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Video: For $52,000, What Do You Get In a 2022 Chevrolet Silverado?
By Cars.com Editors
September 27, 2022About the video
For $52,000, What Do You Get In a 2022 Chevrolet Silverado?
Transcript
The 2022 Chevrolet Silverado has a new interior, and they did a really good job with it. The old interior was one of our major criticisms of the Silverado when it was redesigned. But the new interior doesn't come on all trim levels.
In fact, you have to spend around $47,000 just to get the new interior, and that's because it comes on LT trim levels and above. So work truck and custom trim levels have the carryover interior. The truck that we're testing is an LT, and it's $52,000. And that number is interesting because it's actually the median price of new 2022 Silverados in Cars.com's national inventory. Now $52,000, if you haven't shopped for a car in five to 10 years, that may seem like a lot but when the average price of a new car is in the low to mid $40,000 you might be surprised by what you get and what you don't in a $52,000 pickup truck. So let's talk about what you get for $52,000 as equipped on the outside because the thing is $52,000 could be split up thousands of ways because there are so many different options and configurations. But we've got this truck in front of us. So let's take a look at what this one has. Right off the bat $495 cherry red tint coat exterior paint. Then you have $1,100 20 inch wheels. The altering tires on these wheels are an extra $200. Not much happening over here. All pretty standards. Then we get to the back and it has the factory $685 spray-in bedliner. And it also has the $445 multiplex tailgate which is a pretty trick unit. So it has multiple configurations. Have nice little table top right here, then you can fold it down, and you've got a good step in. And then one and two with only minimal knee cracking, which I appreciate. What this doesn't have though, and that's optional is the power open and close tailgate. So there isn't just one multiflex tailgate option. You can also add more money onto that if you wanted. So let's take another quick look at that interior. We've been in it before but this is our chance to get in a mid trim level and it is very well done. So it feels as nice on the inside as the top trim level in the previous interior, material quality and fitment. It's just done really nice and you know, styling is subjective but I much prefer this horizontal type style than what was in the previous interior. What also stands out is just the digital displays. You have a 12.3 inch digital instrument cluster and you have this 13.4 inch multimedia touch screen and it's high definition and it's sharp and it's mostly fast. And again, when it comes to styling I just really like the way that it's laid out. This is the Google based multimedia system though. And you know, this is still a relatively new system that we're experiencing in different cars and it's definitely new to the Silverado. We think there are a few bugs to work out. There is a really slow cold boot. So when you come out in the morning and you started up it takes a while for it to function. I started it up in the morning and wanted to use some voice commands and it said waiting boot up processes happening. I waited a little bit longer I hit the button again and it said, sorry, still booting. So not only does that not work the car's giving you some attitude as well, which you know that only happens generally when I have my kids in the car. So not a big fan of that. We've also had some inconsistencies with how it works and latency using the native Google maps for us and our experience using Apple CarPlay and Android Auto has still produced the most seamless experience. The bummer is when you're using Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, you don't get the full width of the screen versus when you're using the native Google system you do get the full width. But for our use I prefer the more consistent experience using Apple CarPlay. The base engine on the LT and what our truck is equipped with is a 2.7 liter four cylinder. Now most truck owners are likely gonna be met with skepticism when you tell them they're 5,200 pound full size pickup has a four cylinder. But you gotta get past that because this four cylinder turbocharge makes 310 horsepower 430 pounds feet of torque that's 30% more power than the previous version in its 50 more pounds seat of torque than the 5.3 liter V8. So what does that feel like behind the wheel? Well, it's really interesting because it almost feels diesel like in its power delivery. You have a lot of acceleration and a lot of grunt down low. As soon as you touch the accelerator that turbo just lights off and takes off. (car engine roaring) It does spend most of its energy pretty quickly though. If you lay into it and really rev out the engine it's not as impressive as it is at those low engine speeds. And then the other thing about this engine versus the optional engines is that you're getting the eight speed automatic transmission instead of the 10 speed automatic transmission that on this trim level come with the 5.3 in the optional 6.2 liter. As tested this configuration's fuel economy is 17 miles per gallon in the city, 20 on the highway and an EPA combined 18 miles per gallon. And that's not significantly better than the 5.3 liter but it is $1,500 less expensive than getting the five three on this trim level. As far as capabilities, what's nice about Chevrolet trucks is that they give you a placard on the door jam that shows you exactly what your truck as configured is capable of. So this one as configured from its curb weight it can tow 9,000 pounds, has a maximum tongue weight of 900 pounds. So they only want a maximum 10% of maximum capacity on the tongue. And then payload capacity is around 1700 pounds. And those are all pretty respectable numbers for the base engine. We haven't towed with it yet, so we only know what those numbers mean on paper. Hopefully we'll be able to hook a trailer up to the 2.7 liter at some point and get that experience with the base engine. So up until now the $52,000 Silverado is doing a lot of really nice things. Once you start getting past a dashboard though, you start to see where you're missing out in this price range. And that's the cloth interior first of all. But there are no nice leather bucket seats at this price level. You have six person cloth seating, which honestly I haven't seen a front bench seat in a long time and I was actually kind of thrilled to see this. Partly because it's not a bench and there's a lot of configurability here. There's storage underneath the seat cushion and then there's a more traditional center console here even though it is six passenger seating. But there are other things that you're not getting at this price range. And as configured, you'll, like I said before there are a bunch of ways to split up $52,000 but this truck does not have blind spot monitoring or adaptive cruise control or parking sensors. Either the front or the rear has really nice backup camera, high resolution. It also has hitch guidelines as part of an optional package. But there are some things that where we drive and more urban areas we would like to see and would've equipped differently. There are also features on this truck that aren't but should be because of parts shortages. This particular one, there are no heated seats. There's no heated steering wheel and there are no rear wheel liners. Everything is exposed inside the wheel vault. The buttons are here and you can press them but they don't do anything. And those will be retro fit later. As auto journalists we're often driving the top spec trim level the $80,000 Silverado, because that's generally what automaker cleans our press fleet. So it was really refreshing to drive the Silverado LT at this price range because that's what you're driving. That's what the median price of new Silverados are in Cars.com's national inventory. Is it how I would configure my Silverado? No, I would ditch some of the appearance add-ons to put more bulk into the driver assistance features to get the parking sensors and the blind spot monitoring. But what is here, it's pretty definitive that what you get for the money is a significant improvement over the old interior. And if you want to learn more about this truck and find them for sale, visit Cars.com.
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