OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I'm going to preface this with the statement that this is in no way a "serious" review. One cannot, with any sense of respect to common sense, feel they are doing a just service to reviewing a vehicle with this kind of mileage and unknown history, so keep that in mind when you read what follows.
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Today, my best friend purchased a 2006 RAM 2500 with the Cummins. It was 3hrs away and I accompanied him to go pick it up with the intention of driving his work truck back. So that's 6hrs of driving; roughly 600Km (373 miles) in the vehicle he's provided by work, which happens to be the subject of this thread, the Silverado.
He's the 3rd person to have this truck as a company vehicle. It's a 2010 Silverado in LTZ trim I believe, with the following basic specs:
- Cloth interior
- 4.8L engine
- 4x4
- Very basic stereo
- Crew cab
- Rear drum brakes
- 20" wheels
On to the gritty details. This sweet baby has 367,000Km on it (228,000 miles) and she wears them well. They are predominantly highway miles, and I don't believe it's ever towed anything. It's on its third transmission, which is arguably the most poorly geared slushbox I've ever had the displeasure of piloting. The truck is in good shape body-wise and interior, with only a bit of rust around the door bottoms, door sills....etc.
It squeaks noticeably at low speed, as a u-joint is going out of it.
The 4.8L reminds me of a lo-po 305 that somebody put V-TEC on. It makes ZERO power until 4,000 RPM, where it suddenly screams to 5,500, shifts, and this is where the magic of that transmission comes in! The engine RPM plummets to 3,000, it falls on its face, and then attempts to struggle up to 4,000RPM again to repeat. Passing required planning. Hills required a steady foot to the floor to keep up to the stock diesel. The 4.8L screamed away until the transmission shoved its face into the pillow and then you had to anxiously wait until it managed to get itself free again. It could do with double the number of gears easily. The spacing appears to anticipate an engine with a powerband that isn't that of a 2-stroke, and that isn't this engine, no sir!
The gauge cluster is, well, awful. Sitting there looking at it, there are way too many numbers and too many dashes between them. Somebody got really busy filling in the Metric speedometer. I can't see the left-most parts of any of the gauges on the right-hand side of the cluster, as they are obscured by the "tunnels" GM decided to put them in
This "tunnel shield" assembly slopes back from the bottom to the top, which simply adds to the awkwardness.
The seats were reasonably comfortable, unfortunately the driver seat has a funk that, when heated by the body, resembles that of rancid parmesan. My buddy was laughing pretty hard as I'm driving with the windows down trying to air out the stench.
The mirrors are, well, GM mirrors. They decided at some point to cut out the lower inner corner of them for reasons that still fail to be obvious to me. The right power mirror didn't work, but hey, it's 9 years old.
It's riding on some wonderful Michelin LTX M/S2's, which yielded an excellent ride.
The door pins on the driver's door are expectedly trash and need replacing.
The A/C blew ice cold, and it was surprisingly sparse on squeaks and rattles, though I'd be hard pressed to hear any with the windows down trying to air out the cheese smell.
When it rolls over it sounds like it's thinking about whether it wants to. Not sure if that's the battery or the starter.
The brakes were not its best feature. The stopped it, that's about where the positives end.
The dash is six miles deep, but it's shaped like the rockies, so you really have no idea what's going on between you and the windshield. Did GM put useful storage spots there? Who knows! I sure didn't.
The stereo was reasonably good. The passenger side door speaker rattles a tad, but I didn't do a whole heck of a lot of music listening of course due to the windows down situation.
All-in-all, I'd say that the truck has held up extremely well over the mileage, save the ghastly transmission, which apparently isn't even capable of staying together behind an engine whose power delivery characteristics were inspired by the engineers at Stihl. Likely an otherwise long-lasting setup, if you can stomach the powertrain. I certainly couldn't.
********************************************
Today, my best friend purchased a 2006 RAM 2500 with the Cummins. It was 3hrs away and I accompanied him to go pick it up with the intention of driving his work truck back. So that's 6hrs of driving; roughly 600Km (373 miles) in the vehicle he's provided by work, which happens to be the subject of this thread, the Silverado.
He's the 3rd person to have this truck as a company vehicle. It's a 2010 Silverado in LTZ trim I believe, with the following basic specs:
- Cloth interior
- 4.8L engine
- 4x4
- Very basic stereo
- Crew cab
- Rear drum brakes
- 20" wheels
On to the gritty details. This sweet baby has 367,000Km on it (228,000 miles) and she wears them well. They are predominantly highway miles, and I don't believe it's ever towed anything. It's on its third transmission, which is arguably the most poorly geared slushbox I've ever had the displeasure of piloting. The truck is in good shape body-wise and interior, with only a bit of rust around the door bottoms, door sills....etc.
It squeaks noticeably at low speed, as a u-joint is going out of it.
The 4.8L reminds me of a lo-po 305 that somebody put V-TEC on. It makes ZERO power until 4,000 RPM, where it suddenly screams to 5,500, shifts, and this is where the magic of that transmission comes in! The engine RPM plummets to 3,000, it falls on its face, and then attempts to struggle up to 4,000RPM again to repeat. Passing required planning. Hills required a steady foot to the floor to keep up to the stock diesel. The 4.8L screamed away until the transmission shoved its face into the pillow and then you had to anxiously wait until it managed to get itself free again. It could do with double the number of gears easily. The spacing appears to anticipate an engine with a powerband that isn't that of a 2-stroke, and that isn't this engine, no sir!
The gauge cluster is, well, awful. Sitting there looking at it, there are way too many numbers and too many dashes between them. Somebody got really busy filling in the Metric speedometer. I can't see the left-most parts of any of the gauges on the right-hand side of the cluster, as they are obscured by the "tunnels" GM decided to put them in
The seats were reasonably comfortable, unfortunately the driver seat has a funk that, when heated by the body, resembles that of rancid parmesan. My buddy was laughing pretty hard as I'm driving with the windows down trying to air out the stench.
The mirrors are, well, GM mirrors. They decided at some point to cut out the lower inner corner of them for reasons that still fail to be obvious to me. The right power mirror didn't work, but hey, it's 9 years old.
It's riding on some wonderful Michelin LTX M/S2's, which yielded an excellent ride.
The door pins on the driver's door are expectedly trash and need replacing.
The A/C blew ice cold, and it was surprisingly sparse on squeaks and rattles, though I'd be hard pressed to hear any with the windows down trying to air out the cheese smell.
When it rolls over it sounds like it's thinking about whether it wants to. Not sure if that's the battery or the starter.
The brakes were not its best feature. The stopped it, that's about where the positives end.
The dash is six miles deep, but it's shaped like the rockies, so you really have no idea what's going on between you and the windshield. Did GM put useful storage spots there? Who knows! I sure didn't.
The stereo was reasonably good. The passenger side door speaker rattles a tad, but I didn't do a whole heck of a lot of music listening of course due to the windows down situation.
All-in-all, I'd say that the truck has held up extremely well over the mileage, save the ghastly transmission, which apparently isn't even capable of staying together behind an engine whose power delivery characteristics were inspired by the engineers at Stihl. Likely an otherwise long-lasting setup, if you can stomach the powertrain. I certainly couldn't.
