GM unveiled the 2023 Chevy Colorado late in July, revealing an all-new third generation for the pickup. Among the many updates and changes is a fresh platform – the question is, what exactly is fresh about it?
For those readers who may be unaware, the 2023 Chevy Colorado rides on an architecture known internally at GM as 31XX-2, which is essentially a modified version of the 31XX platform that underpinned the previous generation. We spoke with Chevy directly for more information on what makes the 31XX-2 platform different from the preceding 31XX platform, and according to Colorado Chief Engineer Nick Katcherian, there are both similarities and differences worth pointing out.
In an interview with GM Authority, Katcherian was asked if portions of the 31XX-2 platform were taken from the 31XX platform, to which Katcherian responded that while the frame design was similar, the “whole entire front end is new,” while “chunks of the back end are new” as well. However, Katcherian also said that parts of the middle section of the frame are shared between 31XX-2 and 31XX in terms of overall design.
“All new, with a similar design,” Katcherian told GM Authority.
Notably, the 2023 Chevy Colorado also runs an updated version of the GM eight-speed automatic transmission equipped by the second-gen model. As GM Authority has covered in the past, the pre-update eight-speed was the subject of multiple lawsuits and reliability issues. Now, however, the updated eight-speed incorporates “learnings” taken from the previous generation and adds improvements and more componentry.
As for the engine spec, the 2023 Chevy Colorado is powered exclusively by the turbocharged 2.7L I4 L3B gasoline engine, which is offered in three levels of tune, depending on the trim level selected. The base tune is known as the 2.7 I4 Turbo, which is rated at 237 horsepower and 259 pound-feet of torque and includes its own RPO code (L2R). The other two tunes are the mid-range 2.7L Turbo Plus, which is rated at 310 horsepower and 390 pound-feet of torque, and the 2.7L Turbo High-Output, which is rated at 310 horsepower and 430 pound-feet of torque.
Production of the 2023 Chevy Colorado will launch in January of 2023 at the GM Wentzville plant in Missouri.
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Comments
Did they change the seats?? Colorado’s have (what I consider the worst in small trucks) horrible seats.. best I can equate them to is ‘sit in a Home Depot bucket..
I sure hope so, use to drive a 19 W/T and employer leased 7 of them and 7 people had sore lower backs.
Supervisor took his old Frontier back and gave the new Colorado to an underling.
I took 2 bath sheets, wrapped them together and secured them with a bungee cord for a rigged-up lumbar support and it was at least tolerable.
My father in law bought a 2019 and sold it 6 months later after taking it on a couple longer trips. Killed his back. Such a shame as chevy trucks always had a reputation of having comfortable seats.
Very surprised by these comments , I have a 2016 Z71 4 door that i bought new, so almost 7 years old and find the seats very comfortable. I have taken on road trip with 6 hours of seat time non stop and no complaints.
However what i will say is that your back adjusts to the vehicles you drive. I now work a pt job a few shifts a week driving a Toyota Sienna , and a Nissan sedan. My back is always sore in the Nissan, and my legs are sore in the Toyota. I don’t think the seats are necessarily uncomfortable in either vehicle , but my back is used to GM vehicles and i find them very comfortable.
A few years back i had to drive for work a Dodge mini van, and while using that i had to seek medical help for my back.
so the folks coming to the colarado from another vehicle may not have adjusted
I agree. My 2021 Canyon has very comfortable seating, both my wife and I are in complete agreement on this.
I hope he did not loose his a** on getting out of the Colorado.
I was thinking some junkyard Cadillac seats would probably bolt right up to the Colorado seat tracks.
That’s what I thought when new. But after 10K miles I find very comfortable.
I would consider one if it had 3.6 10 speed.
OBS was actually a decent all-around rig less the dated interior and horrible seats.
LTZ grade trim would be a big plus.
The Trailboss is the only new trim level they are offering for 2023…..
How about an Electric model of the Colorado?? It would be a huge leap forward and a sales bonanza. It’s what the savvy buyer wants.
Nobody wants electric!
@Harold- perhaps you don’t want electric, but here’s a substantial segment of us that would gladly say farewell to ICE’s for an electric vehicle. Personally, I have a 2011 Silverado that I’m waiting to replace until I find a mid-sized pick-up that comes with a battery instead of a gas tank.
LOL!!!! Yea I’m not buying electric unless the government forces me to. I’m okay with downsizing engines and adding turbos for better efficiency, but I don’t want electric. Imagine sitting at a charging station for 30 mins to an hour every week, especially in the freezing cold winters. No thank you, I would rather go fill up my gas tank for 5 mins once or twice a month.
Do you not have electric hookups at your house?
What about people who rent, and don’t have their own garages? Or people who have to park outdoors? People who own houses with their own garage chargers might be ok with charging their BEVs, but it’s a major inconvenience for everyone else.
The standard isn’t “does this help every single person in the country”. It is, “does this move the needle in the right direction”. Perhaps you voted against mass transit just because there isn’t a subway stop outside your front door. Maybe you’re opposed to public education because you kids are out of school. For the record, though, if my tenants want an EV charging station, I’ll pay to install it. Also for the record, many drivers of pickups would do quite well with an EV. I’m downsizing from my 2011 Silverado, and I’m more than ready to buy a middsized EV pickup, just in case anyone from GM is listening.
You really think the government forcing everyone to go BEV is “moving the needle in the right direction”? BEVs create way more pollution in the manufacturing process, and it takes 100,000 miles of driving that BEV before it makes any savings in pollution compared to an efficient internal combustion engine car. But oh wait by the time that BEV gets to 100,000 miles, the battery needs to be replaced. Then that battery goes into more landfills because they can’t be recycled. And you have to create another battery that creates huge amounts of pollution, and the cycle repeats.
Lol… the propaganda they’re force feeding you. Keep thinking your BEV is saving the planet. I’m never buying one unless the government forces me to. I’m waiting until the day we have clean burning fuels like hydrogen or some other form. Battery electric vehicles are for people who read headlines but skip the fine print.
I’m waiting for the hydrogen-electric hybrid. Probably 10+ years from now if we’all don’t blow up the world by then.
Count me in too!
These so called standards you speak of should be made to help the majority and general masses. Not just the rich people who were born into wealth. Most people don’t own houses with their own charging garages. This is what happens when silver spoon babies think they know what’s best for everyone.
According to the census bureau, 65.6% of Americans own their own home. Seems like this would be accessible to nearly 2/3 of the US population.
Lol what are you even talking about???? The average house costs $1.5-$2 million dollars. You’re telling me 65-70% of Americans own their own house when the average income is $50k a year????
Median price of a home on the USA is $428K. Here’s the data state by state. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-house-price-state/
BTW Here is the census data
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf
Keep spouting nonsense. I’ll keep answering with data.
You may not like BEV’s. (You may not like change at all.) But like it or not the world is moving away from ICE’s and fossil fuels. Climate change is real. There’s an adoption curve to climb but battery tech continues to improve with R&D investment. I’m simply expressing my willingness to be on the adoption curve.
“The median home sales price is $428,700 as of the first quarter of 2022. That’s a 30% increase from 2020, when the median was $329,000.”
@mike – yes the pandemic had a significant impact on home prices (and a lot of other things). But @isleofGM Zia spouting nonsense when he says the average home costs $1.5m-$2m. The simple fact remains that 2/3 of Americans own their own home. Arguing against EV’s because one person can’t charge at home is like living in 1920’s iowa and saying we shouldn’t build gasoline engines because there are no gas stations. If someone doesn’t want to buy an EV because they like working on their truck and they like gasoline engines, so be it. I just object to people throwing out made up numbers and nonsense arguments because something doesn’t fit their world view- so I provide data to counteract the hysterics.
One more note- the increase in home prices also means that the 2/3 of America that does own a home had an increase in their net worth that they can tap into should they choose to do so.
@EntropyPhg
Taking a national average doesn’t tell the whole story. There are places in the middle of nowhere that you can buy a house for $300k-$400k, but where are you going to find work? Or having to drive 2hours to and from work each day?
$500k is the price of 1 bedroom apartments. $1M gets you a townhouse. $1.5M-$2M is the price of an average house in an average suburb.
Misleading. Owning your own home includes owning a condo, and affordable condos do not have dedicated indoor parking with a charger accessible.
Thank you. These people have no idea what the average working class people go through. Most of us have to bust our rear ends for $50k a year, and paying off college debts. We don’t have rich mommies and daddies to give us a head start in life. It amuses me that they think majority of people own their own houses with charging garages.
The National Multifamily Housing Council (an advocacy group for MFU residents) reports that about 27% of the population lives in multi-family units. (This includes apartments, which we both agree have difficulty providing charging at the moment) However MFU housing skews urban (think downtown San Francisco, NYC, etc) including a sizeable population that doesn’t own a car at all, and is least likely to buy a truck. It would take a day or so to correlate the data but truck ownership skews less urban, therefore higher concentration of single family homes. So while I agree that there is *some* portion of the population that wouldn’t be able to use a BEV today, the data shows that to be a much smaller part of the population than your sweeping generalization. And once again, we don’t make public policy (or even product development decisions) that only fit 100% of the population.
Again – this may not be the choice you want to make, but there’s no reason to dump on what others want. Both the SilveradoEV and the F-150 Lightning EV sold out in minutes so clearly there is demand. Count me among that group- I just want it in a mid-sized truck
@IsleOfGM – I take it the swipe at “that people [who] are out of touch” is aimed at me. Since you don’t know me, I’ll politely point out that you are wildly off base. Yeah, I went to college. A state school that is still a bargain for the quality of education. I also paid to put my own kids through school so yeah I guess they are getting a head start. If you are implying you wouldn’t help your own kids and way you legally can, that puts you in a distinct minority. But I also work for a living. I’m a general contractor who drives his truck every day and I work for a living like everyone else. I pay my team a living wage and take pride in apprenticing folks and helping them start their own gigs once they have the skills. are there folks with money who don’t understand the average working person? You bet. But if you are suggesting that I don’t understand finances of the average family, you’re wildly off base.
I was speaking in general, if you don’t fit that description that’s fine too. But I think it’s wrong for the government to be forcing people into BEVs. I think the people who are making these laws care more about the rich than they do about the general public. Honestly I don’t think any of these politicians have ever felt a day of hunger or struggle in their entire lives.
First of all BEVs are way more expensive than their ICE counterparts and most people don’t have access to their own charging garage which makes it hugely inconvenient to have to sit at a charging station for 1 hour every week. Also BEVs make way more pollution to manufacture and takes 100,000 miles of driving before it starts to have any pollution advantage over ICE. And lastly to your point about performance, that is incorrect BEVs do not give you more performance than ICE, maybe in a straight line but they have terrible handling and are generally 1000 lbs heavier than their ICE counterparts. Also those $300k-$500k homes are probably 1 bedroom condos. Town houses are $1M, most houses with 2 car garages are $1.5M-$2M.
And yea you should want to help your kids, that’s normal. But there are people who buy their kids luxury cars and houses, who have no idea what a regular working class person goes through.
Wow. Kudos for your post. Seriously- I appreciate the tone and honesty of what you’ve said. Well done.
We actually agree on a few things. I am not a fan of government mandates in general. (politically, I lean libertarian) In this specific case- the government already subsidizes ICE cars via massive tax breaks to oil companies, etc. So if we want to move to something that pollutes less and reduces climate change, they either need to halt incentives to the oil companies, or create some sort of incentive for the alternatives. Rather than incentives to the manufacturers (which tend to never go away and become long term subsidies) I like the notion of rebates to consumers. Now, truth be told, I’d love to see someone develop a more viable hydrogen fuel cell, bc I think it addresses a lot of the challenges of batteries, but for now, the world is looking at batteries, so there we are.
FWIW, on the topic of real estate- the median price I quoted is a national figure. Since SFH (single family homes) make up the overwhelming majority of housing stock, it really is the price of a single family home. I used to live in San Francisco, so i understand how/ why someone might say that housing is that price, but in the rest of the country it definitely is not. Condos are really an urban phenomenon, and even in high density areas like SF Bay, they are still very much the exception. As a side note, a couple of years ago, I moved to Pittsburgh, PA. The median price for a home here is about $215K. If you want to live in the trendiest neighborhood, you’ll pay more. Same is true if you want a 6 BR mansion, but it’s pretty common for folks to buy a house in the $200-$300K range. If you are curious, jump on Zillow and look at what $300K buys in every city where there’s an NFL team. I think you’d be surprised.
On the performance side, my experience has been that BEV’s are pretty similar to ICV’s. The battery tends to be low, which means the center of gravity is low, so they corner really well. A $30,000 Tesla Model 3 (I hate Tesla, but there’s a lot of data available) pulls 0.95 on a skid pad. That is better than most anything except a hypercar.
And we are in 100% agreement about people who spoil their kids at that level (buying a house, etc.). I do know folks who have done things like that, and it rarely turns out well. My own kids got their tuition, but then after graduation, they knew they were “off payroll”.
Again, kudos on your post. If you’re in Pgh, I’ll buy you a beer and we can talk real estate. 🙂
@EntropyPgh
let’s skip the manuals and brochures. Lets compare real world numbers. Tesla Model S Plaid on paper is the fastest car in the world right? Why is it 20sec slower than a Camaro ZL1 on the Nurburgring? 20sec on a race track is a huge difference, that’s over 100+ car lengths. You wanna know why? Because BEVs are heavy and have terrible handling.
Also a Tesla Model 3 base model costs $60k CAD new and $50k used. A base model Tesla 3 costs more than a new Camaro 2SS. I don’t want to hear any numbers that’s in manuals and brochures, show me real world numbers where people take these cars to the track where cornering and braking counts. Straight line performance is a useless measurement, I want to see lap times. I would be willing to bet a cheap base model 4 cylinder Camaro could smoke a base Tesla Model 3 on the track at half the price, let alone a Camaro SS which is in the same price range.
@IsleofGM
Look, you’re taking things to an extreme to try to prove a point, and you’re failing. I’m a real estate developer and general contractor. The average price of a single family home in a suburb of most metropolitan areas is not $2M. Look at Columbus, OH, Cincinnati, OH, Rochester, NY, Atlanta, GA, Tulsa, OK, Kansas City, KS, and hundreds of other cities. The numbers just don’t support this arm waving/ sky-is-falling/ average house costs $2M nonsense.
Does anyone have their hands on an options brochure yet? It sounds like there’s premium packages for each trim and I’d love to know if the sunroof is available for the Trail Boss.
YA you’re right cant wait for a heavy small truck that cant haul or drive anywhere in the cold for the same price as a raptor.
Not more electric trucks please
I own a new in 2015 Colorado LT crewcab long bed ,With HD towing package . I switched my tire size from 255 to LT- 10- 265 – 70-17 and my truck cloth seats rides very comfortable, without any problems ! So don’t drive a base work truck and make judgment of the better higher equip models !
Ooooh is that the 2.7L Turbo 4 used in the Cadillac CT4-V Series??? I’m really liking that 2.7 turbo. I hope that engine makes its way into other future GM cars……….. hopefully even a 7th gen Camaro 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
That 2.7T engine is probably one of my favourite things from GM recently.
This is the second generation 2.7 Turbo and From its development time was HD built for use as a truck engine for the Silverado 1500.
Oh I see. So the 2.7T was a truck engine to begin with? That thing is a beast in the CT4, 4.5s 0-60 and has pops and burbles in the exhaust from the factory. I really hope that 2.7T makes its way into more GM cars.
I’m really bummed out no diesel in the new zr2. And 8 speed trans REALLY? I got the 2021 zr2 with the 2.8 ltr diesel/6 speed transmission…..Best hunting/bush adventure truck I’ve ever experienced. Glad to be rid of the 2021 eco diesel jeep rubicon 8 speed over shifter crap
GM is not offering Navigation on the new Colorado.