my new ride! Full review!
well boys i bought a 2002 camaro z28 and im loving it!
I bought the car in dallas texas at about noon yesterday and drove it clear though (nonstop besides gas and 1 macdonalds stop) to nebraska which was about a 10 hour drive, so needless to say i got to know the car pretty well.
During this reivew i will mostly be comparing it to my first car (1996 honda accord coupe with intake/header/exhaust/chip/strut braces/new springs/50 shot nitrous), my old camaro (92 z28), my suburban (1997 350), and my friends 2001 bmw 330i. i have spent a lot of time behind the wheel of all three cars and i drove my buddies bimmer for about a year after he got a dui and he still wanted to take his car out and i became his driver haha. Also, i have done similar long distance drives in all three cars (8-12 hours) so im in a good position to compare them.
1. Comfort. I was pretty worried about driving this new camaro all the way home because my old camaro beat you up so much while you were driving that you were usually exhausted after 5 hours but luckily i was wrong. the new camaro has much more comfortable seats and a much more forgiving ride, it was like night and day. At the end of the drive when i got home my fiance wanted to go on a ride and i jumped at the opportunity, and i wasn't sore or anything. The car soaked up the bumps pretty well, didn't dart or pitch with variations in the road, the controls are simple and easy.
My major complaint is noise. its a pretty loud car so the exhaust noise did get a little tiresome after hour 6 or so, it wasn't nearly as bad as the old camaro but the bimmer was super quiet and the accord was quieter too.
I used to drive the accord from Chico to Anaheim california pretty regularly when i went to school up there and I could do the drive in one sitting but by the time i was done i was sore as hell and i couldn't really do much more than stumble inside and fall asleep. I think a lot of it had to do with the constant upshifting and downshifting in the accord, and i could never really get my arms and legs in a comfortable position. Also keep in mind i was 19 then, and im 23 now so you'd think id be a little less picky about comfort in my younger years. So i give a big edge to the camaro vs the accord in comfort.
In the bimmer my friend and i made the trip from san fran to anaheim and obviously the bimmer was more comfortable. however not as much as you would think. Im not saying the bimmer didn't give a great ride, im just saying that the camaro's ride was good enough to not give the bimmer a land slide. so i give the edge to the bimmer but not as big of an edge as i gave the camaro over the accord.
Compared to my old camaro its night and day. the old camaro darted and pitched and rattled and shook and shimmied and did everything. driving that car long distance wasn't really like driving, it was more like wrestling. Landslide 02 camaro vs 92 camaro.
However, the king of the road comfort wise is the suburban. The suburban first of all sits very high up, its got a couch-like bench seat, tons of room, it rides like a caddilac, soaks up every bump like they arent there, its very smooth. on a short trip(4 hours) the bimmer is prolly better than the subub, but in the long haul you cant beat the suburban. I have done the drive from nebraska to california about 8 or 9 times in the subub and i would never want to do it in ANY of the other cars ive owned.
Comfort:
1st place Subub, 2nd place bimmer, 3rd place 02 camaro, 4th place accord, 5th place 02 camaro.
2. Handling. I knew the handling would be pretty good (contrary to what everyone says on here all the magazine all said the 4gen camaro's handled pretty well) and it was about what i would expect.
Compared to my old camaro, the new camaro is about the same. The old camaro actually handled like a dream, it could turn very sharply and was a very stiff car although it couldn't drive straight worth a damn. The new camaro is about the same handling wise but it can drive straight no problem. also, while the old camaro handled well in turns, heaven forbid there was ever a bump in the turn because it would send the camaro darting to the left or the right the new one is much smoother and more stable. the new one does feel a little bit heavier around corners though. I noticed that i usually went a few mph faster during sharp turns and onramps and stuff in new camaro though. So ill give a very very slight edge to the new camaro, i think they handled about the same but the new camaro feels a lot better doing it.
its almost not worth comparing the honda with the new camaro, the honda was fwd and any time i tried to take a turn at speed it would squeel the tires and fight me and just feel kind of crappy. it exuded very little confidence handling, no matter how much i spent on it. New camaro all the way.
The new camaro compares well with the bimmer. Speeds during turns were usually about the same. The big difference is that the in the bimmer its so easy. There were a lot of times i would look down at the bimmer's speedomoter and go "wow i cant believe im going that fast" where as in the camaro im going the same speed through the turns its just a lot more dramatic. The bimmer makes you feel more confidant turning than the camaro does. Decent edge to the bimmer.
Trying to take any turn at speed with the suburban is like trying to throw a slider with a brick. In the suburban you usually have to go 5 mph below the speed limit on turns to feel safe doing it haha.
Handling
1st Bimmer. 2nd 02 camaro. 3rd 92 camaro. 4th Accord. 5th Subub.
3. Acceleration
I knew before i even bought the camaro that the acceleration was going to be great but i didn't know it was going to be as good as it was. The 02 camaro is fast as hell! You step on the gas and it slams you back in your seat. when i took my fiance out on a drive I gunned it pretty hard and she yelled "Sh#t!!" pretty loud (she doesn't cuss much either). She never ever did that or even seemed excited in my old camaro. The 02 camaro has so much power that its very easy to light up the tires if your not careful.
A great real world example of this power came in texas. I dont know my way around dallas very well and i was in the slow lane and needed to get to the far left lane to make an onramp and there was a 18-wheeler and two cars in front of it blocking my progress. normally i would have just slowed down and gone after the semi but i decided to gun it (i was in 4th gear going about 45) . The car took off like a bat out of hell and i effortlessly passed all three cars and i had no problem getting over. the main problem was that when i looked down at the speedomoter i had gone from 40 to 90 in what seemed like no time at all. i could see myself getting in trouble with this beast.
Likewise the 02 camaro still pulls pretty well in 6th gear which really surprised me. has plenty of power to pass at 80mph in 6th gear which is always nice. once i got on the highway and out of traffic i never had to take it out of 6th gear.
Compared to the 92 camaro the 02 camaro blows its doors off. There is about a 100hp and 50lb torque difference between the two and you can really notice it both in the highway and around town. There were several stretches of road where i would have to drop from 5th to 4th in the old camaro to pass someone going uphill where was the new camaro could stay in 6th no problem. and while the old camaro was pretty quick racing and ate 5.0 mustangs for lunch all day long, it cant even shake a stick at the new camaro. 02 camaro over the 92.
No real comparison with the honda. Even with the 50 shot, the honda would get smoked by the 92 camaro. i would hate to see what would happen to it compared to the 02 camaro. to put it into perspective,with the 50 shot and pretty much everything but the drivers seat taken out the accord's best ET was 15.5. The best i ever ran in my 92 z28 (bone stock) was 14.6. And while i havent ran it yet, most magazines put the ls1 camaro's at 13.8.
Also, in the honda i was constantly having to downshift to pass, or go up hills or really do much of anything. honda really had to work hard to go 80. 02 camaro by about 10 miles :^)
Compared to the bimmer the 02 camaro wins. while the bimmer was definately a fast car its not even close to being close with the camaro. I remember when my friend got it he thought he had the fastest car in the world and he did when he raced honda's and acura's but he would always get torn apart by the mustangs and camaro's. the bimmer was probably a bit faster than my 92 but dirving my 02 is like driving a rocket compared to the bimmer. The bimmer never had much of problem passing other cars or going up hills but i never looked down at the speedometer and felt surprised by how fast i was going because it didn't have that kind of power. 02 camaro by a landslide.
Do i even need to compare it to the suburban? Although to be while the subub was probably slower 1/4 mile than the honda it was worlds better at passing on the highway and going up hills.
Words cannot describe how much faster the camaro is that all these other cars.
1st: 02 camaro. 2nd: Bimmer. 3rd: 92 camaro. 4th: suburban. 5th:honda
