2023 Chevy Colorado Long-Term Update: Boons and Bothers From a 2,500-Mile Trip

• I took our long-term Colorado Z71 on a 10-day road trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.
• The midsize pickup showed itself as a willing and able companion, although I found a couple of annoyances and missing features.
• I was not eaten by bears.

It’s smaller than you might think

Packing for a long trip that includes a stint at a campground required a fair amount of cargo. The Colorado’s 62-inch bed could have swallowed it all, but without a lockable tonneau cover or a bed cap, I didn’t want to risk my gear getting rained on or stolen.

Turns out, if you’re not using the bed, a midsize pickup has less space than a Mitsubishi Mirage. I was lucky to be traveling solo, because between my suitcase, backpack, running gear, camping bag and snacks, I completely filled the meager backseat area and the passenger seat up front. The only thing I left in the bed was my 7-gallon water jug, which got tossed around and scuffed up over the course of the journey.

This is where our long-term Rivian R1T’s secure gear tunnel and convenient — though currently broken — motorized tonneau cover would have been clutch. Chevy sells a rigid bed cap for $4,395 and a range of tonneaus for $489 to $2,099 if you want to bolster the Colorado bed’s security.

Highway hero

Once I packed up and hit the road, the Colorado’s strength as a highway cruiser became clear. The ride quality is excellent for a truck like this and I was shocked at how quiet these all-terrain tires were at speed. Candidly, the tires’ hush and conservative tread pattern left me suspicious the rolling stock would be similar to the “all-terrain look” rubber the industry collectively torched Honda for when it announced the first Ridgeline TrailSport, but I didn’t get up to any loose-surface off-roading to test that suspicion.

On the highway, though, the Colorado was stable and comfortable enjoying 80 mph speed limits, and the big-displacement turbo-four proved more than proficient for easy merging and passing. Even with the cruise control north of that generous speed and the aero-optimizing air dam removed, I managed 19.0 mpg, and a tank’s worth of driving at more conservative speeds delivered 24.1 mpg.

One feature that would have proved useful over a couple thousand miles? Super Cruise. Chevrolet’s hands-free driving assist is up there with the industry’s best, and it’s available on the Colorado’s big sibling, the Silverado, but not on our midsize pickup. Our truck only has a paltry lane keeping assistance that will only semi-reliably bounce you off the lane line, as well as an adaptive cruise control system that feels slow to react to the braking and acceleration of the car ahead.

Audio woes

I also had a chance to spend plenty of time with the Bose audio in our Z71 test truck, and I have notes. The speaker and amplifier setup is fine, no complaints there, but from my first playlist it was clear something was off. With the equalizer set to flat, the system is tuned to deliver way too much bass. I have a sizable subwoofer as part of my home audio system, I go to hip-hop shows to feel bass in my chest, I’m an enjoyer of low-end frequencies. But the Colorado’s Bose stereo didn’t sound appropriately balanced until I lowered the bass level to at least minus 4.

My other Bose-related issues have nothing to do with the sound itself, but rather with the design and build of the truck. First, even with the bass adjusted to a level where it sounded right, some lower frequencies would violently rattle the front door panels of the pickup. That’s not especially encouraging from a build-quality perspective for a truck that only has 10,000 miles on the odometer. Second — and yes, I'm nitpicking here — the little Bose badge on the dash is distracting. It’s the only bright metallic element on an otherwise entirely black dash, and you can see its reflection on the windshield at all times of day. This was an easy enough problem to solve with a rectangle of black duct tape, but I shouldn’t have to do that.

While I'm touching on visibility, a note to automakers: Cool it with the ultra-reflective piano black plastic. At one point I had to put on sunglasses, not because it was exceptionally bright but because there was gnarly glare off the center console trim.

Maps, apps and ... bears?

Once I made it to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, the Colorado proved itself as a docile, refined companion for my many miles driving to trailheads and viewpoints. Turns out these parks are enormous and driving both major loops of Yellowstone takes five hours if you don’t stop for bison and bear viewings. The Colorado saw no fewer than 10 bears this trip, including a family of grizzlies close enough that I could see mama’s claws.

The truck’s native Google Maps integration was excellent for navigating through the park, with better functionality than what you get through Apple CarPlay. Google Assistant earned my praise, too, as it consistently recognized my requests without error and was able to answer questions like, “What time does the sun set tonight?” so I'd know when I needed to get to the campsite to avoid setting up in the dark. Because the system is reliant on an internet connection, though, it was unavailable when I was without a cell signal deep inside the park.

Unfortunately, the Colorado doesn’t allow you to display maps in the instrument cluster like you can in our long-term Blazer EV, but I’m grateful the pickup still has Apple CarPlay (unlike the Blazer) so I could have a view that showed me media and maps at the same time. Even though I preferred the additional pinch-to-zoom functionality and detail of the native Google Maps setup, I still occasionally found myself using CarPlay if I found an address on my phone or wanted easy control of music and podcasts.

Is the Colorado a good road-trip truck?

Our Colorado Z71 was a great partner for my first big road trip of the year. Comfortable and confident at high speeds, the truck made it easy to cover major mileage and its tech and accurate steering made it easy to live with. If you’re traveling with lots of cargo (or some cargo and a passenger or two), it’s worth investing in bed security so you can use that storage space for more than just mulch. And, yes, there are a couple of annoyances with the audio system, but I finished the trip with a new appreciation for Chevrolet’s midsize offering.

Edmunds says

Maybe not perfect for the bit, but I’ll take Wyoming and Montana over Colorado any day, and our midsize Chevy was an excellent if imperfect companion.

Photos by Duncan Brady