BUY

Cracked and bent factory wheels: 2014-2019 C7 owners report the cast-aluminum wheels -- especially the wide rear wheels on the Z06 and Grand Sport -- cracking or bending during normal road driving with no pothole strike, producing slow leaks or a sudden loss of tire pressure at speed. GM has frequently declined bumper-to-bumper coverage, treating it as road damage. Wheels are the single largest C7 complaint category by volume in the corpus.

Check — Inspect every wheel, including the inner barrel, for cracks and bends; check for slow leaks and for prior wheel replacement or repair (welded rims). Budget wheels as a recurring cost on hard-driven cars.

C7 Z06 (LT4) track heat soak and reduced power: on hot days or during sustained hard or on-track driving, the supercharged 6.2L LT4 can heat-soak and drop into reduced-power (limp) mode until it cools -- worst on 2015-2016 cars with the 8-speed automatic and undersized cooling. GM issued special coverage (bulletin N202302720) for 2015-2018 Z06 cooling: an updated radiator package, plus revised shift calibration on automatics, for 7 years / 72,000 miles, following a class action. 2017+ models received cooling revisions.

Check — If the car will see track use, confirm whether the cooling special-coverage radiator update was performed and ask for evidence; check for a history of reduced-power/overheating events. A stock 2015-2016 automatic is the most affected.