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SPEAKER 1: Midsize trucks as a segment
have been somewhat neglected.
Our top-rated midsize truck is the Honda Ridgeline.
And to be fair, in a lot of ways,
it's not even actually a truck.
That makes it a segment that is ripe for the picking.
And we're here to find out if the new 2023 Chevy Colorado has
what it takes to end up on top.
Now the funny thing for the Colorado is to end up on top,
it probably doesn't even need to be that good.
All the other contenders have great flaws.
The Tacoma kind of sucks even though it's really reliable.
The Ranger has a bad interior, and the Frontier,
though recently redesigned, still feels old.
So does this new Colorado with its brand new interior,
exterior styling, and single turbo powertrain option
have what it takes to jump over what's admittedly a low bar?
Let's find out.
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This is the Z71, and this is a good truck for us
to talk about the Colorado's changes
to its exterior styling.
I tried to picture in my head what
the old Colorado looked like.
And I kind of failed because that was really
one of the most anonymous trucks ever designed.
This one looks better kind of by default,
but actually better because it looks much more muscular.
It looks much more like a truck.
Starting with a hood here, there's
all these new creases that kind of run down.
And they also help you to see the front of the hood
from the driver's seat.
So you can actually see down a little bit
and see where the front of the truck
ends from the driver's seat.
Coming down the sides, even more sculpting.
On the Z71, the Trail Boss, you get more prominent
black fenders.
Not a big fan of black plastic.
But, again, it kind of actually works
with its overall very muscular look that they're going for.
As we come around to the rear here,
you get this nice little sidestep
bumper that allows you to access the bed easier,
Z71 sticker here on the quarter panel.
Again, new lines here that make it a lot more visually
interesting.
If we drop the tailgate, it also comes
with this handy little storage space.
So you just kind of pop these things open.
And then you have a nice little storage space in the bed.
Can't fit anything really large in there but nice
to have some more secure storage back here.
One other thing that they did on the Colorado
that I do really like--
this lug pattern actually matches the Silverado, six lug
nuts, and that allows you to get Silverado accessories
and Silverado wheels.
And a lot of those will now fit on the Colorado,
just giving customers another way they can customize
their trucks if they want.
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One of the biggest weaknesses that the Colorado needed
to address was its interior.
The last Colorado actually drove pretty well.
There are things we liked about it.
But its interior was so bad that you couldn't sit in it
and not be reminded with how much you
wanted to be somewhere else.
Things completely different in this new Colorado.
Again, Z71 trim, so this is one of the more upscale levels
of the Colorado.
But even all the way down to the Work Truck,
doesn't feel at all like it did before.
All starts here with this standard 11.3-inch touch
screens.
GM done a very good job with its multimedia
over the past few years.
The Google integration is excellent.
You can tell Google to do things like to turn on your ventilated
seat or to change the climate controls.
It's just very intuitive, very easy to use
unlike a lot of the other voice control
systems in other vehicles.
Hey, Google, turn on the driver's ventilated seat.
SPEAKER 2: All right, turning on seat fans for the driver.
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SPEAKER 1: That is satisfying.
Other things too that are good, Google Maps built in.
So I can log in with my Google account, get all of my places
without plugging in my phone if I don't want to.
But if you do want to, wireless Apple CarPlay
and wireless Android Auto standard.
And another thing we like about the Colorado,
this bank of physical controls right here.
Everything that I need really within easy arm's
reach of the driver.
I can change temperature on both sides.
I can reach the volume knob.
I can turn on the seats.
I can change the fan speed, all that stuff.
Super easy, right where you think it would be.
Below that, a lot of these controls also easy to reach.
An aux button here in case I want to add any accessories.
Auto stop/start for the engine if I
want to turn that on and off, again, just a very intuitive,
easy to use interior.
One of the other things I like about the new Colorado
is that a lot of the safety features
have really been democratized.
So even all the way down to the Work Truck,
you can get things like a surround view camera,
adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitors, things
that you couldn't really get on the old Colorado.
And the other thing they've done with this interior
is they've taken the shifter, moved it from the left
to the right, and so that makes it actually
easier to access this little knob here,
which controls your drive modes or your four-wheel drive
functions.
So Colorado wheelbase has grown by 3.1 inches.
But the interior room has actually shrunk.
So I was afraid that the backseat would
be too cramped for adults.
But I was pleasantly surprised that when I hopped back there
I had enough legroom and headroom.
I'm 5' 11".
I set the seat up here where I would drive.
And I can sit behind myself comfortably.
Not a ton of thigh support in the seats.
So you don't want to be back there for a really long time.
But for any trip about an hour or two, you'll be A-OK.
Another thing for the back seat, you
do get air vents and USB ports, amenities
that you don't even get in the back seat
of some compact sedans.
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We're here in the Work Truck.
And this is actually where I like
to start because it gives us a sense of what
the Colorado's real essence is.
There's nothing really like driving a truck around
on steelies.
It actually feels like a truck.
Kind of a spartan interior as you would expect.
The layout is very similar to what
you'll get in the other trims, just the materials
are kind of taken down a notch.
But with this standard 11.3-inch touch screen here and this
standard 8-inch screen in the instrument cluster,
a lot of tech in this cabin that comes standard gives it some
real value compared to the competition,
which for the most part comes with smaller screens and a lot
less options.
Wireless CarPlay and wireless Android Auto both standard.
No wireless charging pad though.
So your phone might drain a little bit.
But really nice to have that wireless connectivity as soon
as you hop into the vehicle.
The Colorado has really shrunk down its buying options.
So instead of having multiple bed and cab configurations,
you're really only looking at one cab and one bed
configuration.
So all the Colorados now have a crew cab with a short bed.
So not really long for cargo, but makes things simple
when you're ordering.
And all the Colorados now have the same powertrain.
And that's in terms of displacement.
So they're all going to come with a 2.7 liter turbocharged
4-cylinder engine.
It's an engine that we first saw in the Silverado 1500.
And here in the Colorado, it's a little bit overqualified.
Though what Chevy has done is they've kind of turned it down.
So this Work Truck actually comes with a base engine,
just called the 2.7 liter turbo.
This is an engine that's standard in the Work Truck
and the LT. It makes around 240 horsepower,
and that's a lot less than you're actually
going to get with the other two variants of this engine
that we're going to talk about later.
In the Work Truck, it feels decent.
And it still drives pretty well around town.
And getting up to highway speeds, not a big issue.
The thing that you do lose with the base engine
is you lose a lot of towing capacity.
So only 3,500 pounds of towing with the base engine.
If you go up to the 2.7 turbo plus, the next engine up,
that number grows all the way to 7,700 pounds,
which is more than double.
So if you do plan to tow with the Colorado,
definitely opt for the more powerful engine options.
Base engine, a little bit noisy, a little bit coarse.
You do hear it, especially when you
start to get your foot into the pedal.
You don't quite get a lot of the turbo whoosh.
But it is a 4 cylinder.
It's not supposed to sound good.
The V-6 did sound better, but I don't really
miss a ton of the output because I'm
guessing that this 4 cylinder is a lot more efficient, though we
don't know for sure because fuel economy numbers are not yet
available.
But enough about the base model, we're
next going to go into the LT, which is actually
the version of the Colorado that we recommended for the 2022
model.
So we are driving in the LT with its optional engine, that
is, the turbo plus engine, much higher output than the base
engine that we were in previously.
And there's a pretty noticeable difference
between these two engines.
Same thing here, lots of engine noise.
If you actually look under the hood,
there's barely any sound insulation.
You can kind of see all the way back to the firewall.
So any time you accelerate on an uphill like this,
you're going to hear it a lot in the cabin.
Apart from that, though, when the engine actually
drops down to lower RPMs, the cabin is pretty quiet.
And it makes it kind of match how this engine
delivers its output.
You might think that a turbo 4 is really peaky.
This thing actually delivers power very smoothly.
Other things that we like-- still
an eight-speed automatic transmission.
Same as in the last gen Colorado.
But one thing that Chevrolet does well
is that they gear it so that when you're on the highway
and you're cruising, the engine actually
goes along at pretty low RPM.
And that makes the cabin a lot more tranquil.
There are other competitors, Tacoma,
that don't do a good job of that that kind of sound real noisy
and band-boxy on the highway.
But this thing at highway speeds, apart
from a touch of wind noise, pretty good.
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Now we've moved up into the Trail Boss.
And this starts at around $40,000.
But the interior is actually based on the Work Truck.
And the way that you can tell is that the steering wheel here
doesn't telescope.
It only tilts up and down.
Being a sort of upscale version of the Work Truck
has actually made me appreciate the Work Truck even more.
To go back to yesterday when we were driving the Work Truck,
that's the base interior.
And if you look around the rest of the segment
at like the Tacoma, the Ranger, the Frontier,
the base interiors of those trucks
really don't match up to what the Colorado brings you.
These screens are so easy to use, so nice.
GM infotainment for the last three or four years
has really been on point, especially
with the Google integration.
We're headed to drive the Trail Boss off road.
But on road, it's pretty good.
This has the same 2.7 liter turbo plus drive train
that we drove yesterday in the LT. And in that vehicle,
it was really loud for some reason.
We got a lot of induction noise, a lot of whooshy stuff
from the engine.
But the Trail Boss, it's a lot quieter.
It feels very docile.
And it still delivers good power.
For anything that I want on road,
the transmission is pretty quick to respond.
It gets up to speed quickly.
And at speed on the highway when we were driving over here,
the engine sat right at around 1,800
RPM, which means that you're not getting
any drone on the highway.
There's a touch of wind noise.
This is a truck after all.
But in terms of any harshness in the cabin,
I'm able to have a conversation with our producer
here really easily.
And, again, that's not something that you
could say about all the trucks in this segment.
All the Colorados come with a 2.7 liter
turbo, three different outputs.
But the way that that's accomplished
is not really through any mechanical changes at all.
So even in the base engine, you have the same turbo.
You're running basically the same boost and compression.
It's just a difference in software.
So in essence, what you can do is let's
say that you bought the turbo plus engine, the mid engine,
but you decided that one day you wanted to actually move up
to the high output engine and get all that torque,
you can just take the Colorado to a dealer.
And for $400, they will retune the software
and not void warranty.
And you'll unlock that extra torque.
So, basically, if you wanted to--
and I'm not saying that you should do this,
but maybe you should-- you can get a Work Truck
with a turbo plus engine, take it to the dealer, spend $400,
unlock all the torque, get the max towing,
get all that extra torque for any kind of off road
or even fun on the street application that you wanted,
and it just gives the Colorado a lot of flexibility up and down
its lineup out of one engine.
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We've reached the off-road section of our adventure.
And we're on fire trail, so nothing really big
hard off-roading.
But some pretty big ruts out here.
We've had a lot of rain recently in Southern California.
So some of these roads are a bit in rougher shape
than they would be normally.
Trail Boss, as its name might suggest,
does pretty well out here.
It comes with a standard all-terrain tire
that's grippy enough for this.
But it's also still pretty composed
on the street, not a lot of tire slap.
I was actually pretty happy with the amount of tire noise
we didn't get on the highway.
This part requires a fair bit of articulation.
And one of the things that we have to do here
is we have to be able to go slow.
So this 4-cylinder engine does a pretty good job
of being able to deliver its power in a consistent manner.
I'm able to actually manipulate the throttle rather easily.
And the truck doesn't ever jump or really do anything
that you wouldn't expect it to do.
In that way, it's kind of like those diesel trucks almost
where you get a ton of torque at the low end,
and you're able to deliver it consistently.
And through that section right there, I just
stayed maybe 10%, 50% throttle.
And the truck just did all the work for me.
So the Trail Boss, not, again, going
to be the off road kind of monster
like you're going to get with the ZR2
with its multimatic DSSV shocks.
This is still kind of a fairly stock truck setup.
It just has a bit more lift to it.
But, again, impressed by this powertrains ability
to deliver power and to do so easily and without the peaks
and valleys that you might get out of other turbo fours.
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The more time that I spend with the new Colorado, the more
that I like it.
Sure, it makes too much engine noise.
And sure, that 4-cylinder drone can be a bit annoying at times,
but it offers a more cohesive package
than anything else in this segment.
From the Work Truck on up to the Z71,
there's plenty of good technology
and a very easy to use and stylish interior, two things
that you won't find anywhere else in this segment.
That's enough to move the Colorado
to the top of the midsize truck segment for me,
at least until next year when we see what the new Ford
Ranger has to say.
For more videos like this, head over
to the Edmunds YouTube channel.
And for more information on any car, head over to edmunds.com.
[COW MOOING]
I know.
I agree, cow.
It's kind of a weird color.
It's kind of poop color.
But I like it.
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