For once, we have an Ace of Base entrant whose trim level is actually Base. Not Sport. Not XL. Base. Tell it like it is, Chevy.
Not long ago I sampled the Colorado in ZR2 trim, finding it to be an agreeable alternative to some of the other factory-built off-road trucks on the market. Let’s see how the base model treats its occupants.
The GMC Canyon went through our Ace of Base wringer nearly a year ago, proving that one can buy a small(ish) truck with rear-wheel drive and a stick shift in America. The base Colorado neatly performs the same trick, supplying an identical powertrain but with an added bonus: the Chevy is a full $885 less dear than the GMC. At this end of the price scale, that’s not an insignificant amount of simoleons, especially when the two trucks are virtually identical.
Make no mistake: this is a two-passenger conveyance. The extended cab’s rear seats have been binned in an Accountant-Approved(TM) penny pinching move, although economies of scale have dictated that the rear seatbelts remain, left to flap around like a forlorn windsock. It’s just as well, though — my experience in an extended cab ZR2 while traversing the Colorado wilderness proved the rear seats are merely token gestures when the front chairs are adjusted to fit Large Persons such as myself. The upshot is that space up front is best measured in acres, encouraging one to splay their legs and consider buying cowboy boots.
A 2.5-liter direct injected four-cylinder is mated to a six-speed manual box. An even 200 horses present themselves at 6,300 rpm; a short 4.10 rear end gear set will ensure you shouldn’t have much trouble reaching that level of revvage. Short gears mean quicker acceleration. Not much weight over the rear wheels mean burnout potential. Combined, these mean Very Fun Things.
Being part of the General’s large supply chain benefits the base Colorado, endowing it with niceties such as a backup camera, locking tailgate, power driver’s seat, and eight airbags. Recalling a time when base trucks were fitted with cardboard headliners (if they were lucky), the level of opulence found in the cheapest of GM trucks is remarkable. The mirrors might be manual folding but they are power adjustable, meaning one doesn’t have to roll down the window and place a greasy thumbprint on the glass. Not that you’ll be rolling down any side glass — power units, with an auto up/down for the driver, are standard.
Your color choices are limited to the greyscale. Get the black one. That shade will hide some of the unlovely expanses of black plastic on the base Colorado. Critically, air conditioning is standard, as is a hose-it-out vinyl floor. It should be noted that this utilitarian and practical floor covering is an extra-charge option on high-zoot F-150s. I kid you not.
Only $20,995 (including destination) for a handsome truck that has a more than a few creature comforts, can smoke the baloneys, and handily tow 3,500lbs? Sounds like an Ace of Base to us.
[Images: General Motors]
Not every base model has aced it. The ones which have? They help make the automotive landscape a lot better. Any others you can think of, B&B? Let us know in the comments. Naturally, feel free to eviscerate our selections.
The model above is shown with American options and is priced in Freedom Dollars. As always, your dealer may sell for less.
Good luck finding one on lots. I actually rather love the idea of this truck. Manual, a/c and not much else. If I could have a stable-full of vehicles, this one would find a way to the outside of the garage for yard/trash/stuff hauling duty.
But I suspect most people looking for trucks these days probably walk past any vehicle even remotely this Spartan and look for the loaded up Silverados and such…
I like the looks of this too but these trucks here are usually loaded crew cab 4×4’s that end up being $40k plus.
The closest we have is the 3,200lb Japanese regular cab trucks with a typical 2.5 gasoline PFI four w/ 6 spd manual… you may need to spend $1,000 on an alloy tray to fit…
Do 2WD pickup trucks still get stuck on wet grass? I assume they’ve gained enough weight that they can handle it, and not need to get towed out by a 20-year old Ford Tempo.
Still, definitely not if there’s even a half-inch of snow in the vehicle’s future.
It may come with traction control as my 4×2 Sierra did. I never take it off road (much like 99.9% of those with 4×4) and never got stuck in snow. Ever.
I’ve gotten the one I was assigned at work stuck in a couple places that were a little embarrassing for a truck like that. Fortunately they actually sprang for the 4×4 models and I’ve never needed a tow.
To my last breath I’ll remain mystified that some sort of locker/lsd is not simply a given for any 2wd pickup. I have a couple of “wet grass” stories to go with my truck, and it’s simply absurd that a supposed work vehicle is kneecapped from the factory.
Now that’s really nice, and right up my alley.
Interestingly, Wifey and I discussed my giving up my Impala for a pickup truck, but none of them would fit in our garage, and I will never park my vehicles outside again as long as I have room inside, and on my side of the garage, I’d have to remove the workbench and I don’t want my “shop” in the basement.
My 1976 C-20 that I ordered and bought new had no headliner at all, but boy, did that red-painted inside roof shine when I waxed it! Yes – I really did that back in the day.
If I ever would buy one of these, I would have to go most likely with the auto tranny, though. I don’t enjoy shifting like I once did, but I would have to drive one to be sure, because my heart would say “go manual”.
Only makes sense round these parts if the G80 is along for the ride.
“…reaching that level of revvage. Short gears mean quicker acceleration. Not much weight over the rear wheels mean burnout potential. Combined, these mean Very Fun Things.”
Ugh.
Found 11 of them within 150 miles of me (near DC).
Having more seat belts than seats would trigger me – just a reminder of the idiotic old days of GM, which I guess are still around.
“Well it was cheaper to leave the seat-belts but cheaper still to delete the rear seat…” – Guy who has each vehicle’s manufacturing costs calculated down to $0.0000000000000000001
Now there’s a real truck. Just needs a 3″ drop and a longbed.
Amen. Can’t stand the body-lift look that newer GM pickups have from the factory; looks cheap and amateurish to me.
Otherwise, all I’d want would be a rear seat (as rarely as it would be used), a hitch (ditto), and a locker.
I want a four door, rubber mats, steel wheels, crank windows, a/c and a 6MT. I’d be fine with a four cylinder depending on whose four cylinder. A V6 would be better.
I don’t need a factory lift kit. Just make it sit like a 2WD from the 90s.
A friend’s base four door Tacoma was just about right a few years back – except the price tag. No way that truck was worth north of $30K.
Just tried to “build” my truck and the four door/4WD is mid-30’s/V6 gas or mid-40s/diesel.
Maybe someday in the second hand market.
I’ve considered this exact truck when it comes time to replace my Dakota. Though it’s true that not many dealers carry this base model, you can always do a factory order—no extra charge. At least it shouldn’t be…..
I wish packages like the ZR2, Raptor, or the like could be optioned with bare bones base trim. Its more in keeping with the real essence of the vehicle’s purpose; to get down and dirty!
RAM offers the Power Wagon package on the low spec trim levels which is awesome.
It’s no trick at all to buy a base RCSB half ton for under $20,000 before taxes this late in the model year. This fall it’ll be an easy $18.
A F-150 rides like a Cadillac by comparison, has 50% more motor (and a standard automatic that isn’t a $3200 package upcharge), vastly more driver space, can sit three actual adults without too much discomfort, and is actually a couple of inches shorter for the ten people who actually garage their trucks.
Unless Chevy is discounting these to 16 flat, which they aren’t, where’s the value here?
Not the be “that guy” but the bed height on these things is comically/disproportionately high. I thought the whole point of the rwd base compact/midsize trucks is that they were the last bastion of usable runabout trucks for homeowners to haul landscaping and home project things with. I’d 100% go with a 2.5L Frontier in this segment, and probably be able to snag one for a good bit cheaper than this Colorado.
I have noticed a definite trend where it seems that everyone is trying to make their 4×2 trucks have the same ride height as their 4×4 trucks.
Absolutely gtemnykh and PrincipalDan.
Wow, to think that GM is bothering to cater to philistines. This will get no love from myself that is for sure.
I found one of these at a local dealer and took a test drive last summer.
The truck did have plenty of space for me at 6’3, it was surprisingly quiet on the highway, and the shifter wasn’t bad at all. The equipment level overall seemed perfectly acceptable overall.
The downside was the fact the 2.5 was just plain not enough engine for the truck. I was flat out all the time to get any kind of acceleration. That kind of thing can’t be good for an engine, and I’m not a huge fan of GM’s bigger Ecotec fours after the trouble my wife’s Terrain had.
The sweet spot is probably the same truck, 6-speed manual with the 3.6 V6. Too bad that truck doesn’t exist.
Correction:
I found one of these at a local dealer and took a test drive last summer.
The truck did have plenty of space for me at 6’3, it was surprisingly quiet on the highway, and the shifter wasn’t bad at all. The equipment level overall seemed perfectly acceptable for a truck without cowboy cadillac pretensions.
The downside was the fact the 2.5 was just plain not enough engine for the truck. I was flat out all the time to get any kind of acceleration. And I wouldn’t dream of towing much more than a single jet ski or motorcycle on an open trailer. 3500 pounds sounds like punishment for truck and driver. That kind of thing can’t be good for an engine, and I’m not a huge fan of GM’s bigger Ecotec fours after the trouble my wife’s Terrain had.
The sweet spot is probably the same truck, 6-speed manual with the 3.6 V6. Too bad that truck doesn’t exist.
What problems with the wife’s 2.4?
I have that engine in my EQUINOX.
Timing chain stretch if I had to guess, and/or excessive oil consumption.
Timing chain stretch and oil consumption is right on the money. Bingo. A $2k repair on our dime for the timing chain, phasers, tensioner, etc. Then soon after new pistons and rings under a recall that wasn’t technically a recall. The Terrain had about 105k miles on it at the time.
We sold the car soon after, but maybe should’ve kept it as the engine was essentially rebuilt at that point. The car otherwise was in fine shape inside & out, but by that time we weren’t fully trusting of the car. And we were kind of sick of its semi-underpowered nature as well.
Do I win some sort of prize? :p
On a serious note, sorry about the serious repair bills, IMO it is simply absurd that car makers still get these sorts of fundamental things wrong.
“Not as fast as I want” ≠ “not enough engine”.
gtemnykh, have you heard if the 2011+ 2.4 Ecotecs were any better? Our 2010 was obviously a defective boat anchor.
Steve65, I have to disagree. The 2.5 Colorado is simply not acceptable for anything other than maybe city/suburban use, with no load. On flat terrain. Towing is a bad joke. And driving at real world 80 mph freeway speeds is a real stretcH. Trying to pull off passes on two lane roads in that truck would not be my idea of a good time.
“80 mph freeway speeds”
“passes on two lane roads”
You couldn’t underscore my point better if you’d gone out of your way to do so.
Neither of those are mission critical tasks for a truck.
Towing is one of those those things that advocates simply refuse to comprehend is not important to everybody. I’ve owned (and worked) a one-ton truck for the last nine years. I’ve towed with it a grand total of three times. Any one of those times would have been perfectly workable, is somewhat less convenient, with the towing capacity of this truck.
Being able to drive a heavily loaded truck like a sports car is not a necessity. It’s a luxury. Failing to supply that luxury is not a shortcoming of the truck, it’s an unreasonable expectation.
“…Neither of those are mission critical tasks for a truck…”
Oh really?? How is this remotely acceptable? My pathetic base ’87 Sentra (automatic) would pass semi trucks on 2-lanes and hold 80 mph all day, perfectly fine. Grades, headwinds you name it.
The base Colorado really requires a V6. What a joke. I’d demand a refund! And a V8 for the full-boat Colorado would be nice.
Pickup “trucks” should have plenty of extra power on tap. And not just a sea level.
“Oh really?? How is this remotely acceptable? My pathetic base ’87 Sentra (automatic) would pass semi trucks on 2-lanes and hold 80 mph all day, perfectly fine. Grades, headwinds you name it.”
—- Your pathetic base ’87 Sentra (automatic) was also not designed to carry bulky goods in its trunk and is much, MUCH smaller in overall size than your truck as well.
This Colorado is a return to what trucks were originally; utility vehicles capable of carrying loads you would not want INSIDE of your vehicle and little more. With that 2.5Litre engine it’s got just as much horsepower as the 50s-vintage pickups that served the exact same purpose and just about the same amount of torque. It’s not meant to be a speedster, it’s meant to be a simple, “cheap” working truck.
““passes on two lane roads”
Neither of those are mission critical tasks for a truck.
Huh? Please do explain the two lane passing thing in particular.
“80 mph freeway speeds”
“passes on two lane roads”
• “You couldn’t underscore my point better if you’d gone out of your way to do so. Neither of those are mission critical tasks for a truck.”
—- Couldn’t agree with this statement more. A truck was never meant to be a speedster; it was meant to be a working vehicle where speed is not important but cargo capacity (and perhaps towing in some cases) is. The idea of an open bed was to eliminate the need to drag a trailer behind it.
Yap. This isn’t the ’50s. Yes we expect more from vehicles. Street racing, not so much, but pickup trucks sold as work vehicles need to perform basic tasks, including towing and hauling weight up to their GVWR/CGVW, passing on a 2-lane and not be a stinkin’ hazard on the road.
Too bad for you, DM. Not everybody drives like a stinkin’ idiot, even if quite a few do.
st1100boy no idea unfortunately, I’ve just about written off GM in its entirety at this point for their insistence on outsourcing damn near every component and sub-assembly of their vehicles to low-bid shops in China and Malaysia, and the issues that follow. To be fair, in the same age range, the Toyota 2.4L (as seen in the Rav4, Camry, etc) also had some oil consumption issues, but nothing as critical as the slack timing chains in the GM Ecotec.
I had one of the first Colorados available assigned to me at work in late 2014 to replace my aging Cobalt. It was a white 4×4 base model. Everything about is fine. Other than that it’s too low in front to be of any real use offroad. And, most importantly, as st1100boy above mentions, that 4 cylinder is not up to the task of everyday use.
There have been times where I’ve felt I was creating a danger by pulling onto a highway or road with a speed limit higher than 40. For the most part it’s fine as long as you aren’t in a real hurry. But every once in a while you’ll fear for your life because it will just not go.
One positive, despite its larger wheelbase and size in general, it seems to have a smaller turning radius than the old Colorado did. The previous Colorado had a turning circle approximately the size of Iowa.
I had a white Ranger, basic, rear wheel drive, stick, roll up windows, radio. Great truck. A couple of bags of Sack-crete in the bed in winter took care of any traction problems,
All told, a real Ace… though the second you try to put ANY option onto it, the price jumps accordingly. One of these as an AWD (not 4×4) would be nice, though still bigger than I want.
Doesn’t the current GM truck transfer case have a “AUTO” setting along with 4LO and 2HI?
Yep, and it does a decent job of emulating a “true” torsen/diff based full-time setup, although not as heavily front biased and still somewhat reactive in nature.
Now I just need Vulpine to answer the question implied by my statement.
Why does he need “AWD” when the stock setup would give him the best of both worlds?
FWIW back in about 2011 I drove a fleet Tahoe LS 4×4 on a 60 mile round trip in conditions where icy and snowy roads alternated with dry patches of pavement. The AUTO function was nice to have.
“… best of both worlds…”
—- Best of WHAT both worlds? If anything, by everything I’ve read of that “auto” function, it is the WORST of both worlds, not the best. What I’ve got under the belly of my current Renegade is better than GM’s screwy system because it uses three locking differentials rather than a hard-core transfer case. Lighter weight and, especially for a relatively small four cylinder, less drag because the front-rear driveshaft doesn’t turn until its needed and you’re not turning even an idler gear in the transfer case itself.
And honestly, under conditions like you just described, I ran the 4×4 in my Wrangler full time except when I had to make a sharp turn in the dry. Meanwhile, I’ve watched many a 4×4 pickup throw out its tail even in 4x mode because it didn’t know how to balance the power front to rear.
“because it uses three locking differentials rather than a hard-core transfer case.”
Vulpine please educate yourself on 4wd hardware and terminology, what you’re saying is making my head hurt.
Your renegade does not have ANY locking differentials. It has a viscous coupling that can be commanded to bind the clutches in a fixed matter (until the car decides to unlock such as in a overheated state). Front and rear differentials are plain jane open mechanical diffs. What the car does have is a brake-based traction-aid system (Jeep calls theirs BLD iirc).
GM’s system likewise uses a viscous coupling to route power smoothly to the front end in variable degrees in Auto-4wd mode, based on the amount of rear slip. It’s not a bad system, even though by default with no slip detected I think only 5% of available torque is being sent to the front axle as I recall.
Something like a 4Runner Limited has a “true” mechanical full-time 4wd system with a real mechanical Torsen-type center differential that can be locked if necessary.
Dog-tooth clutches are essentially locking, no slip allowed. It’s that simple.
Okay then only the center has a locking functionality. At front and rear they are plain old open diffs, with ABS-based traction control to cut down on wheel spin and shuttle torque across the differential to the other side. Everything I’m seeing in regards to the PTO to rear diff interface says a multi-plate wet clutch. The dog clutches are used extensively in the 9spd auto however (nothing to do with the AWD system).
“PTU” I should say, and the viscous coupling is integrated inside of said unit.
https://practicalmotoring.com.au/car-advice/jeep-renegade-trailhawk-technical-analysis/
” This is because Jeep have added a “Lock” feature to the driveline which, they imply, locks the front and rear axles for a 50/50 torque distribution. Well, that’s not actually true, but it does well enough that the rear wheels do something useful and don’t want (too long) for the fronts to spin before playing their part. Also, the traction control (explained below) is wonderfully good.
The Lock button can be shown not to lock quite simply. If it really did lock 50/50 front/rear then when you turn the vehicle on a high-traction surface you’d get a nasty graunching sound as the front and rear axles tried to travel at different speeds, yet were prevented from doing so. This is called transmission windup, or “crow hop” in Jeep’s terms. So the Lock button is a misnomer. Also, I detected during testing some behaviour that indicates a front drive bias, specifically loss of traction on the front wheels before rear. We fixed this by airing down the front tyres more than the rear.”
Considering that the Cherokee and Renegade are front-drive cars when not in AWD mode, I’m not surprised that they’re front biased. Still, I’ve had no issues with it on ice and snow or mud as it appears very responsive to the slightest front-rear slip to engage the rear wheels almost imperceptibly. This is one of the design factors that caused both the Cherokee and the Renegade a few months of delay before shipping to customers.
Since I don’t plan to take the Renegade farther off-road than an airshow or fairground grass-covered parking area (which gets very slippery and muddy if it rains) I don’t need to concern myself with ultra-low range or massive horsepower. The system obviously proved itself robust enough for practical needs and I certainly don’t need more than that. Even the Honda Ridgeline proved itself far more soft-road capable than any other mid-sized pickup short of the Tacoma and it uses a system roughly similar to Jeep’s.
“Even the Honda Ridgeline proved itself far more soft-road capable than any other mid-sized pickup short of the Tacoma and it uses a system roughly similar to Jeep’s.”
Proof?
A 4wd Frontier or Colorado would handily wipe the floor with a Ridgeline offroad, owing to massively better articulation out back keeping wheels on the ground and true part time 4wd systems. The Ridgeline is fine for what most consumers need (winter weather traction, maybe a wet field), but an offroader it is not.
Proof: Pickup Trucks dot com mid-size shootout.
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/08/whats-the-best-midsize-pickup-for-2016.html#more
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/08/2016-midsize-pickup-challenge-what-the-judges-said.html#more
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016/08/2016-midsize-pickup-challenge-off-road-performance.html#more
http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2016-midsize-pickup-challenge/
While the Ridgeline might not be “base” in the sense that the Colorado in this article is; the question is whether or not an AWD system can be as good as a 4×4. For outright sport rock crawling, I would very probably say no, but the group of articles linked above (and other associated articles linked within the last one) show the Ridgeline was no slouch as a soft-road vehicle or as a light-duty truck in general.