Padlock

Thanks!

I'll try to get a go-pro video of it for the laughs. There are 145 registered cars as of today, so my hope is to not place 145th! I feel bad for anyone that I may beat on RAW time already

From a dig with the torque converter loaded up, it hooks in 2WD pretty well with the street oriented tires I have on it, so I'm going to be running it in that. I don't see it really breaking the rear tires loose at any other time unless enough weight transfers over to the outside of the vehicle in a corner that the inside tire wants to spin (let's hope not). It does have a G80 locker in it, but its made for more low speed scenarios than it is this. I'd rather not deal with the possibility of the front end randomly engaging in Auto4WD. I'm picturing that creating momentous amounts of spontaneous understeer. Overall, I'm not sure what to expect. It'll be fun!

Padlock

Soooo.... I'm sure absolutely nobody here cares about how a crew cab 4WD Silverado does on an AutoX, but for those few who do, this post is for you!

Sunday started with a beautiful 65 degree overcast WI day. As far as weather is concerned, this is about as good as it gets for me here. Love these sort of days. They are even better when your buddy with a DSLR cruises up with you on your 1.5 hr drive to Road America.


Got to the motorplex kart track at RA and got the numbers on the truck. It feels so wrong...


Then I got into grid for heat 2, which felt even more wrong


And then, holy sh*%, this felt way supremely wrong! Sorry for the potato video screenshot photo


Overall, my goal on the day was to go out and have fun, and I honestly don't think I've laughed this much in an AutoX before. The comments like "Man, I recognized your name in the registration list but thought you were trolling us. I didn't think you'd actually take your truck here!" OR "WTF, is that a truck?!" OR "I've never seen a vehicle this big on this course before". Adult and kids alike were pointing at the truck throughout the day with smiles on their faces wondering what kind of maniac I was for thinking this was a good idea. Mission accomplished on the primary goal!

The secondary "nice to have" goal was to beat literally anyone. Nobody wants to be last on raw time, and I really didn't want to pop that cherry. I can happily say, I sent 5 people home wondering how they got beat by a pick-up truck!


Now for the technical comments. The truck handled surprisingly well given its bloated size and lowered stance. I had zero complaints on body roll or sidewall flex with the tires at 40psi. It rotated well enough that somehow I went the entire day without hitting a cone. This is no small feat given the truck is 12 paces long and the slaloms were 20 paces apart. I made glamourous use of the curbing #becausetruckstuff and spent most of my runs fighting the GM stability control system and transmission that has the shift point IQ of a Joe Biden speech writer. Even when the stability control was completely disabled via the dash readout, there was still a nanny active on the system that would apply the rear brakes under certain steering and yaw angles. Most of the time the stability control nanny would show her ugly face on corner exit as I was trying to carry speed out to the outside of the corner post-apex. I didn't feel ambitious enough to pull fuses or disconnect speed sensors to 100% deactivate the nanny, so instead I just learned to drive the truck at the limits just before the nanny would engage.

The transmission was a completely different animal. It was clear from the beginning that this truck wasn't designed with performance oriented driving in mind. If I set the truck in M2 mode, it wouldn't downshift to first unless I was nearly stopped which made acceleration extremely sluggish out of a corner. The only solution to that was to manually shift the truck between 1st and 2nd via the button on the column shifter AND deal with extraordinary shift delays.. so there I was, one handed driving a crew cab pickup with a hand on the column shifter upshifting and downshifting like some kid playing Gran Turismo on Playstation1 in manual mode for the first time.. Coming from something as refined as the miata for a task like this, I couldn't help but just laugh and do my best with what I had at my disposal.

After AutoX was over, I went over to the big track paddock and said hi to everyone I knew who was at Gridlife. Lots of vehicles to check out, including the K24Z3 swapped cars from Winning Formula, but SuperK was still my favorite. Obligatory fanboi photo

Erat

iTrader: (5)

This is concentrated insanity and i love it.

matrussell122

iTrader: (1)

This is hilarious. So now that truck beats miata.... When does the kswap partout begin

Padlock

I should probably get that project finished one of these months...

In other news, I received some sweet action shots.

Here you can take note in how challenging it is to place this vehicle close to a slalom cone. I knew I was a decent mark away off from clipping the cone, but didn't think it was THIS far.


Here's the tightest hairpin on the course. I think the main note here is the relative lack of body roll given the truck is on OEM springs and front sway bar. Like mentioned earlier, it felt fairly composed in the corners given its heft.

AutoFreak57

iTrader: (3)

Truck looks awesome! Screw the lowered 4x4 haters.

Padlock

I've got no plans of getting helper bags this winter. With the miata being close to ready for the dyno, I tossed the longer leaf spring shackles on the rear of the truck so that it effectively lifted it 1.5" from its previous ride height. The little bit of positive static rake the truck has now will be nice as the truck should sit close to level with the trailer hooked up and miata loaded instead of what would have been quite squatted.

Padlock

As the thread title suggests, the goal was to ruin my tow rig, so in keeping with that theme... I sold it

Truth be told, there was always a few things I didn't care for about the truck.

• The 6spd 6L80 transmission tuning logic from GM was never great: lots of random clunky downshifts and shifts were very unresponsive to driver pedal inputs which just kind of made it non-pleasurable to drive.
• The active lifters for the displacement on demand are known failure points and if you choose to replace them, all of the "while you are in there" parts add up to a decent chunk of change for a relatively small benefit. The truck switching between V4 and V8 engine modes probably didn't help the transmission complaints I already had seeing as everything is based on commanded torque within the ECU/TCU.
• The lock-up clutch in the torque converters are known issues that GM won't admit, so when they fail, it wipes a $4k transmission with it (sigh).
• Overall, the truck wasn't something I was looking to keep super long term due to a few of those expensive maintenance concerns on a vehicle I was otherwise relatively unattached to..

...and then months of COVID happened. A "positive" of that for a guy in my position is that used truck prices started to skyrocket as demand went up (thanks low interest rates) and new truck supply went down. This all resulted in me selling the truck for a few grand less than I had into it after gently modifying it and driving it 2.5 years / 45k miles. I walked away from the deal feeling like I got away with murder.

...so then the search for replacements began. Selling when the market is hot is awesome, but buying in that same market sucks. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to forgo buying a "nice truck" all together and get into something more economical, affordable, and fun for a true daily driven car. A few options were considered, but it ended with bringing home a 2018 Audi S3.

2.0L Turbo (292hp / 280tq)
~3400lbs
30k miles
AWD
7spd DCT
Daytona Gray Exterior
Rotor Gray Sport Seat Interior
2 years of remaining factory warranty




The car is properly fast, the trans does exactly what you want it to do (in both sport mode and standard drive mode), it's agile and light on its feet when on twisty roads, and just a genuine good time to drive every time you hop in the comfortable driver seat, so it's hard to ask for much more in a daily.

The plan is to use the GF's Explorer for any sort of utility needs we have left in the foreseeable future. It's got a 5k towing capacity which should be plenty for the miata on the few events a year I plan to actually trailer it. If the explorer doesn't cut the cake or plans to get a bigger trailer happen, I've got cash leftover from the Silverado sale / S3 purchase to just go buy an old higher mileage truck outright if my heart desires.

...so there you have it, I ruined my tow rig by trading it for an S3

paNX2K&SE-R

iTrader: (8)

Nice choice! I also daily an awd MQB chassis car, they're solid.

Erat

iTrader: (5)

The 6l80 in the SS is just an absolute sweetheart. I'd consider it one of the best auto transmissions i've ever used. But then you take the same 6l80 and let the truck division tune it and it gets completely ruined. Not sure how or why that's a thing, but it is. Same thing with the 10 speed in the new trucks. I had a ford f150 rental for a few weeks for work. The 10 speed acted like it was tuned by a 3rd grader, it was, without a doubt the worst transmission i've ever experienced(and i've owned two vehicles with the infamous soft 4t45e. Now that same trans in the chevy truck is completely different, just from tuning.

Now what i find even more hilarious than the potential maintenance issues with the truck(which isn't really a thing) is that you bought an Audi. So not only when you inevitably have issues, they're going to cost 4 times as much to repair.






This was just today, poor fella has had nothing but issues with his 2l turbo Audi. He likes the car, just not the issues. Best of luck with it, i'm sure you'll trick it out.

Padlock

Knew this comment was coming. LOL

I'm not here to try and change anyone's mind, but just more or less stating what I've learned on the newer GM trucks after my 2.5 years of ownership.. Honestly, the gen V LT motors in the newer GM's are not the "cheap $500 LS" pullout engines like they used to be anymore. A 5.3 (L83) is gonna run you $2k for a junkyard pullout. A 6.2 (L86) is going to be $4-5k. Internals are not cheap, fuel systems (being solely DI) are not cheap, any aftermarket part in general is not cheap. DOD lifters failures are very much a thing as my neighbor had his L83 lifter fail and entire valve train needed to be gone through with 35k on the clock on a dealer maintained truck. 6L80 4x4 transmissions are $3-4k. The 8spd and 10spds are more (if equipped). Whether you hear it or not, the converter issues are very much a thing but GM won't ever fall on that sword due to the absurd cost of that recall. Paint quality issues with clear coat flaking around door trim is a thing. 3rd brake lights leak and stain headliners. Rear heated quarter windows shatter with heater on in cold climates on occasion. Prominent tuners won't even dyno these trucks without an aftermarket driveshaft installed because the wall thickness is so thin that they are known to explode at ~100mph causing damage to their dynos and possibly the customer vehicle.

I find it interesting that you thought the Ford 10r80 was that bad. I've heard rumblings of occasional shift issues on my forum searching, but never experienced it myself (nor my 2 friends with them that I questioned extensively). I test drove about every big name pickup on the market before deciding to go back into a car and save some cash. I felt the 10R80 behind the 3.5L Ecoboost was the best amongst the group due to a combination of smooth power delivery, better gearing, turbo torque, and engine design strategy (no active lifters). I tossed a couple offers that dealers didn't bite at on some 2018 Lariat F150's. That said, the Ecoboosts are known for oil leaks, turbo failures, and cam phaser failures, so they arent without their own unique problems that can arise and cost you money.

As far as the Audi is concerned, I researched it pretty heavily as I was as skeptical as anyone coming from a truck I didn't have confidence in. The MQB platform the S3 is built on is pretty developed and relatively issue free. Audi has a pretty bad rap sheet from the days of the nightmare timing chain B6 S4's, but on quite a few of their vehicles they've made some nice improvements. On the S3 specifically, the Haldex (pump that activates rear wheels for the AWD system) needs routine maintenance and cleaning every 30k ($100/DIY service). DSG trans fluids/filters need to be done every 40k ($100/DIY service). Intake valve coking is a thing, as it is with any direct injected vehicle so walnut blasting your intake valves every ~50k or so is ideal. Water pumps are known thing to keep an eye out for ($300 in parts). Maybe the most expensive item that I could find for replacement was the IS20 and IS38 turbo failures which are a hit or miss item. If it happens, there's very nice factory frame turbo upgrades for under $2k or a stock replacement is $1k. I'm only about a month into ownership, but so far everything is cheaper and more fun on this car and there's zero regrets on getting rid of the pickup.