first picked it up, it drove just fine.
It seemed like it had plenty of
power. I put 900 pounds of flooring in it and it just fell on its face.
It took way too much throttle
to merge and it seemed like it
was struggling to keep up on the
highway. It was only 900 pounds!
This thing is rated at 7,000-lb
towing. That would be frighten-
ing. I would say that perhaps all
the other trucks lost truck of the
year versus the Canyon/Colorado winning it (queue ridiculous
Super Bowl reference).
So what’s the good? Nearly
every truck has something good
about it (except the Ridgeline
but that’s another day) and this
one is no exception. It is comfortable to drive, easy to maneuver
and gets decent gas mileage.
The rear seats on this crew cab
version are big enough for adults
and fold down or up for use as an
enclosed cargo area. The technology system is okay – nothing
great but again not the worst.
The rear bumper steps and in
bed fixed tie down anchors
are functional and the tail gate
springs make it easy to close. This
truck is almost perfectly average.
The bad? Power. If you went
to the dealer and test-drove this
truck you would think that the
power would be adequate. It
wasn’t until I put a load in it that
I realized the true chink in the armor. Even with the V6 option this
truck is sluggish with a load. One
comment David, our camera
guy, said while I was headed up
hill and trying to merge with the
flooring on board made was “Is
there something wrong?”
In an age were everyone gets
a trophy for just participating this
truck is about as average achieving as it gets. It has the looks and
the pedigree to be a great truck
but really what they ended up
with is an 80% scale GMC Sierra.
If you’re looking for a partsrunning, home-project truck that
you can actually fit in a garage,
this would be a solid alternative
to a full-sized (1/2 ton) truck. If
you’re planning on taking it to
the lake with a 20+ foot-long
boat, you are going to be disappointed.
CarGuyMagazine.com
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