**A Bittersweet Goodbye to My C7 Grand Sport**

As I prepare to let go of my beloved C7 Grand Sport, I'm left feeling a mix of emotions - excitement for what's next, and a tinge of sadness at parting with this incredible car. I remember when I first got behind the wheel, I wasn't entirely smitten. The street dynamics, while impressive, didn't quite do it for me. I often found myself thinking, "Why not something like a GT350?" or, in a more extreme scenario, "I'd sell my internal organs to buy a GT3." But as I spent more time with the car, learning its quirks and appreciating its capabilities, I grew to love it.

The C7 Grand Sport's strengths became clear: its long gearing, high speed limits, and lack of drama make it an ideal streetcar. The gears are so long that by the time you wind out this car in third gear, you're well exceeding the speed limit, essentially making it a no-brainer to go over 100mph - a feat that's both exhilarating and a bit reckless. The limits of grip are so high that there isn't much feedback from the chassis, which can make it feel less engaging than other cars in its class.

However, this is precisely what I've come to appreciate about the C7 Grand Sport: it's not trying to be anything it's not. It's a pure driver's car, designed for people who want to enjoy the thrill of driving without unnecessary bells and whistles. And with its manual gearbox option, you still feel like you're part of the driving experience - even if you're not the greatest manual driver, the rev-matching feature helps bridge the gap.

The C7 Grand Sport also has a certain old-car charm that's hard to find in modern vehicles. It's essentially a derivative of its predecessors, with a steering system that gives more feedback and a chassis that's more willing to bite. This means you need to grow with the car, learning its nuances and driving it hard to unlock its full potential.

Of course, owning a C7 Grand Sport comes with its own set of challenges - not least of which is the cost. With a price tag well over $60,000 for a manual model, it's significantly more expensive than many other cars on the market. And let's not forget the maintenance and repair costs, which can be steep. I've had my fair share of wheel problems (one rear wheel cracked during filming!), and dealing with dealership support has been... complicated.

Despite these drawbacks, I highly recommend considering a C7 Grand Sport if you're in the market for a track-focused car or autocross enthusiast vehicle. They offer an experience that's hard to find elsewhere - and at a fraction of the cost of some of its more exotic rivals. As I prepare to let this car go, I'm left with a sense of gratitude for the time we spent together on the road. It may not be the most exciting car in the world, but it's certainly one that I've come to appreciate - and will always cherish.

**The Author's Wrap-up**

As I send off my C7 Grand Sport into its new life, I'm left reflecting on our time together. It was a wild ride (pun intended), full of twists and turns, both literally and figuratively. From the moment I first got behind the wheel, I knew that this car was special - and it's been an absolute joy to drive.

I've come to appreciate its strengths, from its long gearing to its lack of drama. And while it may not be the most exciting car in the world, it's certainly one that I've grown to love. Whether you're a seasoned track enthusiast or just looking for a fun weekend driver, the C7 Grand Sport is an excellent choice - and I highly recommend giving it a spin.

**A Final Note**

As I hit send on this final video, I'm left feeling a sense of excitement about what's next. My upcoming purchase is already making its way onto the horizon, and I couldn't be more thrilled. But for now, I'll just take a moment to appreciate the memories we've made together - and bid farewell to my trusty C7 Grand Sport.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign this is my 2019 Corvette Grand Sport it's a C7 generation I've owned this for a little bit over three years since new and I've put over 32 000 miles on it and in this video I'm going to say goodbye to it I'm also going to be walking you through what's been like to own all these years I've deleted it I've tracked it I've driven it cross-country so I'm going to do my best to break down ownership costs reliability concerns model year changes and whether or not you should potentially buy one of these for yourself now that they're in the used Market I'm potentially more affordable let's first talk about the highlights of ownership during my time of owning this car I've averaged a little over 18 miles per gallon including track days which is pretty damn impressive for a dedicated sports car I've gone through five sets of tires three sets of brake pads and I have enjoyed the ever living kravit of this car it has been actually one of my favorite Vehicles I've ever owned and it's a car that I've learned to like more as the years have gone by in my original Grand Sport video where we detailed the engineering and what this car is like to live with sort of in a short period of time or short period of ownership I was somewhat lukewarm on this vehicle and the more miles I put on this thing the more I've driven it I've grown to appreciate its strengths and weaknesses let's talk about the Interior Space first as this is sort of one of the more simple parts of this car the grants work came out in 2017 it's a trim level of the C7 and it came in three different trim levels for the interior space one LT to three LT being the fully loaded or highest trim variant this is a 2LT would sit somewhere in the middle it does not get the Fancy Pants leather of the 3lt but it does get all the same features heated and cooled seats a heads-up display and a leather-ish interior space with the Bose audio system which is the Hi-Fi system that's only available on the 2LT I also have PDR equipped which is their performance data recorder you've seen in other cars in this iteration I think it's like 1080 or 720p it's not particularly high res but you can can use it as a lap timer or recorder or even a a dash cam if you really wanted as the model years progressed really the only change on the interior space was software and an overall Improvement to fit and finish earlier cars specifically 17s and 18s like you saw in most c7s of this generation particularly when they got miles dashes started to Bubble armrests started to Bubble from my understanding in the 19 model years you don't really see that it could be a mix of the fact that none of these cars seem to have miles or they just seem to be made better and at least in my case I've put probably more miles on this vet than the average Corvette owner and I have no rattles and squeaks nothing has gone wrong in the interior in fact all the leather which mind you was not all that high quality has aged exceptionally well which is sort of surprising to me in a GM product there were software changes to the gauge clusters so your information displayed to change but the actual content you can see trans fluid diff fluid oil pressure oil temp water temp I think that's still available in earlier model cars but it gets clear in the 19 model year you get two different seat options these are the regular seats you can also get competition seats from my understanding from people who've actually spent a lot of time in those seats they're not particularly comfortable but they do allow you to fit a harness through the back so whether or not you find that to be a useful feature I'll leave that up to you the T-top on this car or sorry the target top does come off but honestly after the first year ownership it never did it's a pain in the ass to store in the back and it's honestly it's not really worth your time when you're on longer drives particularly at higher speeds or if there's any real wind the interior of this car buffets like a madman the interior space now having lived with this car for a long period of time is somewhat cramped while the hatch is very very practical like I've talked about in Prior Corvette videos it's really the advantage of this thing and there's a surprising amount of Headroom for a dedicated track or sports car the actual visibility at the front is not the best of his ability at the back and the sides are not brilliant it definitely feels a little bit more claustrophobic which depending on who you are might be a deal breaker on Long Journeys it's very very comfortable though if you can get past a lack of visibility the thing that the Corvette does very well is ew miles and during my time as a daily driver it did a good job when you put it in a tour it's surprisingly comfortable you just have to deal with a ton of road noise if you pick a more aggressive tire than these pilot Super Sports which are run Flats the road noise is very very loud exterior wise it's held up pretty well as you may or may not have seen if you've been a long time viewer on this channel I got this car ceramic coated and PP After paint protection film on the front it's held up well it's seen track miles the paint's actually in really really good shape I've had to replace the ppf once on the front just getting torn up but it's done a good job it's not perfect some of the pieces of Arrow have kind of got chewed up over the years as you're kind of expecting from rocks and road debris past that though I think it's time for us to head into the shop where I'm going to put this thing up in the left and dissect the costs of ownership foreign C7 Grand Sport this is a 2019 model with a little over 30 000 miles and in this segment of the video I'll be giving you a brief technical overview of what the Grand Sport is mind you you should watch our original C7 video it's far longer it'll go and far more in depth into the engineering of this car so what about the car so the Grand Sport existed between the 2017 and 2019 model years of the C7 generation Corvette it's essentially a trim level it offers the wide body of the Z06 with more aggressive suspension tuning than the standard Stingray albeit not as aggressive as the Z06 it has the same identical drivetrain as the performance pack equipped standard C7 Stingray those z51 cars it is the same LT1 it is the same gearing this car can either be had in a seven-speed manual which is the one to get or the 8-speed automatic I'll talk about that a little bit later body structure wise the C7 is far more rigid than these standard C6 Z06 or C5 the cars it basically replaces it has more aluminum and is stronger spine so it doesn't have any of the bobbling that those cars have particularly when you put stickier rubber on them this car gets the e-diff as well which means it's all sorts of PTM modes and it's still composite leaf spring front and rear double Wishbone front and rear and has full alignment capability the Grand Sport and the Z06 and the standard c51 cars have excellent cooling you have an oil cooler you have a giant radiator and trans and differential cooling when it comes to suspension on this car you get two different packages you can either get the standard Grand Sport which this car is or the z07 package the zo7 package gets stiffer bushings sway bars and I believe spring rates and a recalibration to the Mr dampers that's largely due to the fact that it gets stickier rubber as standard the base Grand Sport gets pilot Super Sports which are run Flats the zo7 cars get Pilot Sport cup twos their wheels are identical however and the tire sizes are identical the z07 cars also get carbon ceramic brakes which we're going to talk about a little bit later because that does add some complexity when it comes to the ownership costs of this vehicle these cars as they progress through the model years they refine manufacturing they got a little bit better built particularly in the interior space and potentially a little bit more reliable that's the joy of having this life of the c7b so long the key difference as well in 19 the Mr dampers got recalibrated to get rid of some of the twitchiness of the 18 and 17 model years for a while the dealers would potentially reflash your earlier cars but seeing that this car has been out or I've been dead now for a while I don't know if you can still do that so just keep that in mind when it comes to reliability as I mentioned in our original video there are lots of lines for coolers and all other fun stuff I with my 19 have not run into any leaks when it comes to cooling lines I'm sure down the line as these cars become 5-10 years old that might become an issue so look out for that the other option as well is just get a car with an extended transferable warranty like this car has or get one certified pre-owned from a dealership so that you could skip the main heartache with the leaking that said reliability wise my ownership has been mostly painless I had some cracked Wheels with the stock wheels initially they were replaced free of charge that was a problem it was all over the Internet and I did have a weepy gearbox for a little bit which the dealer fixed it's not a big deal pass the of the drivetrain has been like faultless all my oil analysis and I'm not particularly easy on this car mind you I'm not particularly hard on it as well I do all my maintenance like you should and this car hasn't skipped a beat all right consumable costs and modifications that's the last thing I'm going to talk about so consumable cost the big ones are things like clutches they are extraordinarily expensive this is a transaxle car so if you have a manual gearbox essentially you have to drop the rear subframe to do a clutch it's quite expensive briefly if a dealer does it and it's very labor intensive tires are expensive on this car they come as either 275 or 285 front stock and 335 rears and they're like 20s which are huge in the stock sizes I went to a set of Apex Wheels which went down to 18s they're a little bit more manageable when it comes to tire prices and more importantly you have far more Tire options these standard super sports are fine street tires but not great track tires the sport cup twos buy Modern standards in 2022 2023 aren't all that sticky if I'm going to be honest the 200 treadwear options like the rivals the Continentals various other options are far stickier they're better tires to be honest if you're going to do track use which is what you should be doing with your Grand Sport honestly if you don't take it to the track you're missing out on like 80 percent of the experience of this car the other consumable item other than things like the Mr gamblers which are expensive to replace again please get a warranty or just be prepared to spend 500 to a thousand dollars a corner is brakes the carbon Ceramics found on the zo7 package are expensive they're nowhere as bad as say on a Porsche or a BMW they're about a thousand dollars a corner which means before pads look you're looking about four thousand dollars the joy of the carbon ceramic is well they have high thermal capacity and they don't dust and theoretically they should last longer than the iron or steel rotors I have Steels on this car because they're cheaper to replace to be entirely honest these stocks are like a thousand for the front a thousand for the rear I want two gyro discs so I could replace just the ring so in the future your consumable cost ends up being a little less the stock breaks on this car or the iron brakes which are brembos are actually exceptionally good if you properly pad this car I've done g-locks or counter space garage pads and you do the correct fluid they have a ton of thermal capacity and that's never an issue when you're on the track last thing to bring up is what I did to this car like modifications and really anything else that went wrong well a lot of the Aero panels on this car sort of get torn up as you drive around big surprise when it comes to modifications I did an awe x-pipe which they don't make any more it woke up the car a little bit makes it sound a little better I don't think the LT1 is the best sounding most characterful V8 in the world but this sort of helped and it maintains the performance exhaust which is valve it doesn't drone it's great don't touch it it's a very nice OEM piece the other thing is the gearbox so as I mentioned you can get this as an 8-speed automatic which don't unless you are physically unable either due to a disability or don't know how you should not be buying this car in an automatic you should be buying this as a manual yes they're more expensive yes they're harder to find but it's it's a better driving experience that said I did do the skip shift delete so these cars come standard from GM with software that makes you go to a higher gear if you're low RPM to save the environment better fuel economy it's very annoying it's like a 15 part to delete that and then I did the mgw short throw shifter it's not my favorite thing in the world though it does tighten up the gearbox this Tremec gearbox wallet is very strong is not the best feeling to operate it's not the best manual in the world the mgw sort of improves that though shifter effort or shift effort is greatly increased with that said I think it's time for us to head to Audubon Country Club where I can put this thing on the track with Mark and walk you through some of the nuances of ownership and what I think now that I'm sort of wrapping up my ownership period with this car foreign mark this is how you're doing it yeah with a track day where I blow the first car because my tires are cold it's always some excuse you know I'm gonna be honest Mark but this is a car that initially is many will remember from our original video I had mixed feelings on right it wasn't my favorite thing in the world I didn't think it was the best street car I didn't it wasn't necessarily what I was looking for but now after living with it for 32 000 miles if you're gonna use it as a driving tool to make you a better driver then be comfortable is shown the street as you go to and from the track or pile on daily Duty and use it as sort of that week autocross track car I don't think there's a better car on the market for like 50 to 70 000 depending on Miles and gearbox and all that other fun stuff the C7 Grand Sport is a very very good driving tool this is one of the fastest cars you can possibly buy for under a hundred thousand dollars it's really really fast and the amount of grip when you're tired when you Tire this thing right is unparalleled I mean my major complaint with it and it's always been is it lacks some emotion and it has to do with the engine it's just such a Brute Force like you know garbage truck sounding thing and I know people love that V8 tone it's just that classic sound but if there's no musicality to it yeah it's just it's generic American VA how does this I mean you've driven this car a lot too Mark how does it compare to something like the c806 this the C8 Z06 yeah I mean I mean they share similarities in terms of of driving you're you're really connected to the Driving Experience you feel everything that's going on it's challenging to control the rear at certain points but they're both cars that you learn to work with to be faster become a smoother driver it rewards smooth driving but it doesn't like kill you if you make a mistake I mean like I said I just don't think there's much better out there for this if you can deal with the fact that it's it doesn't have the the beautiful tonal quality of some of the more expensive cars I don't know why you would choose something else other if if you're tracking the car specifically uh you know we're out here driving the CRX for the sir that Scott from King Motorsports built but while I will say this doesn't have any does not have any of the feel of some of the older cars I do think because this is sort of the crossover point for Corvette because it is based on an older platform right there is still some feedback from the chassis and rawness that's gone in some of it's more modern cars like a Supra for example right right yeah well those cars you feel nothing this car it does communicate with you a lot the back end specifically once you have everything off you can you realize how perfectly balanced this car is for this generation of car they absolutely maximized everything they could get out of this and the Grand Sport is like the Pinnacle version of the C7 or all of these core butts yeah Aaron link when we talk to him during the c806 video even said that the Grand Sport of this generation is his favorite C7 and arguably the best driving and being out here doing this being really comfortable with the car you can run a low 130s all day long on South and Autobahn which is really really moving and you don't have to worry about this car it has been bulletproof reliable naturally aspirated it has the cooling if you're running the right oil and doing the right things you can beat the out of this thing and it's just it's a pure driver's car as much as a Corvette's ever been and ever will be um and even in more more cases than the new C8 just because you get the manual option you still feel like you're part of driving this car a little bit more and if you aren't the greatest manual driver the car will work with it with rev match so Mark with that I'm going to send it off with a lap and I'll get inserted sort of my wrap-up thoughts as I'm getting ready to get rid of this car and Say Goodbye all right jack you okay are you okay I know I know you would be I was like holding it back the whole time oh that would have been amazing to end it up he just barf all over you oh great checklist final thoughts on my C7 Grand Sport as I get rid of this to make way for my upcoming C8 Z06 purchase I'm left feeling a little bittersweet while I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of this car when I first bought it I wasn't totally in love as I kind of mentioned in the beginning of this video the street Dynamics left me a bit cold I felt like I should have bought something like a GT350 which is a far more emotional engine or sold my internal organs to buy something like a GT3 but as I learned to appreciate what this car does well I've come to really really enjoy it and appreciate its capabilities As A Streetcar due to its long gearing it's extremely high limits and the lack of sort of drama it's not the most exciting thing in the world the gears are really really long except by the time you wind out this car particularly in third gear you're well exceeding the speed limit basically and go to jail territory the limits of grip are so high in the fact that there isn't a ton of feedback from the chassis again to make it a bit more comfortable you don't necessarily feel a whole lot it's not the most exciting car in the world that said it's a good daily good fuel economy reasonably comfortable and for a dedicated sports car surprisingly practical but to really enjoy this vehicle as I found out you have to track it and appreciate what it does well it costs less than a quarter of what a new GT3 does and it's well not as capable it's pretty damn close it's about as capable as a 991 done to GT3 particularly when you go up to larger front and rear tires or at least stickier front and rear tires the car speaks to you in a way that some of the more modern vehicles like the C8 Z06 does not it has some of that old car character because the C5 C6 and C7 are all basically derivatives of one another the steering gives you a little more feedback the chassis is more willing to bite you so it's a vehicle that you have to grow with and drive hard to get the most out of and that's something I really really appreciate about this car not to mention the fact that it has a manual gearbox it's not the most inexpensive car to run and it's not necessarily going to be the most easy car to work on dealership support while there are some good ones definitely there are some bad Chevy dealerships it's complicated a lot of coolers you have to deal with cracking Wheels since I started this video one of my right rear wheels cracked and was replaced with like a thousand dollars thankfully I did have that wheel and tire protection plans but you know there are complications to do with the C7 and they're not the cheapest thing in the world today as I'm you know in the market selling one of these things 19 Grand sports with manuals are exceedingly expensive well over sixty thousand dollars which you know does make this a more expensive vehicle but if you are in the market for something like an M4 a new C8 a Porsche product and you are going to track a car or autocross it I highly suggest looking into C7 it's a car that I've really really appreciated and it's a car that I've enjoyed my tenure ship with but with that thanks for watching I hope to see you soon Savage geese yet another notification do you know how rich I am are you not hearing me we unfriend we unsubscribe get it done I'm rich why is this a problem\n"