[trackbird]

After 7 glorious years, I finally retired my faithful 2015 SIlverado 1500. It was a 5.3 with crew cab and the electronic transfer case with the AWD option. We have been using it to tow our camper for about the last year and it did an admirable job overall. Sadly, the brakes were not up to the task and on more than one occasion I ran completely out of truck brakes and the trailer stopped the truck. That finally convinced me that it was time for an upgrade.

Last Monday, I drug home a new Silverado 3500 HD (Crew cab, short bed, 4x4/AWD, diesel with the 10 speed allison, 5th wheel/gooseneck prep, Z71 protection package, etc). I'm trying to put break in mileage on it before the next time I have to tow the camper, but so far I'm really impressed. It feels a lot larger than my last 3500, but it feels remarkably light on its feet with all that torque. GM was supposed to do a facelift and a power upgrade for the diesel in 2023, but they held it until 2024. I picked the truck up Monday, Tuesday I went to the chevrolet.com site and they are now "Introducing the 2024 Silverado HD". Awesome....

Despite that, I really like the truck and the facelift isn't really an improvement (I really think these trucks are rather ugly, but the chrome front end on mine is "less bad") and the diesel seems to have plenty of power so I'm not sure if I'll really care about the upgrade. Maybe I'll trade it in a few years....maybe I won't.

I've been trying to verify that the shocks didn't change between 2022 and 2023 so I can order Fox shocks for it. The OEM ranchos provide almost zero damping.

Also, I ordered the Advanced Trailering Package with the multiple camera views. However, you have to buy the "technology package" to get all of the camera views. So, I don't have the front bumper view (could be nice for parking) or the trailer side view cameras (that would be great for pulling around tight corners, etc). I'm a little irritated that the "Advanced Trailering Package" isn't the complete package unless you take lane departure warnings, parking assist, etc....all stuff I specifically didn't want.

So, be aware if you order one, check that stuff out. I ordered this one June 19th, give or take and got it last Monday. I hope I'm not sorry I bought a diesel.

[trackbird]

At this point I've towed 720 miles with the new truck. It doesn't even care that there's a 9,000+ lb camper behind it. The biggest issue is speed. My 1/2 ton had "enough" (nearly enough?) power to get the job done, but it wasn't in a hurry to tow the camper at 70+ mph. So it was pretty easy to stay at reasonable speeds. This truck will happily drag the camper at 80, likely 90 and probably 100 mph. I haven't had it over 75, and I didn't mean to be going 75 at the time. It's so easy to stack on speed that you really have to be careful. I use cruise constantly to avoid speed issues. We are showing an average of 8.9 mpg towing the camper (per the towing tracking section of the factory ECM). 200 miles of that was into a 20 mph headwind. So we are likely doing better than the average. We have seen 50 mile average fuel economy of 11.3 mpg while towing. As the truck breaks in and we get more miles without a head wind I think that fuel economy will improve.

I still dislike feeding this thing due to the cost of diesel, but I really love the truck. I'd certainly pay a bit more for fuel for the capabilities that this truck has (if it was gas and I could use premium or super premium or some mythical fuel to get this level of performance....I'd pay for it). So, paying for diesel is a worthwhile trade off for the towing performance.