2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 High Country Slammed In Comparison Test
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The 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 High Country finished last in a thee-way pickup truck comparison test with the 2019 Ram 1500 and 2019 Ford F-150. Car and Driver, which performed the comparison review, also levied heavy criticisms at the all-new Chevy, slamming it for having a feeble chassis, harsh ride and cheap interior materials.
We’ll start with what C&D hated most about the 2019 Silverado: its new platform. Its road testers found the pickup to have a rough, unrefined ride that would jostle and oscillate over bumps. “This truck shakes and vibrates so much that, bombing down a rough road, we expected to get a call from OnStar asking if we’d been in an accident,” C&D wrote in its review. One editor even observed a visual difference between the Silverado and the F-150 when the two trucks went over bumps, with the Silverado’s suspension shaking and jostling and the F-150’s absorbing the bumps much better.
C&D editors had critiques for the interior as well, saying the plastics had a cheap look and feel (even in High Country trim) and that the design seemed “phoned in.” By comparison, the Ford, and especially the Ram, felt like true luxury packages. They didn’t like the $70,000 price tag on the well-equipped High Country tester they had, either, saying the truck wasn’t good value and that it felt like a $70k kick in the privates. Ouch.
It wasn’t all bad, though. The 6.2-liter V8 engine impressed, of course, with its burly Small Block engine note and robust torque. C&D also appreciated its fuel economy, which proved to be better than that of Ford’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 both with a trailer attached and without. The performance was also good, with the Silverado completing the quarter-mile in 13.9s at 100 mph. Not bad at all for a 5,500 lb pickup.
You can read the full review, along with C&D’s impressions of the 2019 Ford F-150 and Ram 1500, right here.
(source: Car and Driver)
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GM needs to address these issues and explain what the problem is with the excessive vibration, as indicated be Car and Driver. Maybe a better shock absorber set up, to start with, like MagneRide type?
Thosse interior plastic parts also need to move upscale, as well, especially with mid to top level trim levels.
Otherwise, these trucks have many new innovative functional features.
Welcome to the “leadership” of Miss Mary Barra.
Instead of worrying about the “image” of putting in a female, focus on putting right person in to lead a massive company that is responsible for the well being of millions of American workers and others around the world. The right person has nothing to with race, creed or gender. Just has to be the best., period.
When I read this yesterday I felt really bad for the Silverado. This truck was my favorite for years, and now GM Engineering team have F..K it up. GM need to start firing incompetent staff.
To Gm. Your Management and Engineering staff are horribly pathetic, to bring a new truck to market and can’t outshine a 4 year old F-150. I said it once and I will say it again. I want to see how long GM will wait and allow this model trucks to destroy the Silverado’s good name before some sort of emergency improvements or corrections are carried out.
On a positive note. The performance of the Chevy was not bad, but could be improve with equal transmission calibrations, similar to the F-150. I still prefer the Chevy’s exterior to the other two competitors.
Sadly, we can also expect for Consumer Reports to rate this truck as Worst Than Average or Much Worst Than Average, man it truly sucks have g to anticipate that End Result but it surely can’t be ruled out at this point. I beleive the Refreshed 2020 Colorado and Canyon may stand a better chance of good reviews once they get ready to hit the market given the harsh passion that GM is now learning with the new Full Size trucks.
I meant to say harsh reality in my last statement, unfortunately, my edit did not get saved before my statement posted.
It’s not engineers making the decision to swap over an old interior or refusing to upgrade materials. It’s not engineering not putting in magnetic shocks, a technology GM pioneered and owns, on a 70k dollar truck. They could put Bilsteins on base models, think C7, and vastly improve ride quality and handling, but they won’t. This is the product that pays the bills, provides investment capital for pipe dream future EV and driverless tech, their bread and butter product and they bunt it, embarrassing.
In spite of Ford’s advertising about using aluminum in the body to reduce weight by 700 pounds, it still ended up with a truck that was heavier than the Silverado, I thought that was a reflection of stronger steel alloys used in the GM product, but this C&D test seems to imply that GM gave up some stiffness as well to achieve the lighter weight, and if that is true it is not good.
Thanks, for making a real work truck, Chevy. I read the review the other day and it seemed like it was from the point of view of city life. Yea the ride may be a little more bumpy but no brand has been able to hold up under what I put mine thru.
Yeah, but the point of a $60,000-$70,000 High Country trim – which is actually one of our hottest sellers to farmers who actually use their trucks around here, believe it or not – just isn’t luxurious. You get most of the same horrific cheap plastic that you get in a Custom or Work Truck. You get the same tiny touchscreen as a low-end LT. You get the same suspension. You get the same general design. You don’t get everything leather-wrapped or real metal like the equally-priced (and often cheaper) Ram 1500 Limited. It’s a big, big problem on that end of the pricing scale that the truck doesn’t even hold a match to the PREVIOUS generation Ram 1500 Limited.
Ouch!!! By far, the harshest review of the “all-new” Silverado! All this effort to make the lightest and most fuel efficient truck has yielded very little for GM! What makes it worse is that this is the highest trim model!
All GM can do at this point is hope that brand loyalty and some good rebates will continue to prop sales! No quick refresh is gonna resolve these issues: these are simply design/engineering flaws! The aero is one thing, but the horribly unrefined chassis is a whole other matter! Even touching up the interior won’t make much an impact! And woe unto them when the aging F-150, which is still considered superior in several performance measures, is redesigned! Given how much they lauded the F-150 in this test, I’m surprised it wasn’t declared the victor! It’s hardly like C & D to give the worst-performing vehicle the win, but maybe the new RAM is simply that well executed in refinement and road manners…
I still stand by the fact that the new GM twins are good trucks, and each entrant in this segment has something to offer that’ll appeal to every truck lover! Nevertheless, when you consider all GM has vested in engineering their latest trucks, it’s a shame to see them deliver so poorly! Let’s be real! Even the most loyal of GM fans have gotta be feeling some sense of frustration and discontent in all this!
I am a loyal GM fan, but I am frustrated by all of the pickups. Yes, it appears that we have a choice, but do we really? Each manufacturer has tried to mimic or slightly improve on what the best sellers have. That means they are all pretty much alike. Too bad we have the “chicken tax” that keeps different looking trucks sold in other markets from coming here.
I don’t like the design of these new trucks, from the lack of visibility from inside, huge center consoles, massive grills, buttons or other ways of interacting that are not easy to use with gloves on, silly looking swept up rear window frames that are supposed to make bricks look sleeker, fuel tanks that are too small, power tailgates that take forever to open …
Whatever happened to “GM has to get it right the first time”, wasn’t that what the new boss said when she took charge.
I sat in a brand new Denali a few months ago
The new features were cool. But some of the cheap plastics used ( specifically the gear selector) reminded more of my 08 avalanche rather than my 14 LTZ Silverado.
Like the looks of this truck but that is it. They need to address this soon because Ram is going to out sell this truck. GM needs a real truck guy in charge and to stop worrying about share holders getting rich and give the customers a better product.
Well GM told us that they used 7000 people to help approve this truck. And like I said before WHO were these 7000 people and I hope GM sells each one of them this truck. I drove the 2019 Denali with the 6.2. Performance wise it was good to great. I like the GMC look. The GMC tailgate is also very nice. The interior however BLAH. The tough screen is QUICK but small. Seats are OK. Switch locations are good. EVERYTHING just looks BLAH. Design is just BLAH. And $65,000.00 for this Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha. Well lets see, next December it should be $45,000.00 to $50,000.00. I really wish I could go back to a Silverado but NO WAY, just cant do it don’t like the look. Everyone has different tastes so maybe to some this is great. I hope so for GM sake.
We always do learn how the masses like vehicles these days.
car and driver don’t have any clue about pickup stay in a car and let the real man drive the pickup,,
As a GM Loyalist, I’m disappointed.
I like the power, style and the strenght of the Silver, but I just can’t believe a 4 years-old Ford looks sharper and more refined.
Many people today no longer see trucks as Work Trucks, GM.
For a company that says it’s focus is on SUVs and trucks, that dash is probably the worst mistake of the “new” GM.
As the biggest Silverado fan out here I have been saying this all along GM drop the ball on these trucks yes they add some new FEATURES but then they left some out yes they lighting the truck up but it still gets bad fuel economy yes they made it look different but did they do to much or not enough. I have heard some reviewer say the ride QUALITY was okay but where gm could have pick up some points in is in the interior I dont think a lot of the reviews would be so bad if they just didn’t listen to those 7 thousand but also study why people buy other brands to.
Here a honest review of motortrend, what in the world are you thinking buying a Z71 package Silverado and comparing it to a regular ford and ram? Duh it’s going to be riding more like Jeep and less like Porsche, but wait, you arnt smart enough to tell that! The new Silverado has excellent chasis tuning, and the Z71 with off road tread tires and rancho shocs is super capable and floats on trails and dirt roads. If you want a road truck, don’t get the off road package. The ford i an assuming had road shocks and standard tires, which weigh in almost half of an all terrain tire. Motortrend was just as stupid when they gave the traverse last place for a comparison test that it won’t hands down in the numbers, but they said it “felt too much like a truck” they lost their man card in my opinion
I know I keep beating a dead horse for years now on this site but everything I have been saying for years is coming back to bite GM in the you know what. Consumers now want everything and are willing to pay for it.
The GM 1500’s have a steering wheel Mounted shifter still not just on the Workhorse trims but on the higher end ones as well. That is simply ludicrous.
They went with an 8 inch Infotainment screen and they thought that would suffice in todays market?
Fisher-Price must be making a Killing from GM since they must be the Plastics provider to them.
There is no Panoramic roof option. Like what was GM thinking.
Ram is Genius in my mind. They figured out that a lot of people get Pickup trucks because they need them. But a lot of people buy them because they want to and do not need them necessarily. To those people Ram is offering them the world basically at the same prices that GM is selling 10 year old interior Looks and or Tech.
Simply not good enough. The person responsible for the 1500’s should be fired ASAP unless he was pushing for more and was told absolutely not by Cheap GM.
GM needs to quickly figure out that Interior design but especially quality is what todays buyers are looking for along with the latest and greatest Car Tech. If they cannot figure this one out ASAP, we may see GM go down once again.
The Edmunds comparison test was posted on this site on Aug 31. Now this site is posting Car and Driver’s test?
Who’s comparison test is going to be next? How about making it GMA’s own test!
I like craft beer and when another craft beer fan asks me how a particular beer tastes. I do not respond that Joe or Bob does or does not like it, would any one else?
Do your own comparison GMA, or is the temptation to bash GM too irresistible?
…it would give you complete freedom (scary)!
When you sell 800,000 copies of anything you are likely to have conflict of opinion from consumers of the things that matter and the things that don’t. Hell, we see it on this forum everyday. WE are a small representation of the market as a whole.
Ram offers 3 different Center IP arrangements, assigned to different trim levels, to meet the customer expectation at each price range. While GM checked the boxes necessary to appease buyers at the lower end of the market, they completely phoned it in for trucks with huge price tags.
As a casual truck owner who appreciates the functionality of having a truck bed, GM must not forget that the World is my Oyster at the $65,000 price point. I do not need a truck but choose to drive one. I could drive an X5, Yukon Denali, A6 or an Aviator for the same money. How does your interior compare to those models?
While I applaud GM for a plethora of trim levels with differentiated exteriors, the interiors are sorely lacking. EVERY publication has made their jab. Let’s hope GM responds swiftly and doesn’t misstep with the new Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban.
If the Tahoe interior is different, GM needs to add to higher trim Silverado ASAP.
I was afraid I was right. I can’t help but feel let down. It’s not the truck doesn’t look good but the fact that they didn’t try to competitive and isn’t leading in any category. I get the real world fuel economy and I prefer that over epa test check marks. I like the truck is bigger and more room. They made good improvements but instead of trying to best themselves they just good enough.. but your paying premium price for it. That’s why it is getting nailed in comparisons.
The review is exactly what I have said, GM built a third place truck. Look at Ram sales, and when the new F-150 comes out in 2020, it will crush them. The harsh ride and vibration comment was very disturbing. The hard seats comment, which is an issue in my 2015, is very disappointing. I like Chevy trucks, my first new truck was a 1975 Chevy Cheyenne. I was looking forward to buying a new Silverado, now I’m not sure. I think GM let us down with this one.
Ram sales are wholly due to the fact that ram is offering 10-15k off the 2019’s. Chevy has no incentives off the 2019’s at this time. It was the same trend in 2014, for those who don’t remember, ford was outselling Chevy for the first 6 months untill GM kicked in the incentives. In such a high dollar machine, incentives sells. The Chevy also isn’t GM’s finnest. If Motortrend had any brains and in the article quote “each manufacturer’s highest truck, they would have chosen the Denali which would have had a closer price match to the ram and featured low profile tires and the continuously dampened chassis, which would have been the smoothest and quietest truck by far. Magazines always cater to their advertisers, and my guess is ram paid them to set up a test where Chevy would loose to the ram and the ford is too outdated to even show.
Here we go listening to what paid critics are telling us, instead of getting our own asses in these trucks and making our own decisions on how it rides drives stops sets ect ect ect, instead of arm chair bench bashing, my ’14 Silverado Z71 now with real AT tires rides better than those crappy GoodYears SRA did from day one, if I wanted a car I would have bought one I bought a truck and if I suddenly wear this one out I’ll see about replacing it with this newer version.
Until you hop in the 2019 and realize everything about the interior except the increased room and rear vents is a direct downgrade from your 2014. My source? Driving them every day, listening to/interacting with real customers every day.
Just maybe GM will have to take the FCA example and do two or three dashboards. Some TRUCK MEN with HUGE BALLS just want POWER no screen and DIRT CHEAP. 700 HP with a heater and a seat. The middle guy with SMALLER BALLS wants a 8″ screen and just does not want to spend $65,000.00. The high end guy with the LITTLE TINY BALLS wants a 15″ screen with the most quite truck and the roof of glass.
All kidding aside, and having NOTHING to do with BALL SIZE. Truck owners want different things. And sure this truck mite, mite fit in the center of the market, GM will loose on the top end. The interior is just to BLAH. Good enough BLAH but
BLAH nevertheless. And NOT good enough for the top. Just redo the dash from the steering wheel to the right DONE.
GM will do nothing after all GM knows exactly what we want, just ask them.
They just might!