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Archive for November, 2009

The Chevrolet Colorado – Value for money

Posted by cloud on November 23, 2009

The Chevy Colorado is an excellent compact pickup truck. Technically speaking, though, the Colorado is more midsize, which is a good thing if you’re looking for a reasonably priced truck that is great for hauling, but if you’re looking for something really hardcore and industrial, you should probably stay away from the Chevy Colorado. It’s very easy to maneuver, but that doesn’t take away from its aggressive attitude. The Colorado’s handling is pretty sweet both on-road as well as off it. It’s not as powerful as some would like their truck to be, and that’s the fault of its engines which are four and five cylinders. Through the years, the engines have increased in power, and you can even get a V8 engine now. After the praise comes the criticism. The Chevy Colorado, many agree, could have done without the plethora of in-cabin hard plastics, build quality that’s anything but consistent, and style is not a word you can use in the same sentence as ‘Chevy Colorado’.

Presently, the Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck is available in standard cab, extended cab as well as in crew cab configurations. The cargo beds of the regular and extended cab models are 6-feet-long, and the one in the crew cab version is 5-feet long. The regular Colorado seats three persons, the extended cab ones seat five and the crew cabs seat six, although it’ll be quite a tight fit in the latter two models.

Another great thing about the Chevy Colorado is that you can get it in three different trim levels, which are ‘Work’, ‘VL’ and ‘LT’. With the first two, you get features like tilt steering, automatic headlights, air conditioning and cruise control. The more expensive LT gets you more options, materials that are upgraded and a stereo that’s nicer than the one in ‘Work’. You can get the LT trim only for the crew cab models, but ‘Work’ and ‘VL’ you can get in both, regular as well as extended cab models. The Colorado comes with your choice of drive system – two-wheel or four-wheel plus dual-range transfer case. You have multiple options for suspension – Z85 heavy-duty and Z71 off-road packages, both of which add a torsion-bar front suspension that has heavier duty shock absorbers. Another option is the ZQ8 which gets you a lowered, performance tunes suspension, performance tires, exterior mods and 18-inch wheels. We’re done with the antipasti, let’s get to the meat – the engine.

When it comes to engines in the Chevy Colorado, you get to choose between these three options: a 2.9-liter, 185-horsepower four-cylinder, a 242-hp, 3.7-liter five-cylinder and a 5.3-liter V8 that puts out 300 hp and 320 lb-ft of torque. Only with the 2.9-liter do you get to choose between five-speed manual or automatic transmission, while with the others, you get a standard four-speed transmission. The overall impression that the Colorado leaves you with isn’t all that great; this is not a truck you can’t do without. On the plus side, the Colorado has more room and handles better than the one that came before it, but alas, there are the negatives to consider too.

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All you want to know about pickup trucks

Posted by cloud on November 12, 2009

When we were kids, we’d hear all about how the ‘tough guys’ drove pickups, and the guys would all say they want one when they start working. The fascination with pickups ends for some with the first tastes of high-school driving, for some with college cars and for  yet some others, when they enter corporate life. But for some of us, the fascination remains. If you get excited about pickup trucks or own one or would want to own one, you should read this article. Let’s begin with the basics first.

What’s a pick-up truck, you want to know? A pickup truck is essentially a light motor vehicle whose cargo area – called the ‘bed’ in trucking parlance – does not have a top. The ‘bed’ in most pickup trucks is separate from the actual cab (cabin) in order to make allowance for what is known as ‘chassis flex’ when hauling or towing heavy loads or vehicles. Now, many vehicles in North America are equipped with beds, but they’re not proper trucks. For example, vehicles like the Chevrolet El Camino or the Ford Ranchero are built on station wagon platforms. Most trucks have a channel rail or a tubular chassis along with a ‘fully floating’ cabin and also a completely separate cargo section so as to keep the sheet metal from warping and also to provide leeway for chassis flex. Some truck-like vehicles are often mistaken for pickup trucks, when they are technically not. For instance, vehicles such as the FPV Pursuit or the Holden Ute are ‘utility’ vehicles. Such vehicles have various ‘nicknames’ in different countries. In South Africa, they’re called ‘bakkies’ or ‘bucky’, while in Egypt, they’re called ‘half trucks’, and in New Zealand and Australia, they’re known as ‘ute’s.

What’s interesting to note is that the details of these vehicles in terms of how they have been designed vary from nation to nation. The pickups in North America, for example, are full-sized which means they are huge vehicles that have six cylinder / V8 engines, or they could be mid-size which is medium, or they could be compact pickups which are the smallest trucks you can find.

The very first pickup’s design, though, was inspired by the universally known, legendary ‘Ford Model T’. The first pickup was sold in the year 1925 for a price of $281. It might not seem like much today, but back then in the post-War years, it was no small sum. Thirty four thousand units were manufactured that year, and each one had four stake pockets, heavy duty rear springs, an adjustable tailgate and, of course, a cargo box. Three years later, in 1928, the Model T was replaced by the Ford Model A, a pickup truck that featured the earliest version of a closed cab. The Model A came with cool new features like roll-up side windows, a three speed transmission and a windshield made of safety glass. Its engine was a 4 cylinder L-head which could generate 40 HP.

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