The concept of a
diesel-powered half-ton truck is not a new idea, but when those at the top of
your rival list make moves to enter the niche, you have to up your game stance.
Back in the late '90s, you could snag a 1500 with a V-8 Diesel. But as Miguel
Cortina of Motor Trend covered in his story this
week, the 1500 was stuck for a while with all-gas engines after Chevy stopped
offering a diesel half-ton truck. The 2020 Chevy Silverado 1500 finally will
step up valiantly to the challenge set in stone by the Ram 1500 EcoDiesel and
Ford F-150 Diesel with a 277-hp 3.0-Liter turbodiesel I-6 that's good for 460
lb-ft of torque.
As all of us here
at Jim Butler Chevy of St
Louis were in fascination, their features editor Scott Evans had his
hands on the 2020 Silverado 1500 Duramax at its press launch, road test
editor Chris Walton was behind the wheel and took just 7 seconds flat to go
from 0 to 60 mph. This is absolutely outstanding performance, and a tenth of a
second faster than what the F-150 nailed down. There was not the opportunity to
tow during the press event, but the incoming 1500 Duramax is rated to tow up to
7,600 pounds and while hauling a full load sprinted from 0 to 60 mph in just
16.4 seconds.
When driven for
an extended time, the team claimed the engine is “buttery smooth”, yet it has
lots of torque. They said pulling a trailer was easy to the point where it felt
as if it wasn't there, and the 10-speed automatic transmission offers amazingly
precise shifts even when weighed down immensely. One of the most important
things the gang noted here for anyone considering a new purchase is that it
struggles much less than the F-150 when being tested with massive weight.
One of the
testing grounds for these claims was the steep incline at Davis Dam, near the
Arizona-Nevado border, where the Silverado 1500 blew past the 70 mph mark and
still had reserve power to go faster. Even with all the purposeful kinks and
frustration thrown at it, the Silverado diesel did a phenomenal job of
controlling the trailer. Don't forget to ask us to demo the invisible trailer
technology for you: it is available on the 1500 Duramax and uses a camera
installed on the back of the trailer to create a see-through image minus the
trailer. Another amazing quality of this new 1500 is the improvements that were
made to the trucks NVH courtesy of engineering: there is next to none of the
noise clamoring around you that diesel always carried as part of its
characteristic!