2019 Chevy Colorado vs Ford F-150

Hello everybody, this is Dave King. I wanted to give you a little report about my Ford F-150 that I posted a couple of videos about a while ago. Well, I traded in the F-150 for a Chevy Colorado, 2019 version Chevy Colorado. I've had it for about, let's see, four months now. I'm just rolling up on about 6,000 miles. Anyway, I wanted to give you a report and kind of give you a feel for why I traded in the F-150 and how I feel about the Colorado versus the F-150. Well, first of all, let me say this. I really liked my F-150. It was a great truck. I enjoyed it. Really didn't have any major, major complaints with it. I feel like it was a good truck. I mean, it was fantastic. It had the EcoBoost, 3.5 liter EcoBoost with 320 pound feet of torque. It could tow anything, I think. Not really anything, but it could really tow. I'm coming up on some construction here. So anyway, it was a great truck. It had a couple of very, very minor issues with it. Anyway, minor issues included a vacuum pump that failed. Fortunately, that was under warranty. And also a couple of tune-up issues, which, you know, we had some misfiring, which I think the video is on there. You know, misfiring, changed up the plugs, put in some new, the plugs and coil packs. Anyway, those are the only real issues I had with the truck. Minor issues, you know, ongoing challenges that I had with that F-150 included a really rough idle. When I first bought it, it was really smooth. It had about 20,000 miles on it. I got it used. It was the XLT version. You know, later on, bought it in New Mexico. Later on, after having driven it for a while, the idling got real rough. Never, never died or cut out or anything like that. But yeah, it was a little rough idle. Ongoing, you know, you pull up to a stoplight and it just, idle rough. Lots of space, you know, the cab in that F-150 has lots and lots of space. But I had always wanted a smaller truck. And to be honest, when I went to look at trucks, it was my intention to get a mid-sized truck, you know, Toyota Tacoma, Chevy Colorado, Ford Ranger, Nissan Frontier, that size of truck. But we settled on the Ford F-150 because we thought we would need to be able to tow a large horse trailer at some point. And so I got a truck with a little more towing capacity. That EcoBoost that can tow 1,700 pounds or something with a, you know, substantial load capacity. Anyway, all that being said, drove that thing for three years. Fantastic truck. No concerns. I averaged about 18, 19 miles per gallon, total combined average. And, you know, one of the awesome things about that truck is it had a 36-gallon tank. So you fill it up, you know, once a month. No, maybe twice a month. So let me tell you a little bit about the Chevy Colorado. I test drove Chevy Colorado. My father-in-law drives a Toyota Tacoma. I've got friends that have Tacomas. I've driven Jeeps. I had a 2000, was it, 2002 Jeep Wrangler with a lift on it for a little bit. So I've had some experience in other trucks and Jeeps. But I wanted to get something smaller. You know, we are in the crossroads of the nation in Wentzville, Missouri, and the Chevy Colorado is built here in the Wentzville GM plant, which literally is about five minutes from my house. So I wanted to give that truck a good look, a real solid look before making any type of a decision, yay or nay. So we happened to be purchasing another vehicle for my daughter because her little Ford Explorer Sport Track, we think it threw a rod or something and, you know, it was past the point of, well, it was past the point of being worth saving. So we traded it, got her a vehicle. And when I was there, I hadn't really thought about trading in the F-150 at that point, but I wanted to take a look at the Colorado. So I test drove it, immediately fell in love with it. So a couple of big, big differences for me, the handling, you know, the F-150, granted that was an XLT, not the Sport Package, didn't have, you know, the really premium suspension. But driving the Colorado is like, not that I've ever really driven a Corvette or anything, but the handling is amazing. I mean, the Colorado has really, I mean, the suspension is fantastic. The steering wheel is awesome. It handles not like a car, but with as much control as a sports car. You know, nice tight suspension and it's, you know, it's a truck and it's smaller. Now the cab internally is much smaller than my F-150. You know, I had a center console in the front right here with my F-150 that I could pop up and we could get six, literally six full-sized adults in that truck with plenty of leg room in the back. Now the Colorado is smaller, it has a much smaller amount of space inside the cab, but it will still seat five adults. Now the kids go in the back, you know, we don't normally need to, I've got five kids, we don't normally put all of our kids in one car, at least not in the truck. But yeah, a much smaller size inside, internally, inside the cab is what I'm trying to say. The finish level is fantastic, a really great finish level. I got, this is the, I don't know if you can see it, this is a leatherette and I didn't opt for that, whatever it is, the tuxedo, black tuxedo $4,000 upgrade package. I didn't feel like that was really important. I'd had cloth in the F-150 for three years and never had any issues with it. Now the black leather interior would be awesome and, you know, anytime I see those trucks that are all black inside, it's really nice. But I didn't opt for that, maybe I should have. So the internal finish is really nice, you know, I'll give you a little tour here on one of my other videos. But let me share another thought with you about specifically comparing the EcoBoost engine versus the 3.5 liter six-cylinder VVT engine that comes in the Chevy Colorado. So, you know, the nice thing about the EcoBoost is really high level low-end torque at, you know, I think they say you get 90% of your torque at 1,200 rpm in that F-150 EcoBoost or something. So it's fantastic, it really is, for towing and, you know, I had a towed a car a couple of times up on a, sorry we got a truck hitting the rumble strips, I towed a car up on a dolly, not a huge car, but the gas mileage was about the same as it was, you know, maybe one mile per gallon less towing a car up on a dolly for three hours than it was otherwise. So, I mean, that engine has a huge amount of torque which translates to, I mean, you almost can't even tell that you're towing something up to a certain weight. But the big drawback with having that turbo style EcoBoost is there's a turbo lag, you know, I don't understand all the mechanics but it takes some time for that turbo engine to spool up and generate that torque. So immediately off the line, unless you've got your engine revved up and you're holding the brake and pushing the gas at the same time, there's a little lag, you know, you push the gas down and the engine will start to come up and then all of a sudden you get a boost of power. Maybe that's why they call it EcoBoost, I don't know. And I really, I got to dislike that. Now, a lot of other things I loved about it, you know, the EcoBoost never really had any problems, like I said, it was reliable. I put 70, 60, almost 70,000 miles on my EcoBoost and the only thing I ever did, like I said, was change the plugs and coil packs, which I did myself. I did have them serviced once, I had the plugs changed once before that and then I changed the coil packs and plugs myself. But beyond that, changing the oil, I had the transmission service put some AMSOIL in it and the oil changed routinely. But that was all routine service, no failures, no big problems. So all that being said, you know, I really, really like how this Chevy engine, the 3.5 liter six-cylinder engine, runs compared to the EcoBoost. I personally don't notice that there's a difference in the power once it gets going and it feels like I have more immediate power straight off the line. It feels much better to me than that EcoBoost engine and I think some of that could be the turbo lag that I mentioned a minute ago. Differences, you know, the sound of the engine is significantly different and I wonder if it's just because there may be a little less sound shielding in the bulkhead to prevent, you know, less shielding to prevent the sound from coming through the bulkhead is what I'm trying to say. With the F-150, you really couldn't hear the engine much. It was pretty well soundproofed. With the Chevy, I can hear the engine to some degree and, like I said, maybe that's the shielding in the bulkhead. It's certainly not noisy. It's not something that bothers me at all. It's a different sound, you know, you get so used to hearing things or not hearing things that anything different kind of sticks out. But the engine is smooth, you know, this is incredible. Right now, let me see if I can do this without causing an accident. I'm going to flip the camera around. If you look here, hopefully you'll be able to see that. Right now, my fuel economy is 22 miles per gallon on the average of the last 25 miles with the best at 29.3 miles per gallon. So I, I, that 29.3 miles per gallon was at about 65, 60 miles an hour for about an hour driving down into St. Louis. There was some traffic and it was it was consistent speed but it was slower. So, I mean, almost 30 miles per gallon in a six-cylinder truck. I mean, that's amazing to me. So yeah, gas mileage is a little better. Don't tell my wife, but it's actually better than her Buick Enclave, this truck gas mileage. It's amazing. I mean, it really is. It's fantastic. Now, a couple of very, very minor complaints that I've got with the truck and these, I think, are very, very minor. Not anything that would really significantly influence me in repurchasing or doing what I did again. Boy, that's a bright light. Sorry. Concern number one, the transmission has a little, has had a little squeak. Not the transmission. The suspension has had a little squeak in it that I only notice when I'm driving slow and like going up over bumps and stuff like pulling into the driveway. There's a little kind of a squeak when the wheel comes up and it's more pronounced when it's warm. When it's cold, I don't hear that squeak at all and it's coming from the driver's side front. I put a little light oil spray on it and it seemed to go away. It's come back in the past couple of days. It's very, very minor and again, I only notice it when I'm going over big bumps and that may be normal for this type of suspension. It's the Z71 off-road package on this truck. Other minor concern, there was an interesting steering wheel squeak coming from right where the steering column goes through the bulkhead. There's a little rubber, I don't know what you call it, a gasket or something, and it went right through the rubber. The steering column goes right through the rubber and it was real dry and so when I turned the wheel quickly, you'd get this kind of this vibrating squeak that was annoying. So it took me a little bit to figure out exactly where it was but it's very easy to get to. I took a little WD-40, pulled that little rubber seal back and squirted it a couple of times and haven't had any problems since then. And then the third small item is, excuse me, my rear window defrost. There are two lines that don't work. Now it's all covered under warranty. I just haven't taken the time to take the truck in yet. It's not quite time for an oil change. I was going to have the oil change and have them look at that at the same time but I have heard on other posts that there may be a wire that goes to the defrost that needs to be tightened or something. So we'll see if that's the case. Anyway, so those are very minor issues in my opinion. Nothing to really create challenges. Certainly the feel of the truck is solid. I like the size of the short bed. I've got a little foldable tonneau cover on the top right now and my truck bed is filled with Christmas presents for the kids because they're not supposed to know where they are. So it's sealed, it's locked, it's waterproof, it's nice. But generally, you know, the truck has been awesome. I'm excited to drive this one until either it doesn't drive anymore or I don't drive anymore, which hopefully it'll be that I can just hand it off to my great-grandson, you know, or my grandson, depending on how old I am. But it's been a great truck. All in all, you know, two thumbs up. Some very minor issues, like I said, that I think will be really easy to correct, especially given the fact that if there are any issues, it's totally bumper-to-bumper coverage for three years. But yeah, I like the Chevy product. I really like the Chevy product. I have friends that actually work on the line at the Claycoma Ford plant making the truck that I had before. I really like the Ford. I really like the Chevy. I've got friends and people I work with here in Wentzville that have built this truck and it's fun to talk to them about what stage of that process, you know, in the truck assembly line, what stage they work at. Anyway, so those are my thoughts. I'll try to post a walk around and, you know, pop the hood and show you what I like about the truck. I do want to get a spray-in liner, a Line-X spray-in liner. Maybe if I can afford it for my birthday, I'll do that. But yeah, two thumbs up. Highly recommend the Chevy Colorado. Like I said, I've got the Z71 off-road package. Black with the leatherette interior. Really, really satisfied. Very pleased. All in all, I'd give it a 9.3 out of 10. And the 0.7 is just because, you know, a couple of minor issues that potentially could have been intercepted before leaving the factory. But beyond that, very, very satisfied with the product in general. So hey, thanks for watching. Sorry to blabber on so long.