New Chevy Colorado W/2.8L Diesel!

[WahooSteeler]

It will be interesting to see how this will perform when it comes out, just cool that someone is putting a diesel in a mid-size truck. Who will be the first person from CC that will salvage a wrecked one from a boneyard to craft it in to his MJ?! I think it has some definite styling cues from the Tacoma. The crew cab back door windows swept up and the center stack on the dash too. My first reaction is........I like it. Hopefully its build quality is more in line with its big brother and not like the previous S10 and Colorado. 

 

http://reviews.cnet.com/suv/2015-chevrolet-colorado-pickup/4505-10868_7-35832652.html

 

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/11/20/2015-chevrolet-colorado-revealed-diesel-la/

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/11/20/chevrolet-colorado-mid-size-pickup-los-angles-auto-show/3600611/

 

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/trucks/1311_2015_chevrolet_colorado_first_look/

[dasbulliwagen]

I have never understood the need for a midsize truck.You either need a big truck or a small truck, this in between stuff is just stupid to me. Most midsize trucks get the same milage as a full size. And the small beds... 5 ft or 6ft??? I understand todays truck market is different than in the past, but things are getting stupid. The Dakota got so big that you may as well have bought a ram, the Colorado/ S-10 is also bigger than in the past and the same goes for Toyota. And now that the Ranger is gone there isnt much left. Dodge is seriously talking about a new small truck to fill out their commercial lineup, but thats another year or so out. I guess maybe I'm just getting old. The times as a kid riding in the middle on the bench in my dads 72 Chevy, or the Luv he had after that or the 85 Ranger he bought new were some of the best memories as a kid. Must be why I love regular cabs so much. The simplicity, the affordability.... I guess I just miss the time when stuff like that was common.

[JeepcoMJ]

people wanted the room to fit family without being huge.

 

 

And no way, screw any diesel that came out of a chevy, except the dmax.

[Incommando]

There is a market for a small truck, true. None of these trucks have been available for years. A recent Motorweek review of the Taco noted that you could buy a similarly equipped full-sized truck for the same money that also got better mileage (except for the Titan & Tundra) than the Taco...  A truck of the size of an MJ or first-gen Dakota, which were the first of the "big" small trucks anyway, would be a plus. These small trucks started out as 2nd vehicles and starter transportation and were never intended for hauling families. That is what eventually killed them. The newest Ranger (not sold here) is about the size of a 1997 F150 and looks to be bigger than the first-gen "full-sized" Tundra for goodness sake.

 

The new small Dodge I have heard about would be ( if made) based on the Dart platform ( or another uni-body pan) and have a one-piece cab/bed like the old Rampage. Like the mini-van based Honda Ridgeline or the El Camino calling it a truck would be a stretch IMHO. It makes sense from CAFE standings, maybe.

 

I always thought it was funny that the small truck fad started with Chevy importing the Jap LUV from Isuzu, Ford importing the Jap Courier from Mazda, and Dodge importing the Jap D50 from Mitsubishi. But at the end Isuzu was selling a re-badged Chevy, Mazda was selling a re-badged Ford, and Mistsubishi was selling a re-badged Dodge. The 2nd Gen Nissan Titan was supposed to be a re-badged Dodge 1500 but that deal got cancelled in the bankruptcy. That is how the Titan wound up with the new small Cummins diesel and the Ram will have to settle with the probably junk VM Motori diesel because FIAT is an owner of VM Motori. When they put one in the Liberty they required many mods and a lot of money to even be considered reliable and have any longevity. Not just tuning...things like torque converters. Maybe these are better but considering FIAT's world-wide rep.... 

[WahooSteeler]

I have never understood the need for a midsize truck.You either need a big truck or a small truck, this in between stuff is just stupid to me. Most midsize trucks get the same milage as a full size. And the small beds... 5 ft or 6ft??? I understand todays truck market is different than in the past, but things are getting stupid. The Dakota got so big that you may as well have bought a ram, the Colorado/ S-10 is also bigger than in the past and the same goes for Toyota. And now that the Ranger is gone there isnt much left. Dodge is seriously talking about a new small truck to fill out their commercial lineup, but thats another year or so out. I guess maybe I'm just getting old. The times as a kid riding in the middle on the bench in my dads 72 Chevy, or the Luv he had after that or the 85 Ranger he bought new were some of the best memories as a kid. Must be why I love regular cabs so much. The simplicity, the affordability.... I guess I just miss the time when stuff like that was common.

Ok, this is weird. We had a 72 Chevy 4wd when I was a kid, then a Luv 4wd that I drove when I got my license. But then we had an S10 (with the 2.Hate)

[Dadinator]

My first thought?

No manual tranny.  Can hardly get them in anything anymore.

 

Pisses me off.

[SW86]

pass. pretty soon every car/truck out there will just be a glob of bull$#!& design.

[ComancheKid45]

Pretty much is like that already..... :/

[Minuit]

The reason we don't see small trucks anymore (the small trucks of today would be considered full size 20 years ago) is that it just isn't practical anymore to make them. Safety features these days (and I'm not saying they're a bad thing) take up a lot of space that would otherwise be interior space, and designers' only choice is to make the outside bigger in return. Go compare how thick the doors are on an MJ to any recent car and you'll see. In addition, fuel economy regulations have clamped down on inefficent things with shorter wheelbases. That's the main reason I think. Basically the small truck is a thing of the past unless as Incommando says it's built on a car platform. Funny how the MJ and its contemporaries signalled the start of this process.

[Incommando]

 If we chopped 20% of the size and weight from a vehicle we would increase MPG. My current DD is a Chevy Sonic Turbo that beats the EPA est. of 40 mpg highway. It is a small car by today's standards but only by today's standards. It is larger than an Accord hatchback from the late 80's. I parked next to a Geo Metro (Suzuki Swift) 4dr the other day. The Sonic is larger than either: W/B Sonic 99.4 vs. Metro 89.2 vs. Accord H/B 93.7. Overall length 173.1" vs. M=146.1" vs. Accord 172". Width S= 68.3" vs M= 61" vs A= 65".  HP/Tq S= 138/148 vs M= 55/40 vs A= 68/?. MPG S= 32/40 vs M= 32/37 vs. 26/29. Weight S= 2,720 vs M= 1,650 vs. A= 2,083.The Metro achieved decent MPG by today's standards because of its small size. I wonder what the Sonic drivetrain in a Metro (or Accord for that matter) would achieve in both performance and mileage as the Sonic beats the Metro & Accord soundly in MPG despite being both larger and much faster. ( Faster being a relative term...it is an econobox after all...) If you consider that the junk Smart ForTwo is too small, too slow, AND too inefficient along with beng unreliable we see that small alone is not the answer.

 

But this is nothing new: a 1971 Road Runner was over 500#'s heavier than a 1970 due to increased crash standards relating to the bumpers and doors, primarily.

[Oyaji]

Frontal area and coefficient of drag are the 2 numbers to pay attention to - weight only matters much in city driving.

 

Since the advent of fuel injection (FI), power on tap is the main gain from newer engines, though better engine mapping and an eye towards continually improving efficiency has shown some improvement in economy. Variable valve timing allows better efficiency across a wider range of engine speed which allows better performance from a smaller engine (yielding weight savings elsewhere on the entire vehicle as well), but older FI engines still showed remarkable economy. Case in point is my brother's 1989 Honda CRX, which, even with its short legs that result from sporty overall gearing, still consistently returns 43 MPG at 70 MPH.