so one year driving on this 2023 GMC Sierra Denali 1500 pickup truck and we've put 1854 miles on this truck looks like the uh tire pressure dropped down a little bit in the last couple of days due to the cold front that came through we're averaging on this tank 21 m per gallon with a truck average of 22.2 m per gallon which is still pretty dang good considering the fact this truck has only seen City driving lately let's talk about this thing hang tight I'll be right back what's going on guys so welcome back welcome inside of our 2023 GMC Sierra Denali 1500 truck we've had this truck for a year and a few days and I wanted to give you guys a one-year update on this truck and what it's been like owning it again 1854 mil on it so we are definitely above average in terms of driving I know a lot of people out there are going to say that's nothing that's like a tiny amount of driving which is true for a lot of folks but the average miles that you typically see on most Vehicles after one year of ownership is usually between 10 and 12,000 Mi so we are definitely over that okay so we bought this truck in late late 2022 with the idea of testing it out and seeing how we loved it over a one-year period we specifically got this truck with the 3 l lzo Duramax diesel engine or the baby Duramax Diesel because we had heard so many good things about it we've towed with this truck nearly 20 times over the last year and we've also towed near its Max by hauling the dump trailer to the landfill several times as well as connecting it to the new surveyor so we have a pretty good idea of how this thing is in terms of capability how it handles payload how it Towes and the fuel economy you get when you're not Towing and when you are Towing so before we talk about Towing let's talk about reliability we have not had a single part single component single accessory on this truck fail in any way the truck has performed flawlessly the truck has given us absolutely no problems at all and I expected that I did not expect to have any type of mechanical issues our roof wasn't cracking we haven't had any issues with the truck leaking we haven't had any issues with the truck not starting or starting in a awkward way everything's been working really well on the truck and believe it or not this has kind of been our everyday driver we've tried to put as many miles on this as possible while somehow still accumulating about 5,000 Mi on the red truck and about 6,000 Mi on my wife's Expedition so we've been doing a lot of driving this year but the majority of those miles have definitely gone on this GMC Denali now let's talk about fuel economy so the fuel economy in this truck has been pretty dang consistent when we first got the truck we did some long trips in it just to kind of see what the maximum fuel economy we could get out of this truck on the highway was and believe it or not we got upwards of 33 to 34 MP gallon on the highway in a full-size half ton truck with a baby diesel engine in it that was absolutely insane it blew us away and it absolutely even blew the numbers on the sticker away so we are very impressed with the performance of this truck from a fuel economy standpoint on the highway now as things heated up during summer that dropped a little bit so we saw the fuel economy numbers drop on the highway a bit down to about 30 m per gallon on the highway but when it came to City driving you can easily squeak out 24 25 mes per gallon if you're very lightf footed on it if you drive normally you're probably going to be between 21 and 24 m per gallon again depending on what you call normal by comparison most of its competition see about 21 m per gallon on the highway so that's a really interesting point whenever you think about it this truck performs in the city like most full-size trucks perform on the highway in terms of fuel economy now let's talk about something that really doesn't matter to me but it probably matters to a lot of other folks that are out there especially folks that get these in a higher performance package with the 6.2 L V8 engine versus the 3 l Diesel and that's going to be performance and acceleration this truck for us accelerates much faster than we ever need it to accelerate we've never had any problem merging into traffic or getting onto an expressway or a highway and getting up to speed quickly and there's always been extra room for acceleration if we wanted to go faster now most people that get in this truck and they think this 3 l Duramax is going to be a slouch and then I floor it and they feel how it kind of sucks them into the seat they're kind of shocked by how much power this truck produces and I think for the most part when you buy a truck like this only a very very small percentage of buyers are looking for just sheer performance out of this truck from an acceleration standpoint but if that's you they do have a gas V8 which gets far worse fuel econ in this truck that you can opt for and you can have that pull you in your seat performance but for me this truck pulls me in my seat as much as I need to be pulled in my seat considering the fact that I have an F450 which is much slower than this truck yet still feels fast for a big truck now let's talk about things that we love about this truck and some things that we might prefer be a little different first of all we absolutely love the Google Assistant that comes in this truck it's part of the infotainment system just the ability for you to say hey Google ask interesting questions ask it to do different things like adjust the air conditioning system change to different menus navigate you to a certain area has been absolutely amazing our daughter loves the feature she's always asking it questions and just random stuff which really amps up that infotainment system value whenever you're on a long trip or even a short trip we also love the headlight output on this truck this truck has absolutely fantastic headlights on it which believe it or not that's a huge perk whenever you have a vehicle and you're driving at night the LED headlights cast a wonderful swath great cut off line get a lot of light on the road and they look fantastic and they've done a great job with the lighting on this truck we've also really grown to love the multipro tailgate it really takes owning a truck like this for you to appreciate all the functions of that tailgate for you to be able to use it in the multiple ways that it allows you to use it now for us we've only used it really in a few ways that actually matter using it as a seat Well any tailgate can be used as a seat we use it as a step to get into the bed which is a good one we use it as a means to get closer to the bed by opening up the inter tailgate which is also a really really good function and I've used it a few times whenever I've had to load things in the back of the truck that are super heavy and extend out the back to where I can still close the cover and I can have the small tailgate down and have something sticking out the back that has really really been helpful for us but I think probably the number one reason why I like that tailgate is just the fact that I can get closer to the bed whenever I'm loading or unloading things especially heavy stuff it really really matters and I like The Stance of the truck being a little bit lower because it means I can actually reach into the bed to get things out as well I'm not a fan of big lifted trucks uh personally I think it takes some of the usefulness and the practicality out of a truck when you do that and our 450 is not a lifted truck but it still is certainly high enough that it can be difficult getting things out of the bed of the truck now another thing we love is the look of the truck the look of this truck is absolutely gorgeous in our opinion we have so many folks that come up and just say wow that's a beautiful Denali and everyone refers to it as a Denali very few people come up and say that's a beautiful GMC truck truck so there's a certain kind of status that people associate with a Denali pickup truck and it's pretty obvious because very very few people actually say hey that's a beautiful GMC truck or that's a beautiful truck they'll usually say man that's a beautiful Denali pickup truck now let's talk about some things that we don't really care for and these are some things that you've probably already heard about over the last several videos over the last year so first and foremost the lack of 12volt outlets in this truck is actually very disappointing I really wish that they would put 12vt Outlets back in the truck mainly because there are so many accessories that still require them yes you can buy certain adapters that are out there but most of those adapters are used to convert like a 5volt plug to a 12volt plug which is not the route you want to go what I generally believe is that you should have at least two to three 12volt outlets in every pickup truck again so many folks still have things that require 12volt Outlets if you don't you specifically don't then you're probably in the minority I believe most people especially if you tow you're going to have something that requires a 12vt outlet there's still a lot of things that you buy like mini air compressors and backup cameras and all sorts of different things that still require 12vt outlets and I think that GM went the wrong direction by removing them and honestly I feel the only people who don't care about them are people who just don't have anything that use them but I believe there's a lot more people that actually would find Value in having a 12volt Jack than just having a USBC or a standard USB charging Jack because those USB jacks do not do a good job charging your phone ask anybody they barely trickle charge your phone and quite frankly they're almost embarrassing and they don't put enough of them in the truck anyways in the first place they really need to put some quick Chargers in these trucks and for me personally I don't see a lot of value in a wireless charger for me I know a lot of folks do but that's just me personally secondly the seats yeah the seats haven't gotten any more comfortable I've tried taking the little padded cushions out just to see if the seats have gotten any more broken in or more comfortable over the year they haven't I I really think GM Needs to Go a different direction with at least the bottom bolstering of their seats that said though once we put the 1 and 1/2 in memory foam pads on the bottom they're a lot more comfortable so we were able to work around the seat issue and that honestly to me might have been a reason why we didn't keep the truck if we didn't have a solution for the uncomfortable seats but yeah GM really needs to work on the seat comfort in my opinion okay so let's talk a little bit about Towing so again we've towed a lot with this truck we've towed the surveyor we've towed almost every trailer back there except the goose neck and I can tell you that this thing toes pretty dang well aside from the fact that the back suspension is very soft and what I mean by that is when we hook up the surveyor with weight distribution and we've only used it with the BMW Continuum hitch um or just a traditional hitch whenever hooking up to some of the other trailers the back feels like it bottoms out very easily it feels like you have very little suspension space left and it can make for a pretty jarring ride considering the fact that this truck is so smooth and comfortable during normal driving uh whenever we hook up to the surveyor because we have the BMW Continuum and we can dial it in so we don't have the back suspension sag as much it's not nearly as bad but whenever we're hooked up to like the dump trailer which weighs about as much as the surveyor whenever we hook up to some of the other cargo trailers utility trailers aside from the super compact gray cargo trailer that we have which only weighs like 3,000 lb you definitely feel the weight over the back you definitely feel the suspension compressing and you definitely can feel the suspension bottom out anytime you hit any type of a bump or expansion in the road or any type of a pothole you really feel the suspension bottom out on the truck from a towability perspective the truck toes pretty dang well would not tow a travel trailer larger than the surveyor with this truck I just don't think it makes sense you definitely can tell how light this truck is this truck doesn't weigh nearly as much as a 3/4 ton truck it doesn't have the wheelbase of a 3/4 ton truck and because that weight difference you can really tell when you're towing something heavier behind it and again for long trips I definitely would not tow over 6,500 lb with this truck considering the maximum tow rating on this truck is 8,800 lb but the actual cargo capacity on this truck is around 1,400 lb again if you plan on towing a larger travel trailer or a larger trailer in general you're very likely to exceed your payload capacity on the truck before you exceed your truck's towing capacity and remember both numbers matter so let's talk about fuel economy when towing now we're going to talk specifically about Towing the Forest River surveyor and not the dump trailer because when we towed the dump trailer it was relatively empty even though it weighs about as much as the surveyor the surveyor is larger it's taller and it's going to have a greater wind profile so it's going to take away more from your fuel economy than the dump trailer would we averaged about 14 to 16 m per gallon while Towing the travel trailer that is pretty dang insane that is really really impressive and it was much better than we thought we would get so I can honestly tell you that towing a travel trailer with this truck exceeds the fuel economy that we got with my wife's Expedition it exceeds the fuel economy that we get with bigger trucks or trucks with bigger engines so we're very impressed with the fuel economy all around with this baby Duramax engine and I really think that if you're looking for a truck that gets ridiculously good fuel economy that has a lot of great amenities a lot of luxury and a lot of capabilities as long as you understand where its limits are this is probably a truck worth looking at it doesn't need to be in a Denali trim if you want to save some money you can save like $15,000 by going to a lower trim truck with the same engine platform in it and same four-wheel drive system so there's a lot of reasons to look at these newer GMC trucks with this baby Duramax and even the Chevy trucks with the baby Duramax inside of them because they give you an absolutely insane value when it comes to fuel economy now a lot of people are going to say you pay a lot more for the Duramax but in the case of these smaller Duramaxes you actually don't if you compare the premium cost of this Duramax to say the 6.2 L V8 or the smaller V8 you actually only pay about $11,500 more than the smaller V8 and you pay less than the 6.2 L gas V8 so this is comfortably in the middle price-wise between the two this is not like a $10,000 option like you see on heavier duty trucks and again I think the performance would be the only issue some people might have but it's not an issue for us I think this is an absolutely fantastic truck and we've loved having it for the last year and probably end up keeping it just because it's so great on fuel economy we might get another truck to evaluate for a year but I think we'll hold on to this one because uh it's hard to give up a truck that's performed so well and get such great fuel economy just to get a truck that doesn't so if we get another vehicle we'll probably end up keeping this one guys please leave a comment below let me know what your thoughts are I hope you enjoyed this video If you haven't had a chance please take a moment subscribe to the channel give me a thumbs up and we'll talk to you again very soon
