This little engine can tackle steep mountain roads using a trailer weighing 6,700 pounds.
The Chevrolet Silverado offers a powerful four-cylinder engine for your full-size pickup truck. Silverado’s new half-ton Silverado features a 2.7-liter four-pot that generates 310 horsepower (472 Newton-meters), and a turbocharger. These numbers are not insignificant, but in a world in which full-size pickup trucks can produce up to 1,000 poundfeet of twist, and tow an airplane carrier, the small four-cylinder Silverado is a tough task.
The Fast Lane Truck picked up a double-cab model with four wheel drive and a 6-foot cargo bed to test it out. Crew quickly hooked up a trailer weighing 6,680 pounds. This is just short of the four-cylinder’s maximum towing capacity of 6,700 pounds in four-wheel drive trim. It may sound low for a full-size truck. The Chevrolet Colorado can haul 7,000 pounds in V6 trim. For an apples-to–apples comparison, the Ford Ranger has a rating of 7,500 pounds. The small engine has a better fuel economy, but EPA ratings indicate it isn’t – a point Chevrolet suggests doesn’t reflect real-world results.
The Fast Lane Truck took his rig up and over the Ike Gauntlet, an eight-mile mountain road with steep 7 percent grades and an elevation of 11,158 feet. This test is intended to assess a truck’s engine-brake ability going downhill and its fuel economy and performance going uphill. 60 mph is the benchmark speed you should maintain in either direction. The truck must not have to brake on descent more than once, and it must consume less fuel going up.
The four-cylinder Silverado with an 8-speed automatic transmission performed admirably on the downhill run. It required only eight brake application. News was not as efficient on the ascent, where the average fuel economy was 3.7 mpg. This figure was directly comparable to the Ford EcoBoost V6 or the 5.0-liter V8 F150 tests done by TFLT in January. The four-pot does not have an advantage in towing under real-world conditions. The small engine managed to maintain 60 mph throughout the entire run. This shows that it has the performance capabilities.
To see the complete test and thoughts of TFLT’s trailering adventure, click the video above.