Anyone have a older 2010+ Camaro or 2008+ Challenger? (son's daily driver needed)
 

I couldn't be prouder! :-) :beers: My son wants to upgrade from his '06 Honda Civic to a 2010 to 2015 Camaro, or 2008 to 2013 Challenger. Anyone out there have a low-priced, dependable driver quality example they want to see in the hands of a next generation enthusiast?

We drove 65 miles to look at a nice 2011 Camaro V6 this morning - great un-hit body and interior. They started it and we could immediately hear the cracked catalytic converter and a weird clicking sound coming from the back of one of the valve covers. Passed on that one. Of course the dealer said "I have no idea what you mean? Our mechanic goes over everything and if he heard that he would have fixed it"

...Yeah your mechanic heard it, he probably told you about it... and you didn't want to spend a couple thosand dollars on a new exhaust with the built-in cats. (Not to even mention the clicking variable cam timer that's going bad...)

Oh well, anyone have anything out there?

The boy prefers an automatic (oh, the shame)

So we found one!

The boy has been doing all the research on the various car selling sites. We looked at a white 75,000 mile, 2011 Camaro LT V6 on Saturday that was 65 miles away in Southern NJ. We get there and it is housed inside with their other cars in a boutique dealership. Nice layout. The body and interior are perfect. They get the car outside and when they start it up I immediately hear a problem. There is at least one busted catalytic converter. You can hear the leak from the cracked weld. And also there is a clicking sound from the back of one of the valve covers - a failing variable cam solenoid most likely. We take it out for a test drive and you cant not hear the exhaust leak(s). After the drive we go back inside and I tell the owner about it. He says: "We have a local mechanic who checks out all our cars and fixes whatever is needed. He doesn't work for us so he has no vested interest in underreporting".

Sounds logical but there is no way he couldn't have noticed the noises. What me and the boy deduce is that the mechanic told them about the problems but that they were so expensive to fix, it would have added $2,000 to the price and cut into their profit margin, big time. I was so proud of my son when he said "You got to know when to walk away". :-)

We get home and he goes back to the web and expands his search to 200 miles. He finds a bunch of cars in Virginia. UGH! One in particular is a 2014 Camaro LT V6 in Blue Ray metallic (An almost black color with heavy blue metallic tint). It has 85,000 miles. Carfax checks out with the local Virginia Chevy dealer oil change visits every 3000 months since new, and zero collision history. It was a local car with two local owners that a Dodge dealer took in on trade in May. It has been at the Dodge dealership for almost two months so they were losing money on it it with their floorplan financing eating away at any profit margin.

We drive 225 miles on Monday and get there. It was a very nice car. Nice dealership though they tried their best to pull the usual price add-ons. They tried to convince me there was a $1000 coupon that ADDS $1000 if you don't finance. You gotta be kidding me? - raising the price if you pay cash??? LOL

We told them in no uncertain terms that was a deal breaker. So they got rid of that but we couldn't remove the $399 Lojack unit that they install in every car. I told them to remove it but they wouldn't budge on that one. In the end we got the car for $250 less than the asking price because it had some minor issues like the tire monitor system was showing a fault (turns out someone replaced all the valve stems with old style rubber valve stems, hence no signal). Needs rear brake pads soon and the front tires were from 2016 and showing age cracks. And it had an aux port for the radio that wouldn't acknowledge a plugged in device. (It turns out that 2010 to 2015 Camaros have a base model radio that only charges a phone through that port and allows phone calls but not music uploading - so we ordered a cheap bluetooth adapter for the cigarette lighter socket)

I drove it back to NJ with the boy following behind in our other car. It's a wonderful car actually and the color is killer! The wife already is plotting to steal it from the boy.

He is quite pleased with himself and his purchase and has now fully drunk the Coolaid when it comes to being a car person. (Mission accomplished)

It got 30 mpg on the trip home. That V6 is rated at 323 hp, has 11.5 to1 compression and runs on regular! Holy crap! Whatsup with this modern technology???

I'll post some photos later today.

That's wonderful, and kudos to your son!!!!

Yes, very cool. One of us, one of us, one of us.

Congrats! Can't wait to see the pics.

My 2010 has been great, should take him a few days to figure out the blind spots, not a big deal. Stock these things have nice build quality.

The V6 version of those is a pretty nice driving car.

As noted, the blind spot... Its like driving a 2 story house looking thru the mail slot.
Make sure he always makes more than a quick glance, because something can be behind the mirror and windshield post for quite some time.

Here she is, right after we bought it, still in the dealer's parking lot in Chantilly Virginia.

Today we added the stick-on blind spot convex mirrors to the outside mirrors, changed the oil, oil filter, air filter, cabin filter, serpentine belt, and pulled an oil sample to send off for analysis. I also ordered the tire pressure sensors from rockauto. They should be here next week so we can then install them and rebalance the tires. And a new set of sparkplugs are coming next week. ACDelco is having all sorts of rebates at the moment on various filters - oil/air/cabin and spark plugs, so I think i basically got all the filters and spark plugs for about 1/2 the actual cost after rebates.

We also pulled the aftermarket tubular grill off the car since they are illegal in NJ if they block the headlights. We ordered a new black bowtie emblem for the grill (the original gold one was removed to install the tubular grill)

Nice!

Good looking ride. Congrats.

Very cool! :headbang:

Sharp car! Congrats!

We had a 2017 Camaro RS convertible V6 and it was a great car for the 2 years we had it. The V6 has a decent amount of HP and it had great pick up, certainly enough for a young person these days. Best of luck with it.

Very nice looking car

Awesome

My first car was a Camaro also. :)

Mine too:

Funny thing is that I was born 7 years before my first Camaro was built. My son has the same age gap with his first Camaro, too!

FWIW these cars are great on snow tires.

I just noticed we got an added bonus: it turns out the car came has a set of 20x8.5 front and 20x9.5 rear, Black Edition, 5 spoke mags off the 6th gen Camaro SS. That is why it has mongo rubber on the car: 275/40ZR20 fronts and 315/35ZR20 rears!

The car originally had the plain aluminum 18" wheels. At least this explains the lack of TPMS sensors in these wheels. They must have left them in the old 18" wheels when they took them off the car.

----Steve,,,Cool wheels. At least your son will be able to clean the wheels easily as there is a ton of clearance around the caliper and spokes!.....Bill S

Yeah. We are waiting for the new rear brake pads to show up. (I accidentally ordered a front set which of course got here in 2 days versus the rears that should be here on Monday, a week later. Sigh

At least the new grill emblem arrived today, as well as a brand new owners manual I found on ebay.

And we solved the blue tooth music problem. We just bought a $26 bluetooth transmiiter that goes in the lighter socket and then relays the music from your phone to your radio on the 88.3 FM position. It works great. Works so good, I'm gonna order another to use in the old cars.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The rear brake pads showed up this morning and the boy and I installed them. It's amazing how interested he is in his car now and wants to do all sorts of stuff to it since the car is "cool" versus his old Honda Civic :-)

BTW we sold the Honda in about 30 seconds for $1200 more than we paid for it 4 years ago. A colleague of mine bought it as a first car for his daughter to drive at college. So we ended up just about breaking even since I spent around $1000 on brakes, shocks, tune up and tires over the years.

Another comical note. My son has been complaining (prior to replacing the rear pads) of a high pitched squeel when the brakes were applied. I thought he was nuts. I couldn't hear it and neither could my wife. My son recorded the noise with his phone. Neither the wife nor I could hear it on the recording either. So we tried an experiment: He played the recording for his sister (she's 26) and is very sensitive to high pitched noises. I told him to play it for her but stand behind her when he did it. I also told him that when the alleged sound came up he was to raise one finger so I knew it was playing even though I couldn't hear it.

Well what do you know? His sister immediately heard the sound and covered her ears at the exact same time he raised his finger. Of course she then yelled at me for letting her brother pull this stunt on her since she immediately got a migraine from the sound.

So the morale of the story is that old people can't hear certain very high frequency noises!

I do remember some news story several years ago about a convenience store playing high pitched mosquito sounds that only teenagers could hear, in order to prevent them from loitering in front of their store.

Looks great! As fun as my '74 Camaro was in high school, it didn't stand a chance against my classmates with the "then-new" 2010+ 5th gen Camaros.

I don't see it mentioned yet, but that car also has a 2014/15 Z28-style spoiler added to it! That really makes the rear look a lot better than stock.

Enjoy it!!

Congrats. I like my 5th gens still. 15 plus year old Technology but still works fine.

We went to my buddy’s garage last night and went to install the new tire sensors but his tire machine won’t handle the 20” rim. We did find out that the rims have sensors already but they are the 430 frequency units for 2016-17, and are not compatible with a 2014 system. So we still need to install the 315 frequency units I bought. I have an appointment with a reputable tire shop to install them and balance the set tomorrow morning.

Oh, and the boy is having fun using that recording of the brake squeal as an “old person detector”. He played it for some coworkers at the office and no one over 35 could hear it.

Congrats on the car purchase! Looks real nice. My fist car was a '63 VW.

Funny trick to play on Sis, but it told you what you wanted to know! And yes, as we get older we lose the higher frequencies. I have a signal generator and now and then I test my hearing. Getting more difficult to hear above 14-15k. Even though I can hear it, the level that I hear it at is reduced. Probably too many times standing near the starting line and in front of too many concert PA systems.

Too many front row seats at those darn Lawrence Welk concerts back in the day! Man he could crank out some mean Polka music!

Success!. I went to the tire place today and they removed the old 430 MHz snsors and installed the 315 MHz sensors. They then removed the old stick-on weights and rebalanced the set. All the wheels then got calibrated according to their position on the car. So all is well now! And it turned 86,000 while I was pulling into the gas station to fill her up.

She sure does drive really nice now.

(and yes they all read 37 psi by the time I got home)

5th gens are good, reliable cars. I just sold my 2015 SS 1LE with 104k miles on it. Only thing I changed on it were brake pads and rotors. Everything else mechanical on that car is factory original. Clutch included. One of the best cars I've ever owned. It was my 4th 5th gen and I would buy another one in a heartbeat.

Like with every other used car, just look for one that you can tell was well taken care of. There are plenty out there that have been ragged out and it's usually pretty easy to spot those.

Good luck!

Those are definitely not the stock size tires for those wheels on a 6th gen. It should have 275/35/20 rear, 245/40/20 front. 315 is way too wide for a stock 9.5" wide rear wheel. Check to see if they have the GM tm and part numbers on them. They could be wider aftermarket replicas. There are a couple of companies that offer wider replicas.

fwiw, the stock ZL1 and SS 1LE rear wheel is a 20x11 and comes with a 305 tire.

Thanks for the tip. I will measure them later today. It does look cool and handles great with those monster tires on it.

Finding this car has kindled my interest in the 5th gen Camaros. I’d love to find an unmolested 2012-2015 ZL1 but it seems they are like 4th gen F bodies - everybody started modifying/abusing them as soon as they drove home from the dealership. There don’t seem to be any nice untouched ones around.

Steve,
In June of 2009 I rented a brand new Camaro on a trip. First drive in the first one I ever saw in the wilds.

For fun at the time, I wrote up this auto journalist style road test impression report for my buddies and family. Forgot all about it until now so I dug it up. Thought you and your son might get a kick out of it.

Thanks,

Bill



2010 Camaro 2 Day Test Drive


On my latest trip, I decided to rent a new Camaro to thoroughly check it out. Picked a black one (of course) with a 300 hp V6 and 6 speed automatic. That was the only power option they had. First impression was as I have seen in passing and in photos, there are great viewing angles, and some angles the appear out of proportion. I love the aggressiveness from the front, even with the slight under-bite look. Overall it is just a bit too cartoonish to be right on, but it is I guess a nice interpretation of the 69. The one I had was rolling on standard 18" BF Goodrich Radial TAs. The 20" in my opinion make it look too much like a Hot Wheels car.

Once inside, the view out was fantastic. Compared to a Lamborghini. Compared to just about anything else, it was hard to see out of. The windshield pillar is so fat, and the outside mirrors are so big there is about a foot wide blind spot. After a few miles behind the wheel however, it became quite acceptable, and I quickly became comfortable with where the corners were, and remembered to hit turns at a good right angle, rather than having to do the merge type looking around. Seating was good, ergonomics good, climate control excellent, new XM radio controls and display convenient. Seat belts great compared to new Mustangs. The problem with the interior is the vast use of plastic. This car was a cloth seat version, so it never smelled like a new car. It smelled like a toy factory on a hot day. You would need optional interiors. There is enough plastic on the dash and door panels alone to build a whole subcompact car. The good side of that, surprisingly, was that there was zero glare off the dash when driving into the sun. Not sure how they did that, but it was very nice. Closing the door causes the window to slide up about an inch, so it seals up super tight. There was no wind noise at all on the highway. Very quiet and solid ride on the inside. Most new cars also can't be rode in comfortably with the window down due to wind buffeting, but this was just like an old car, you could put down the window and ride with your arm out. That was pretty nice in the evening.

Steering, Awesome. It had a direct responsive feel, not too heavy parking and not too light on the road. Not sure of the ratio, but it was quick enough. Wheel was a good size, but needed softer rim material. You may get that with an optional interior, at least I would hope.

Brakes. Excellent.

Transmission. In auto mode, uninspiring, as would be expected from a 6. There are so many gears, you never feel it change. Once I got the Manual Sport Mode all figured out, the fun began. The car changed completely when you could rev it into the torque band and control the shifts. The paddles need to be bigger so you can be flicking them in all wheel positions. They must not think people will be using them much, so the controls are like an afterthought. So if you were turning, and wanted to grab a different gear, you have to go search for it back at 9 and 3. I got ok at that, but the target is small.

Engine. Sweet. Torquey. I wish I knew what it looked like, but there is too much plastic shrouding under the hood to even get a glimpse. Rolling in first gear at 4000 rpm, mash the gas and it will spin these huge rear tires. A 6 cylinder! It sounds good too in the upper ranges. (Thus destroying my fuel mileage) The 300 hp in sport mode trans moves the car around very well. A V8 has to be a blast, but the lighter weight of this one made the curvy roads VERY pleasant to run. I expect the best scenario will be the 6 speed real manual trans. I asked for one and they looked at me like I was from outer space. Why would someone want a clutch in a rental car?!?

Presence. Fantastic. This car up staged everything on the road. Of course, it's probably the first one most people have seen, but you sure can't sneak around in it! EVERBODY waved, gave thumbs up, came over to talk about it. Hotel manager left the business to hang out in the parking lot. Cops waved and smiled. People would punch their friends and point so they would turn around and see it. It was cool to see so many people excited about a new American car. That will last probably until there are 20 of them in every neighborhood, but for now, it sure breeds excitement.

Back to the winding roads. I took it up to the park where they run the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. The only US sanctioned Grand Prix on real public roads anymore, and after a couple passes to check out traffic and safety, I put it in manual and unleashed it on a particularly nice section or two. WOW, they really got the handling, brakes, steering and roll control down pat. This was the best driving car I've been in for a long time under those conditions. Very impressive for a new US car. I was all smiles after that, then headed out for a nice dinner. Where it attracted another crowd.

So after 2 days, I had to drop it off. Averaged 21 mpg. It says capable of 29. Getting back in my Impala after the flight, I realized how much more I could now see, but it felt like a canoe on stilts. Get the interior plushed up a little, and I could fall for the new Camaro. Of course for $25k, you could have a real nice 1969, and have some $ left over to be fixing it all the time.

My 2015
 

I have a 2015 6cylinder. I bought it a couple of years ago only had 8 thousand miles for 15 thousand just like a brand new car i love it

I got out the camera and got some backside photos of the spokes and both the front and rear rims are 20" x 8-1/2" wide and part number 23434146.

I dont know why they put the cheapo (Zenna rear and Joyroad in the front) China-manufactured, monster size tires on these narrow rims, but they seem to fit and are flat across the tread with even wear all across. They are around 28-1/2" tall. When it comes time to replace them, we will be getting sizes closer to what should be on the 20" rim. Maybe 255/35x20s (27" tall) all around so they can be rotated? Or the stock size 245/40x20 which is 27-3/4" tall?

Ok so it has a set of squared I4/V6 6th gen 20" wheels on it. SS would have had wider rear wheels on it. Check the RPO codes to see what wheels/tires the car was ordered new with. It would be an 18", 19", 20" or even 21" wheel/tire. It doesn't appear to be an RS so it likely had 18" or 19" when new.

245/45/20 or 275/40/20 are the sizes that will match the oem tire height of the 18 and 19 that it would have come with. 245/45/20 is really what will fit that width of wheel the best but the 275 will work. The 315 tires are almost 3" wider than what should be on that width of wheel.

The RPO code sticker in the trunk says it came with 18" aluminum wheels originally. We drove the car another 250 miles yesterday to visit my Dad in CT. The car sure cruises nicely and got 27.5 MPG on regular.

They are out there, takes some looking. A stock one will run 12s and respond nicely to mods. If you like limited edition cars, there is a Hot Wheels edition 5th gen Camaro SS, has badging and came in a nice blue color.

The boy and I attended the local cruise night on Saturday. He brought his Camaro and was quite proud of it. (me too). :-)