Gen V update - 6,000 mile mark

My wife and I have put approx 6,300 miles on the 2013 Viper so far. It has now been on 3 road trips, and used for daily work commutes at least once per week. I'll share some feedback on the car, for those who will likely never see any real miles on their Viper.

At approx 1000 miles, the seat cushions softened up nicely. Our SRT has the upgrade leather interior. When the car was brand new, the seat cushion felt pretty firm. The Gen 3/4 seats are still softer, but the Gen 5 seats are now acceptable in comfort. The main difference is if you keep a wallet in your back pocket, the Gen 5 will remind you that it isn't a good idea. The Gen 3/4 seats had thicker cushions, and you won't notice having a wallet back there. Another note about the SRT level leather seats, they seem to age better than the GTS leather seats I've seen in other Vipers. The GTS Laguna leather shows a lot of wrinkles and waviness on the quilted pattern areas, whereas our SRT leather seats show no wrinkles and are generally still brand new looking.

The TR6060 transmission and shifter became less notchy at around 1500 miles. The mechanical feel is very precise, on par with other manual cars I've owned with aftermarket shifters. The Gen 5 will never need an aftermarket shifter, it is simply perfect as-is. With the notchiness gone, the shifts are very precise and smooth. The shifter has no slop in it at all. I have a lot of confidence about not missing a gear in this car.

The hood gap on my driver's side, in front of the wheel, is slightly bigger than the same gap on the passenger side. Gaps behind the wheels are uniform and tight on both sides. I looked for a way to adjust the gap, but found no way to do so. It isn't horrible, but I notice it.

I do not like the buttons on the underside of the interior rear-view mirror. Terrible spot for those buttons, as my wife and I share the car and have to adjust the mirror for ourselves. The buttons call 911 and use the phone. You don't see them until you accidentally push them with your thumb, when trying to adjust the mirror. On other cars, these buttons are on the face of the mirror, so you can see them clearly. I've almost dialed 911 a few times, and have to scramble to cancel the call on the radio.

Rearview camera is pretty awesome. It is also pretty accurate when judging curb distance and parking between lines. I've got a lot of confidence in the camera now. I wish my other Viper had this.

The clutch in this car makes more noise than most cars, during engagement. Sort of a "click" mechanical sound, whenever the gear is changed at slower speeds, like the pressure plate is reacting to engaging. It has always done this, since new.

No rattles or squeaks evident.

The suspension has settled in height some, and has gotten a little less stiff. I recall it being a little more bouncy when it was new. Now it rides pretty well for a sports car, except on horrible roads. It isn't a Cadillac, but the ride quality is acceptable for essentially a street legal race car. My Gen 3 rides rougher.

People have complained about exhaust drone, but I'd consider it just the factor of having sidepipes. The exhaust note is louder between 2100-2300 rpm at cruising speed, but it isn't what I'd consider a "drone". It is a steady, deep, bass note. Most drone in other cars has some sort of weird harmonic that varies in pitch and fluctuates in sound, but the Viper note is just loud. It doesn't reverberate or sound distorted. This noise is also reduced a bit if you crack the windows down about 1cm. Might just be interior acoustics. But, it doesn't bother me or the wife.

Still getting a random A/C issue, related to the bi-level (floor/dash) vents both not coming on when the car is first started. Sometimes just the floor vents are blowing, dash vents off - even though it is set as bi-level. It doesn't happen every time, maybe 1 out of 15 starts. I just go to the climate control screen and push the dash-only button, then push the bi-level button and it works again. I'm thinking this is the stereo head unit causing this weird issue. I haven't felt the need to take it in for service, and will wait until there is a new firmware for the radio. I've read others mention this same occurrence with the U-Connect radios.

Two oil changes so far (1st at 1500, 2nd at 4500). Oil level never noticeably dropped, so the car isn't consuming any oil. Oil came out relatively clean both times, so more miles can definitely be run on the synthetic oil. Penzoil wasn't available any place nearby, so I went with Mobil-1 both times.

This car definitely passes the water leak test, as I've now driven it in quite a few deluges since owning it. Just this past weekend, while driving to the ALMS race in Austin, it was driven through very hard storms. Some were so bad you couldn't see out of the windshield. No interior leaks to report. Water sitting on the road sure makes a loud sound when splashing off the tires and onto the flat underbelly. No fun!

The Garmin-based navigation works very well. We've driven across the country three times, solely using it. The traffic avoidance seems to work well, it automatically tries to re-route you around known road issues. Sometimes this means obscure back-roading it, but it did work.

Overall, we are very pleased with the new Viper.

Tony

 

Mike, glad to see other Vipers out there being enjoyed! I put 14K miles on my '06 before turning it into a race car. LOL. Now it gets very short bursts of driving enjoyment. That is the reason for the '13.

 

This is normal for most performance cars. The A/C compressor shuts off during wide open throttle, to increase performance. Then it kicks back on when partial throttle is observed.

Also normal. The Viper Chief Engineer demonstrated this to me at the factory. That is the safety latch mechanism. If you lift gently on the hatch while pushing the button, it will open in one push. If you aren't lifting on it, it will stop on an intermediate part of the latch. This is to keep the hatch from popping open on accidental button pushes.

UConnect SRT performance pages are annoying and tend to drag and act very slow to inputs on the screen. My '13 Dodge Ram has it also, also annoying in that vehicle. The UConnect is good about 80% of the time. Sometimes it acts weird. Funny thing about my Ram, it thinks it is an SRT Jeep Cherokee on the screen.

Tony

 

Killer33, please read my response just above yours about the lift gate.

 

If you use the button on the back of the car, you can actually push up on the hatch with just your thumb and click the button at the same time. It doesn't take much lift to make it work.