Small update. First off, having gotten to spend s good amount of time behind the wheel of this truck I can say I really love it. If I had to chose one vehicle to do everything this would be it. My wife did a 700 mile trip in it, all 2 lane roads a couple of weeks ago with the boys. She averaged 31mpg on the trip and even better the kids seem to really enjoy being in it. They were content for the 5.5 hour drive either direction which is huge. With their car seats they have a great view out the back windows and put through the front pretty well as well.
We have had an early spring and a rather weak winter. I have been dewinterizing our camper and hooked it up to the Colorado today to do a little test tow. I tried a quick run without weight distribution and it actually had less squat than I thought it would but I wanted it level. With weight distribution hooked up it was almost perfectly level.
Acceleration wasn't mind blowing but it was pretty close to what our 6 liter equipped Suburban can do but with a lot less fuss and noise. The exhaust brake is pretty seemless and well integrated, though I felt that some of the downshifts while braking were a bit on the aggressive side. There was a strong crosswind on the drive today which is good because that's been my big concern with this truck. Numbers-wise we are comfortably under the towing capacity, tongue weight, etc but being a high profile with a mid size truck I was curious how the stability would be. The stronger gusts were definitely causing me some sway but not bad. Bumps and corners all seemed pretty stable but driving 60mph and getting blasted with a big gust was my only time I felt any sway. Now with that said the truck runs a passenger rated tire inflated at the recommended psi of 35 at all four corners. I have high confidence that if I bump up the tire pressure to 40 or 45 it should address that pretty well. I well post up my results as we are taking the camper out for a few hundred mile outing this coming weekend.
The instant mpg's today while towing were showing between 14 and 16 while holding 60mph on flat road. That is promising and I am curious to see a trip average on this trip. The truck wasn't working hard at all and even seemed to hold the speed on hills with no drama. The interior sound levels are so low, I think a gas Colorado would likely be louder towing the same load since it would be holding higher rpms to be in the meat of the power and torque. This Duramax seems to pull Great from 1,500 then levels off around 3k. Our camper is 23 foot and 4,200lb dry weight, around 5ish when loaded on a trip.
It's also been great for throwing bikes in the back to go hit the local trailhead.
This weekend's trip will help us decide if we are going to use the truck for a 3 week trip pulling the camper to New England this June. If it proves stable it would be a lot easier on the wallet than the Suburban, though the Suburban is a dream to tow this camper with.
