C5 Corvette Buyer's Guide: Which years are the BEST?
Video Transcript [Music] hello everybody welcome back to lyle's first podcast of 2021. it's been a uh interesting year so far let's just talk about corvettes because they're so much fun than everything else going on in the world okay today's talk uh i'm actually going to do a series of these videos uh they're going to be relatively short but i'm going to provide a lot of information in a very short period of time the question i get most frequently when people call in here is i'm looking to buy a c4 a c5 a c6 what's the best year to buy now that's a difficult question to answer so normally i give a range of years before i even go into today's topic with which is going to be what is the best c5 to buy this is not an indictment of the cars that i'm saying not to buy if i say that i'd avoid a 98 it doesn't mean that i don't love you and your 98 because 98s are wonderful for cars too i am speaking specifically to the person who doesn't already own a car and i'm trying to guide them through the buying process the selection process to weed out possible future problems so please understand any cars that i say hey avoid this car it doesn't mean that yours isn't a good car it just means that this person being new to the hobby should probably try to find something that doesn't have the problems inherent with that particular car that said let's get started with what is the best c5 to buy and why so c5 97 to o4 corvettes didn't change a whole lot in the entire run they pretty much looked identical other than exterior wise other than wheels and exhaust they didn't change interior wise at all other than having a couple of different colors available early on and then the special editions in 03 and o4 so you're getting a very consistent product throughout the run of c5 which is nice because parts availability and everything else is going to be better than cars like the c4 where they had three different interiors and two different sets of body panels and and and so c97 to o4 c5s if you're in the market to buy a c5 here's what i recommend you want to avoid 97 through 2000 cars not that there's anything wrong with those cars many of them are still on the road many of them are wonderful cars however they had some systemic problems inherent to those years that are all but unsolvable the big one being the abs module or ebcm the brain that controls traction control active handling if you have it and abs those modules were built by bosch and they are constructed in such a way that taking them apart to rebuild them to fix bad solders to do that thing is very very difficult to do without completely destroying them nobody to my knowledge nationally has a consistent record of reliably rebuilding those units they have not been produced brand new for well over a decade bosch has told us to our faces when we ask them at sema they will never make them again so if your abs system goes bad if your module goes bad you're looking at spending somewhere between twelve and eighteen hundred dollars for a used module that's going to have a 30 to 60 day warranty that's it not a great investment so any cars that have an inherent problem that could happen to you two weeks after you buy your car i'm going to steer you away from only because i don't want to see you end up having a vehicle you can't enjoy to the fullest that said that leaves us with the 01 to the o4 corvettes now the 01 to o4s had a completely different electronic brake control module completely different system most of which is a hundred percent rebuildable ninety percent of the time so if you have a problem with those systems there are fixes available and they aren't ridiculously expensive the thing you want to be careful of in the 01 to the 04 versions are the 03 and 04 cars that have the f55 magnetic suspension here's why the magnetic shocks are a fantastic achievement they were so good that ferrari actually paid to borrow the technology on their own cars they're that good the problem is they don't live long those shock absorbers began leaking i think the warranty on them ended at 36 000 miles i think they started leaking at 36 000 3 miles and if your car has less miles than that on it but is over 10 years old which at this point they all are they're probably already leaking in the 2003 you can actually go in with a gm tech 2 computer and you can program out the f55 option convince the car it never existed it didn't come from the factory that way you can put regular shocks back on the car go down the road solve the problem no real issues takes about half an hour to do the 2004 specifically and that includes the le mans commemorative cars which are very popular and carry quite a premium any of those cars with the f55 suspension in 2004 your only option when those shocks begin to leak is to go back to gm and buy new f55 shocks they are not made in the aftermarket and they run anywhere from 550 to 750 a piece depending on who has them in stock and where you find them that's frustrating when you have to dump between the initial cost of the parts and the labor i mean you're talking three four grand in shocks just to solve a simple problem so if you buy a 2004 that doesn't have the f55 you don't have to worry about this but 2004 is equipped with f55 suspension will only accept f55 suspension 2000 one in 2002 cars you can buy the simulators that go in plug in at all four corners of the car and convince the car hey everything's fine no worries and you can put regular shocks on the car perfect you can't use those on an o3 you can program it out and you can't use the simulators or program it out on an 04 so those are things you want to be careful of as with any car purchase i have people call me saying hey i found this car with 9 000 miles on it into 2002 and it's perfect should i have any problems in the future my answer that is yes because the car hasn't been driven in the manner it was built to be driven in so a lot of the things that the an owner who would have put 50 60 70 000 miles in the last 18 or 20 years onto the car would have addressed as they wore out dried out broke failed whatever in a car with only 9 000 miles that gets driven once a weekend maybe if you're going to start driving that car with any kind of regularity you can expect that you're going to have a lot of maintenance to do on things that are going to wear out the more and more you drive the car uh you know a 9 000 mile 20 year old car is taking that and saying okay i'm going to make this my daily driver because it's perfect is a lot like saying i'm going to take this really nice 80 year old man i know who sits in his couch and watches golf all day and we're going to start training for a marathon tomorrow well that 80 year old man is going to have some problems as you start moving forward because he's not used to it so be forewarned in sum i would personally if i was in the market for a c5 be looking for an o1 to an o4 with special attention paid to the 01 to o2s because they're going to be slightly less expensive and they're than the 0304 with the special editions and they're not going to have the f55 problem they have an f45 problem but again that can be solved with the simulator as i mentioned earlier so 01 to o4 is the sweet spot 01 to o2 is the super sweet spot obviously you're going to judge every car on a car by car basis but those are the ones that i would be looking for if i were in the market if you have questions if you have ideas if you have comments on an experience you had buying a c5 you know below you can comment and tell me all about it and i'll happily answer any questions and i'll be interested to hear what your guys experiences have been as you've gone out into the corvette market to find your new baby i look forward to speaking you next week when we're going to talk about sweet spot what c6 i would buy have a great week [Music] so you