.

I wasn't uncomfortable at all with my camaro! It actually was really comfortable when I was used to it and my back really did stop hurting. The coupes were the same where the windows drop an inch when you pull the handle. Going in and out of the car so much, I had no issues or worry with the glass. Getting in and out, what I did, was step into the car and drop in. A little less graceful but it helped!