2016 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 Diesel Arrival: Lucking Out With a Colorado Duramax

To say that I was merely excited to take delivery of our new long-term 2016 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 Duramax would probably be a bit of an understatement. I very nearly fell in love with this oil-burning midsize pickup during our 2016 Truck of the Year testing, and once I found out that our long-termer’s arrival would fall around the time of “my” old Corvette Stingray’s departure, I began lobbying to make the Colorado “mine” for its year of testing. Hard.

I lucked out—and hopefully so did you.

My motives for wanting to chaperone our diesel-powered Colorado for a year are numerous, but they boil down to three big reasons: 1) I take lots of long road trips with my wife and two dogs in tow, making the Colorado’s comfort, range, and cargo capacity a huge draw; 2) Aside from long road trips, I’ve also been getting into off-roading, camping, and exploring the many easily accessible dirt trails around Southern California, and a small truck with a four-wheel-drive system and two-speed transfer case would make that type of thing a possibility; and 3) In an effort to save the little money I have, I’ve been trolling Craigslist for furniture I can refurbish for our apartment and been making trips to hardware stores to buy raw materials to build stuff on my own. Basically, I needed a truck.

Our new 2016 Colorado has much in common with our last Colorado long-termer; like our red one, the new silver Colorado is specced in the crew cab, 5.2-foot-long short-bed configuration with the Z71 off-road-oriented trim package, a six-speed automatic transmission, and four-wheel drive. Like our last truck, it’s optioned with a spray-on bed liner ($475), Chevrolet MyLink Infotainment system with 4G LTE Wi-Fi ($495), a Bose audio system ($500), “off-road” assist steps ($745), and the Trailering Equipment package ($250). The main difference between our new truck and old is under the hood. Our Colorado is specced with the Duramax 2.8-liter, turbodiesel I-4, which for $3905 also includes a unique two-speed transfer case with an auto four-wheel-drive mode, a tow/haul mode with an exhaust brake, and a trailer brake controller. The sticker price for our 2016 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 Duramax is $42,105 when all is said and done.

Although I’m sorry to disappoint those of you who were hoping to read about something different, on the bright side the near-identical spec allows us to directly compare our new diesel-powered tester with our old V-6-powered Colorado.

Speaking of, where our new Colorado’s 2.8-liter, turbodiesel I-4 most differentiates itself from our old one’s 3.6-liter V-6 is in the horsepower and torque department; our new truck has 181 hp to the old’s 305 hp, and it’s got 369 lb-ft of torque to our last long-termer’s 269 lb-ft. That’s a lot of pulling power. Even still, my new Colorado Duramax long-termer was a bit slower at the test track, its fastest 0-60 run of 9.2 seconds and quarter-mile performance of 16.8 seconds at 79.7 mph happening with four-wheel-drive auto mode engaged. Braking performance is average for the segment, with the Chevy coming to a stop from 60 mph in 130 feet. Our oil-burning Colorado Z71’s figure-eight performance was a bit poky at 29.1 seconds at 0.56 g average, but hey, it’s a truck.

For those keeping score at home, the old gas-powered Colorado did 0-60 in 7.4 seconds and the quarter mile in 15.7 seconds at 88.7 mph. The 60-0 brake test took it 123 feet, and it lapped our figure eight in 28.1 seconds at 0.61 g. You, like me, may sometimes fall into the faster-is-better camp, but it’s worth noting two major advantages of our new Colorado Duramax: its 20/29/23 mpg city/highway/combined EPA score (Real MPG will be addressed in a later update) and its 7,600-pound tow capacity, both of which are significantly better over the big gas engine.

Our Silver Ice Metallic Chevrolet Colorado Duramax arrived with just 58 miles on the clock, and I was psyched to fire it up for the first time—especially because within a few days of its arrival, I was going to load it up and point it north for a much-needed vacation. You can probably imagine my surprise when the first time I fired it up, a GMC logo greeted me on the little driver instrument control display on the dashboard. Hmm. Upon closer inspection, the switches on the center stack that turn traction control on and off, among other things, were loose and only worked if you pushed them just so. My truck must’ve rolled down its Wentzville, Missouri, assembly line on an off day. Regardless, those are issues to be addressed at a later date because I’ve got big plans for the Colorado.

Over the next year, it’ll go on road trips, it’ll tow, and it’ll haul. The “off-road” running boards, which are better at bashing my shins than anything else will go. So too will the front air dam, which impedes off-road clearance and scrapes on everything—and when we remove it, we’ll once and for all determine how much the dam does for the Colorado’s fuel economy. We’ve also got a truckload of Chevrolet Accessories coming for the Colorado, which I’m excited to test.

But first, it’s time to hit the road. Let’s roll.

2016 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 (CrewCab Short Box)
BASE PRICE	$35,535
PRICE AS TESTED	$42,105
VEHICLE LAYOUT	Front-engine, 4WD, 5-pass, 4-door truck
ENGINE	2.8L/181-hp/369-lb-ft turbodiesel DOHC 16-valve I-4
TRANSMISSION	6-speed automatic
CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST)	4,821 lb (57/43%)
WHEELBASE	128.3 in
LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT	212.7 x 74.3 x 70.6 in
0-60 MPH	9.2 sec
QUARTER MILE	16.8 sec @ 79.7 mph
BRAKING, 60-0 MPH	130 ft
LATERAL ACCELERATION	0.73 g (avg)
MT FIGURE EIGHT	29.1 sec @ 0.56 g (avg)
EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON	20/29/23 mpg
ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY	189/130 kW-hrs/100 miles

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