Break in your new ZL1
 

The unfortunate reality is that I believe when most people go on a test drive with a new performance vehicle the test drives include wide open throttle acceleration. A few years ago I went to the local Ford dealer and test drove a new Mustang GT. The car had 60 miles on the odometer. The sales guy took it out for the warm up before he turned it over to me. Some dealers have rules that a sales person has to drive it off the lot prior to turning it over to the customer. He floored it a few times taking it to red line before I got to drive it. I'm sure the previous 60 miles were similar.

Ya I would imagine most cars with more than 10 miles on them have had this happen. This is also the biggest reason why I haven't bought used in a while... don't know how well it was treated during the start.

Nice video, I for one always follow the manufacturer 's breakin. I myself like to have a warranty as long as possible because once you mod the engine there is no warranty.

Tell that to Hennessy, with his idiotic attitude about break in.

And the WORST people, are salesmen who do and allow prospects to abuse the car so then sell a car. I've seen cars that have been paid for by customer and before delivery, sales manage and sales guys rape the car, since it's already sold. That's your # 1 enemy, the dealership.

when the C6 Z06 came out and a friend bought one that had 66 miles on it when he went to pick it up. This car was ordered and purchased before it was even delivered to dealer.

Shortly after he picked it up, he noticed low oil light would come on. Dealer told him it's normal and to add more oil during break in. That problem continued to show up and the car would hesitate at certain RPMs and the same dealer he bought from, told him "it's normal".
He finally took it to another dealer, which they found out the engine was loosing compression on two cylinders. Since it was a new car, dealer actually ended up sending the car back to GM for further examination. GM opened up the engine and found out due to massive redlining in the early millage (as the computer had recorded it, before the car was delivered to customer, perhaps burnouts) it had rings and inside of cylinder wall damages.

[Be sure to have dealer state on your purchase document the millage that is on the car at the time you pick up your car]

After one month of agony, GM ended up replacing the engine on his Z06 that was paid for at the time of ordering and once the car was delivered to dealership, it was fully abused.

Wow that's insane... I would have been super pissed, but then again if it had 66 miles on a new car I wouldn't have gotten it either.

He called me that day, and I told him not to accept it. But since the car was paid for already (another big mistake to fully pay for a car that you haven't seen yet), the car was technically his, as dealer had told him, and dealer told him he has to accept and drive it away from the lot.

There was another guy here on the forum that when he picked up his ZL1, the exhaust tip was fully black. I asked him how many miles the car had when he picked it up and said 39. The black exhaust tip, was a good indication the car had been driven in high RPM to gets black smoke.
Anything over 5 miles, I wouldn't touch.

Actually it's not yours until it's titled in your name. That's how some dealers will let you take delivery and give you like 7 days to bring it back. They were just being shit heads and that should have been the first red flag. Making him pay upfront. He should have walked away then.

At my dealer if a car comes in factory order it get's taken off the truck to service for PDI and then to detail and finally to the showroom until the customer arrives. Dealers like these make my job way harder because no one trusts us as. The sketchy dealers make everyone else look bad as well.

I agree... My friend was a sucker from the start and he got rammed... :doh:

Generally smaller dealers where the owner is in charge, unlike those large chain dealers where sales is # of priority, the small dealers seem to be more careful. It's the large ones, that you need to watch out for.

But I tell you, in 40 years of driving and car buying, Chevy dealers had been the worst from sales to service dept. You take an $80K Z06 to service dept. and they treat it like a pickup truck, from the moment a high school kid drives your car away, till it is returned back to you. And you have to keep an eye on it, not to take your performance car for a joy ride.

just reading this thread made my blood pressure jump.

Yeah...good stuff. I'll be bending the GM & salesman's ear when the time is right.

I'll admit, I don't have much experience in other dealerships than Dodge (help)...but I've been to 4-6 different Chevy dealers...and some are worse than others. Never had to deal with a joyride situation...and the advisors made sure that the kids who took the car away for service knew how to drive stick, and treat Camaros and Corvettes with respect.

On the other hand...one of them refused to change my brake fluid...and another almost rotated my 1LE's wheels...

Win some, you lose some. :iono:

But I don't typically trust anybody with my stuff anyways, so I always enact some oversight.