Gadgetory

full-size trucks if you're one of the Detroit three these are big volume sellers and big profit margins sellers see don't dare screw them up let's take a look at the all-new slow vibrato this 2014 four-wheel drive icon check the tech we don't get many of these and there are a number of you asked for us to get more the bad news is CNET got a truck we're not truck people I'll be the first to admit I mean we're based here in downtown San Francisco typically you don't see a full-size pickup illicits pulling up to read your gas meter or pulling a float in the Pride Parade so I'm gonna approach it this way not as a truck guy cuz I'm not up with you on that but as a car I can tell it's a big part of this vehicles mission as well as towing at home now I'm not sure if I'm in a cabin or a living room on a ranch somewhere in Montana I mean look at this thing you're not in seats you're in chairs there's room to really spread out and everything's kind of a pollster even more than a lot of high trim cars this is a very civilized place to do trucking but and then again this is the top of the line as a high country here's the head unit that all these vehicles have it's an eight inch my link interface touch LCD with voice command there is no controller anywhere here so you're either touching that screen or talking to it now note something interesting I here at the home menu what's missing true turn by turn GPS navigation instead the base rig has OnStar nav which is that thing will you call the operator and they download very simple prompts onto the screen connecting to OnStar I need directions please I want to happen I'm going to CBS Interactive in San Francisco I'd be more than happy to download the route to the Phineas Interactive in San Francisco thank you for you the NOx I have a great day thank you you can option true built-in nav but it's not base even at this lofty trim level I was kind of surprised by that still I way prefer to have an actual nav system here and better than that a connected nav system that lets me search Google or Bing or something there are a couple steps behind unless you option up what is base however at this trim level and the higher trim Silverados is a rear camera that does have trajectory no special views though no looks from different angles no all-around cam it's a big vehicle but it does have really good visibility because being a pickup there are no deep pillars like in an SUV you can really look around and see what's around you pretty quickly so I'm okay with the lack of sort of perimeter awareness tech now for the audio system you've got radio which is am/fm HD radio satellite radio all at this trim level now under the media but you've got bluetooth streaming with pretty good tag presentation there's a lot of room there for the meta information I've got my optical disc here that's becoming kind of a scarcity in cars these days you've also got an SD card slot over here underneath the armrest which brings me to my next interesting note on this vehicle look at all the power from 12 volt outlets to 120 outlets to all kinds of USB charging outlets to more USB outlets good grief you can charge anything off this truck now all those sources go out through a Bose audio system standard here it's not a surround sound system nothing fancy and highfalutin that way it's just a good basic sort of lots of speakers lots of oomph you've got a DI see a Driver Information Center here between the tach and the speedo one of the best screens on it is this fuel economy screen it does a very good job of putting all the information together to coach you to drive more efficiently the yellow arrow at the top is your average fuel economy the bar graph underneath that is your instantaneous and the green there at the bottom is your best average over one of several mileage snapshots right now I've selected the 50-mile look-back but this is a really good tool to coach you how to drive for efficiency within context that means something and finally way over here is your real truckin stuff here's your trailer brake actuator and calibration alright there below that is your four-wheel drive knob look how easy it's become these days it's all electronic most folks are gonna leave it in Auto but you also got for low and high in two-wheel drive all right there now in terms of apps all you've really got is Pandora and it sits here kind of all by itself which I also argue with so there's radio there's media and then at the home screen there's Pandora - fractured the nice thing about it is you can launch from here and it will launch Pandora on your phone not all cars do that reliably okay up here in the sizeable engine bay of this guy we've got the big engine not the 5.3 liter base v8 but instead we've got the big v8 the 6.2 liter both of them are direct injected and both of them have active cylinder management that means it'll run is a v8 under load or run as a v4 under cruising or very light load hence MPGs not bad at 1420 given the fact this guy weighs nearly 5,400 pounds and we're in 4-wheel drive configuration here so there's a lot of complicated drivetrain mechanism to drag things down zero to 60 who cares you've also got 420 horse 460 foot-pounds of torque which of these guys rave about being substantially higher than f-150 or RAM in similar configurations payload on this 4-wheel Drive short box is nineteen hundred and fifty some odd pounds towing capacity ninety six hundred now let's talk beds we've got a short bed on this guy makes it almost kind of look a little funny when you got a big cab in a short bed 5/8 is your standard you could add 10 inches to get this thing out to six six that would be optional that's what I'm gonna do I don't think you can carry a lot of the stuff you want any want to bed this size now where Ford has this kind of airline stare that comes down to help you get up in your bed GM does something much simpler they've carved out of step in each corner of the bumper sure you can sneak your leg up on the bumper but it's just that extra what five inches that make it possible without throwing out a joint in your hip once you get up here look how nice and easy that gate drops it's a small thing but it's in this theme of kind of car light creature comforts that I find interesting now the first thing you're struck by certainly in this nice high trim high country is if you haven't been in a pickup truck in a number of years you're gonna be surprised the phrase rides like a truck just kind of isn't useful anymore they ride like cars quiet well sound dead buttoned down as you might imagine this body-on-frame construction is like a bank vault there's prodigious power of course although it doesn't come on in any really sharp way but that's not the point of a pickup this huge leg room in the back of this crew cab by the way in fact I could sit behind myself no problem and it's kind of like that legroom you get when you score an exit row it's really good now let's talk about driving this guy big yes but remember that a pickup has great visibility because of so much nothing behind it so we're looking out here and there is no blind spot detection in the mirrors you're on your own there what you do have is forward collision warning that I've got here and also lane departure warning neither is active they're both warning so if I get too close to this car in front of me and I close too fast I get an alert on the head-up display here as well as on the dash as well as getting the old General Motors run plumb work they've got these vibration things built into the seat it's used to be a Cadillac trick now there's spread it around a bit so it'll vibrate the butt of the seat say whoa you're about to hit something up front same thing happens at you into something and the sonar think you're about to hit a tree or a car now that same technology in the lane-departure situation uses the camera in the windshield to see if you're drifting and it will vibrate the left or right side of the sink whichever way you're drifting on the lane it's really well calibrated I find it it just hits it just right it doesn't wait too late and you're already in the other guy's Lane nor is it too early where it's like leave me alone I'm just driving here it's well done all in all I could drive this thing all day long it is a really comfortable big American car that of course is actually a truck this price this big guy as I mentioned this is top of the stack so a high country four-wheel drive is gonna run you about 50 grand just to start and another 2,000 if you want the 6.2 v8 that we've got this guy the high country premium package brings you the sonar front collision warning lane departure warning with the buck bumbler heated wheel and some other niceties it also includes the trailer brake panel we saw if you want real navigation built in that's eight hundred more there's a 3G hot spot for 600 bucks I can't see the point so I pass on that and for just 60 bucks you get a really bright LED bed light I would definitely do that all in we're a little under 54,000 loaded up this is a vehicle that obviously is very capable the interesting story will be Silverado and RAM versus the new all aluminum f-150 Ford's taking a whole new body approach and hoping they can flow in even more v6 --is that have done really well for them Chevy says stick with steel and we've got the most powerful v8 in the class it's an interesting dichotomy and those two are starting to diverge more than ever before you