2023 Chevy Colorado TrailBoss First Drive Review and Off-Road Test

this is the all-new 2023 Chevrolet Colorado Trail Boss today we're going to test it off-road for the very first time that's coming up right now on driving sports TV [Music] this is the 2023 Chevrolet Colorado now this is of course a mid-sized truck and it competes with the Toyota Tacoma the Ford Ranger and the Nissan Frontier I am personally a huge fan of this segment and in fact I personally own a 2022 Ford Ranger Tremor Edition so I'm very interested how well this particular trim Stacks up because this is the budget version of the off-road Colorado yeah you don't have to get a ZR2 to get a rear Locker so how does this stack up against the competition we're going to find out but first let's check out all the features in terms of power Chevy is offering the new Colorado with one engine a turbocharged 2.7 liter inline four-cylinder but it is available in three different outputs the LT gets the basic 237 horsepower 259 pound foot setup the trail boss and Z71 trims get the 310 horsepower 390 pound foot setup the ZR2 of course gets a torque bump all the way to 430 pound-feet of torque and to confuse things even more you can option higher output engines on Lower trims if you want you can even do it with the work truck no matter which engine you get the only transmission is a revised eight-speed automatic a two-speed transfer case with automatic four-wheel drive is an option on select trims you also get a variety of Drive modes which we'll check out later in the video we don't have economy numbers but something around 19 City and 25 MPGs on the highway is expected it can run on regular fuel but will perform best with premium the model that we're going to focus on today is of course the trail boss and this isn't just a sticker package it actually has a three inch wider track over the LT and work truck versions the trail boss comes standard with 18 inch wheels wrapped in all-terrain tires but what we have here is the optional 20 inch with all-terrain package these are Bridgestone duelers they are a mud and Snow rated but they are not three Peak they're a 275 60 R20 fitment nice thing is that when you actually configure your own trail boss you can option mud terrains which is a good choice if that's the kind of world you live in now if you're looking for a variety of cab options you're not going to find them in Colorado you only can buy it in a crew cab configuration with a short bed but I think for a lifestyle truck and honestly that's what I think the trail boss is that's fine if you're looking for something that has like a short cab or an extended bed you're going to have to move up to the Silverado if you want to stick with Chevrolet we do have some nice stuff here love these flared fenders we also get the side step that's included standard on all trims helps us get to the inside there in the back we have this smooth dropping tailgate and there's also a neat trick here they have class exclusive in tailgate storage how's that it's even watertight we don't have a lot of time here so we're going to blast through some of the details of this truck that Chevy provided for testing prices you see it here with a number of upgrades 43 510 US Dollars including destination it's interesting that our Trail Boss test truck didn't include the optional skid plate but because this does have a standard two inch lift maybe that won't be as big of a deal today front suspension is independent in back you get solid axles and leaf springs this trim also gets a standard Eaton G80 Auto Locker maximum ground clearance is 9.5 inches Towing is maxed out at 7 700 pounds payload a generous 1587 pounds step inside and the first thing you'll notice is a complete lack of buttons on this and lower trims lots of the controls have been moved to the infotainment screen even the headlights are controlled on the touch screen which in my opinion is not okay incidentally the headlights on the trail boss are old school halogens no fancy LEDs here to get LEDs and more buttons you need to move up to the Z71 but at least this is a really nice touch screen it's big clear and has Snappy response Google navigation is included Chevy has done a great job of including lots of great safety equipment across all the Colorado trims for 2023. this one has Lane detection blind spot identification adaptive cruise and collision mitigation in addition to a complete surround view camera system one annoyance with this system though is that when you do have the camera up for some reason they won't let you change Drive modes this seems like a pretty major oversight speaking of modes there are several including tow off-road and terrain Chevy even includes detailed explanations of what they do on screen we'll play with the off-road modes later the gauge cluster is a digital display with several useful screens to pick from climate is only single zone in the Trail Boss the seats are power adjustable but there are otherwise pretty basic okay that's enough details for now let's take this for a drive first we're going to hit the dirt and then we're gonna hit the highway the trail we're on today really isn't that difficult but it should be challenging enough to give a demonstration of this vehicle's capabilities okay setting up the vehicle there's a few things we can do we can change this digital display to be Speedo trip all that kind of stuff no I don't want that yes that's the one I want the four-wheel drive off-road configuration which gives me pitch and roll on the left steering angle on the right also very boldly shows me how the transfer case is currently engaged and I'm going to put the camera on up there so I can see forward and that's pretty much it let's move on out so I am just in two-wheel drive right now Rolling Along so it is nice that this Trail Boss actually has a two inch lift over the lower trims if you go all the way up to the ZR2 that one gives you a three inch lift which is pretty incredible but the ZR2 does cost more than fifty thousand dollars when properly equipped and uh that's a lot of money for a midsize suspension does feel a little stiff I do feel like I'm getting a little tossed around here I really enjoy the roads down in San Diego and on its outskirts because these are like desert Mountainside roads they're very dry you got lots of rocks and uh you got some nice washouts which kind of add to the challenge which I like you know if you're going on a road like this you don't want to be too easy so yeah I am just doing two-wheel drive here so far now this is the mid spec motor so output is actually pretty good it is a large four-cylinder though 2.7 liters I had to look on the spec sheet just to make sure that it wasn't a six but no this is the same four cylinder that first appeared in the Silverado as we climb up here we're going to eventually hit an obstacle so let's play with the different Drive modes and there are quite a few on this truck flicking through modes it's not doing anything oh right that brings me to one of the issues with this truck you have to it has like layered menus so when I had up the control screen it doesn't go away I can't change my drive modes I have to exit it and then I can change my drive modes because I'm in two-wheel drive I can set the drive mode to off-road that will work but I cannot do terrain which is the more extreme off-road setting when I go there it just exits me back to normal I mean so far this Trail has been actually really easy there's been no reason to use any of the drive modes but what I'm going to go ahead and do right now is switch it into four high because I know we have some more stuff coming up transfer case has switched and at this point I can now go into the more extreme terrain mode and one of the biggest differences with terrain mode is that once I start crawling here if I lift off it like wants to stop the truck immediately I don't get any free roll and that's because if you're on tricky objects like large Boulders and stuff like that you don't want to free roll off you don't want to just keep moving so this really helps keep the truck in control okay so four high plugging Along on this Ridge Road in San Diego can't really think of anything better I'd rather be doing although maybe in a truck with a better interior because this interior it's pretty low end this is based on the LT Truck which is the entry level model at One Step Above work truck but you know as far as normal versions of the truck this is a low end version of it just with all the off-road gear and it really feels Cut Rate on the inside I hate to say it but for the money on this thing it just doesn't uh it doesn't impress my Ranger is a much nicer interior for the money and keep in mind if you can figure this thing nicely you're looking at 43 000 that's a fair amount of money they've moved a lot of stuff to the screen and I don't really like it for these type of driving situations although on the screen they do have some cool stuff there's an off-road screen that gives you over Landing terrain and Baja screens Baja is of course more like g-forces terrain gives me the same display that I can have in the middle here and then over Landing helps me with my elevation and my direction which is really cool that's a really nicely thought out menu and that's one of my favorite off-road menu systems this truck is equipped with a rear locker and it is an auto Locker so you're not going to find a button anywhere for it basically when it detects that there's a 100 RPM difference between the left and right rear wheels it'll engage that Locker which pushes power to both Wheels equal to help push the vehicle forward that way you avoid leeching power out of a wheel without grip it's a physical way of moving the vehicle forward that is really quite good and neat thing here is that on this truck it also works into wheel drive likewise the Ford Ranger also you can do the locker in two-wheel drive the Toyota you cannot that only works in four low it's kind of an interesting choice there from Toyota a little quicker here gotta watch for big ruts though of course we will do a more thorough review of this truck uh once we get it into our local press Fleet this is just a first drive watch these ruts wow that when you're moving along and you're in terrain mode and you lift off the throttle that is a pretty oh when I'm over 20 odd engages under 20. so if I'm going at speed say 19 miles per hour I lift off the throttle oh and it's Progressive so it'll bring me to a complete stop if I'm doing five miles per hour and I stop chunk very quick if I'm crawling at one elecco stops almost on a dime okay that terrain stop and start is getting kind of annoying so I'm going to go ahead and turn that off let's go to we'll just keep it in off-road mode for now oh yeah now when I lift off the throttle free rolls of the suspension a little stiff side I know I've already said that if you I guess if you really want the nice off-road suspension you gotta jump up to ZR2 because it has those dssc shocks that are really quite great okay moving through moving through here one thing that I am noticing though is I'm not getting a lot of kick around in the bed a lot of trucks when you're on uneven surfaces they kind of kick around left and right just not getting a lot of that with this one yeah my Ranger does that horribly um and that's mostly because there's nothing in the bed I'm just driving with an open bed right now obviously if you put a lot of weight back there that will improve the situation let's go up on the berm wee okay here is a little thing where we can test that auto Locker I'm into wheel drive right now I'm going to go into this little ditch here and we're going to watch that rear wheel and see what it does pick it up I'm stopping on purpose and when that rotation gets over 100 RPM more it kicks in which moves us forward it's a pretty nice setup actually really easy to use we are now going to actually try something that's going to be a little bit more complicated obviously not too difficult for this truck or Chevy wouldn't have brought us out here but it at least will demonstrate the feature here we go a ditch really nice cross cut here and we're currently at a pitch of 11 degrees I want to put the camera on actually let's go to four low I want to see how slow this Coral ratio is I gotta switch to neutral so in camera view I get a lot of nice settings I'm going to do the front view with tracks so I can kind of see exactly where my line should be I'm just gonna keep the throttle and I would like actual tire tracks and not just these generic guides but they do they do an okay job moving in this is where we can really uh sample that approach angle which improved on this truck over the standard LT wow that when that when that eating kicks in it kicks in we got a drain ditch down the middle let's play with that and for this drain ditch let's go ahead and switch it into terrain mode that should give me that aggressive Slowdown pretend like I'm crawling on rocks here let's get that front camera going uh camera there we go and just put a wheel in there hope we don't scratch it so this does have the optional 18s which honestly if I'm building material boss I'd rather have seven teams straddling the trail looks like the camera is looking pretty good there seems to be pretty accurate with what we're doing up yep there's a hole there we go another hole there's the back end and we are clear of the ditch away we go camera on again so we can avoid big rocks you know four low crawl ratio seems pretty good let's go and move back to four high though we don't need to be slugging along there neutral for high there we go onward so if you're going to compare this Colorado versus the best-selling Toyota Tacoma TRD off-road would be the equivalent on this one or even the Ford Ranger Tremor between the three I still like my Tremor better and really it comes down to this interior now I like the fact that this has the camera option the surround view cameras very nice but like the Ford at this price point you don't get heated seats which honestly would be kind of nice at this Price Point Toyota does it uh but just overall the I find the Ford interior to be more comfortable to be nicer and that Ford interior is not great it's old but this is just really so Cut Rate feeling I just feel like it's it's really a compromise on the inside and that's unfortunate also these seats they are cloth and they're kind of okay I'm not really feeling too much tension back there right now but they also don't feel like they're they're supporting me very well so again the seat's not great uh yeah so would I trade in my Ranger for this truck no this isn't a particularly steep hill but we can try the hill descent control system all I have to do is go into the menu system here find Hill descent control toggle it on and now when I drive the speed that I approach that I lift off the brakes it'll set it to right now it's telling me that it's set to one mile per hour which is nice if you want to have you know the computers help with a controlled descent it's a good system to have personally I don't use it very much uh but as for this yeah I guess if you're a Chevy fan and you want off-road capability or you're willing to compromise with this to get the nice camera system um you know this is I I would not begrudge anybody to say this is their favorite truck that would be fine you know everybody's into something else personally the least they could have done is wrap the steering wheel with a nice synthetic wrap uh maybe put that on the thing you know make make the touch points a little bit nicer these are like every time I touch this wheel I'm like wow that's cheap not okay of course if you do go up to the ZR2 you also get an extra bonus in that you get a front Locker as well it's one of the only mid-sized trucks you can get with a front Locker outside of getting the jeep Gladiator which is obviously catering to a very different type of buyer I find it seem to find that uh Jeep guys like Gladiators and that's about it not saying they're bad I'm just saying they're a very uh they're a very specific type of use vehicle now they're definitely way more into off-road than they are onto the on-road experience this truck seems to you know balance capability in both directions pretty nicely now we are going to drive this on the highway in just a little bit we're not quite there yet but we will shortly so what don't I like about this truck obviously the interior not doing it for me I love the camera systems but man this system this menu not being able to change drive modes while you have a camera system up or even the control menu up it's it's a little bitfuddling it's like why can't you let me change my drive modes and just tell me on my gauge cluster that seems reasonable right but no that's not an option and just it's like why why it kind of you know it's Sully's a what is otherwise a pretty good Driving Experience okay so I think it's safe to say that off-road this Trail Boss is extremely capable now this isn't exactly how I would configure it if I wanted to buy one myself I would go with the let's see I would take the standard Trail Boss I would add one of the safety packages a tech package I would definitely go with the 18 inch wheels and I would probably option the mud terrains I think yeah I'd probably do that and there's a few other extras I would add in and we're looking at a price of just over forty three thousand dollars as I would like it but even that won't improve this interior all that much which is a little disappointing [Music] so I did drive a Z71 earlier today before filming and its interior is actually a lot nicer and the thing that I liked about that Z71 was that it actually had a lot of buttons like right now I want to adjust my fan speed there's no button for it it's it's just not there and it's it's funny it's like usually lower trims have more buttons but in this case they integrated even more into the head unit why'd they do that that's weird I don't like that but now let's talk about how this thing handles on pavement and I'm sorry I don't have a lot of exterior shots but I'm running late and I'm squeezing this in I am at the Chevrolet first drive program and uh I'm gonna be already quite late for dinner so we're gonna haul let's talk about handling with this thing now as much as I complained about the suspension on dirt as being a little too stiff here it's actually really nice I mean for a leaf spring suspension with a two inch lift this handles pavement pretty well but then there's this engine transmission combo Let's uh let's go into a corner here I'm gonna put the brakes on tap them throttle and it takes a minute so if you want to actually drive aggressively come on that takes a long time this is a 2.7 liter engine with a Turbocharger so it's a big engine which is nice but when you're trying to get on Boost it seems to take a while I can hear that turbo going and then we have the power let's see when does power hit on this thing so I'm going to slow down I'm just gonna floor it we're at 1000 RPM nothing nothing 3500 which I guess is about normal but if you want to drive aggressively just be aware this transmission engine package just doesn't seem to like it now there's a few really really cool things about this truck that go beyond just this trim package and that's the fact that first off you have three different variations of this engine two part numbers but three different Power outputs and you can actually get a reflash from the manufacturer to add more power similar to what I did with my Ranger I added a lot more power to my Ranger with just a reflash that is so cool I love it when manufacturers do that also this has now moved to the six lug wheel which means it uses the same Wheels as a Silverado so if you have some sweet Silverado Wheels but you want a slightly smaller truck keep them bolt them right on I love it when manufacturers do things like that even though this is the base base trim essentially it does have some nice safety features we've got blind spot monitoring we got College mitigation and this even has adaptive cruise control which is a nice feature of course my Ranger trimmer also has that at the same price point oh and I have to talk about this thing does have auto four wheel drive an auto four wheel drive is really great for people who don't want to fuss with four high four low too high you know when do you turn on four-wheel drive all that stuff you just don't have to worry about it just put it in Auto and it'll figure it out when you when it needs to you know so if you're in like mixed conditions because you don't always want to be in four-wheel drive on dry pavement absolutely you do not drive in four-wheel drive but you can put it into Auto so that if you're on spotty like snow and pavement and that kind of stuff you can absolutely get the best possible traction if there's any slip it engages four wheel drive automatically it's kind of a nice safety thing so if you're if you're down with the four-wheel drive for safety that's a really good choice to go with and that's something that Ford doesn't even offer in the ranger right now I'm not even sure if they're going to offer it in the new ranger again for some people that does not matter personally I used to really want auto four wheel drive but I'm kind of getting to the point now where I'm like I just don't really find it as that much of an issue and I feel like I need to point out here that a lot of the things that I'm complaining about are fixed with the ZR2 which we will test later it's not available to drive yet but when it is we'll definitely give a full review of it and the ZR2 is I mean in addition to offering a front locker and all the stuff that is good about this vehicle you also get some more physical buttons you get a nicer interior you know it's it's just nicer I think that when they said they wanted to make kind of like a more entry-level version they kind of went a little two entry level you know basing this on the cheapest of the cheapest of the LT trims maybe that was a little much what they need to look at is like what Toyota does with its TRD off-road trim yeah they have one that's kind of at this level but then they also offer the premium for a little bit more so you're not don't have to jump all the way to a ZR2 you can you know jump just a little bit so in Toyota's case you don't have to jump all the way to a TRD Pro you can have the slightly tuned down features but still have a nice interior but GM Chevy they say now you want to save some money you get the super cheap interior and oh man that it kind of ruins it for me you know which is disappointing and I think that's about it for today in the future we aren't going to have more content with this brand new Colorado so be sure to hit that subscribe button also hit like and leave a comment below for driving sports TV I'm Ryan douthit thanks for watching

Channel: Driving Sports TV

Views: 134,862

Keywords: car review, driving sports tv, 2023 chevrolet colorado, chevrolet colorado 2023, 2023 chevy colorado, 2023 colorado, 2023 colorado trail boss, 2023 chevy colorado redesign, 2023 colorado z71, 2023 chevrolet colorado trail boss, 2023 colorado zr2, 2023 chevy colorado trail boss, trail boss, Colorado vs Ranger, Tacoma vs Colorado

Id: OpoWHfxyLuY

Length: 26min 2sec (1562 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 18 2023