Last week I had the chance of testing the 2014 Silverado LT extended cab, which is now a double cab, as they stopped the suicide doors and opted for a 2 door style, which is both more practical and offers greater stiffness for the ride and better noise cancellation due to the rubber foam on the B-pillar + now the rear passengers have a window they can open up offering you an extra amenity for the passengers sitting in the back. I currenlty drive the FJ cruiser, and I found that having doors to access the rear cabin area is a lot more practical, especially when putting your children in the car and when loading groceries in the rear seating area.
The Silverado LT I test drove was equipped with the following :
- EZ-Lift and Lower Tailgate
- Driver Information Center with 4.2″ diagonal display
- Cloth 40/20/40 front seating with locking under-seat storage
- Leather-wrapped steering wheel with audio and cruise controls
- 17″ machined aluminum wheels
and was powered by a 5.3L EcoTec3 V8 engine 2WD, the power the engine provided was more than enough to carry this big truck around and made you feel that you have more power than you’ll need and all you need to do is give it some gas. The ride quality was a little soft but very comfortable and really felt it had a good grip on the road, at 120 and 140 Km/h it felt safe and you felt in control even when braking suddenly from 100 km/h and taking longer corners. Once you get used to the length of the truck you’ll find it quite comfortable to drive, it made me feel I can’t wait to try the new Tahoe! Going around and getting errands done was simple, a little challenging with the length in the parking, but with the rear camera and sensor, I had no trouble at all parking the truck anywhere!
I wanted to use it instead of pulling my cart for Kayaking, but I had so much work to do I couldn’t manage to finish everything on time, and I had to go take a few photos of this cool truck!
The rear tailgate was easy to open and not heavy to close at all!
The Interior
I was amazed at the quality and design of the interior, it really felt nice, and the modern looking interior was quite impressive. The Mylink system was quite nice as well allowing you to navigate through the console using the touch screen. The AC was actually quite good!! It was also really cold at times, the remote start, means that you’ll always enter your car with the AC on and started, the thing I loved was the option to raise or lower the brake peddles, you can change the height depending on the shoes you are wearing.
The 4.2″ driver information system accesses the Cars systems and can show you all the information you would need to know about your car, one comment I hope GM would work on, if you are driving over-speed and have selected to display the spedometer, an announcement would popup saying you are over-speed and you wouldn’t know how much exactly over-speed and you have to click on dismiss for the message to go away, I would think having the speed showing and an overlay displayed would be a much better option. It reminded me of those annoying error messages you can get on a computer, a message is overlaying another more important piece of information. Maybe if you crossed the max speed limit the speedometer numbers can be displayed in red instead of white. That’s just my point of view.
Here, the center arm rest is decended and can be used as a cup holder and storage compartment, it also contains 2 USB inputs and and SD card slot which come in very handy, it also recognizes ipads and iphones upon plugging in.
Here the center console was raised giving you an extra front seat, the seat belt is adequately stored under the seat.
The rear seating area was in a 2/3 – 1/3 and the seats can be raised for storage under the seats.
At night the interior is lit up pretty well by LEDs.
The Exterior
The front grille was an an impressive upgrade, just when you though it couldn’t get better than the last design, it gives quite a bold statement and is quite pleasing.
Here’s a shot I took of the car at night, its so hot to photograph in the morning.
The single cab LT starts at 7777 KWD, you can choose between the 4×4 Z71 models and LTZ models, as well as the top of class High Country which comes fully loaded with all options!
For more information check out Alghanim Auto or Instagram @AlghanimAuto