Talking Cars 443: Driving the Chevrolet Colorado

Main theme: This video podcast focuses on our first impressions of the redesigned Chevrolet Colorado midsized pickup truck. It gets just one body style this go-around—a four-door crew cab with a short bed—and it loses the smooth V6 and fuel-efficient diesel engines. But it rides on a new chassis that stretches the wheelbase by 3.1 inches compared with the previous short-bed crew cab.

The panel mixes praise for the truck’s standard forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane keeping assistance, and lane departure warning with frustration that blind spot warning is still optional. Our LT trim’s 2.7-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine puts out 310 hp and 390 lb.-ft. of torque, and each spec is more than the 3.6-liter V6 and the 2.8-liter turbodiesel in the previous Colorado. Plus, even with its basic leaf-spring rear suspension, the ride quality is a high point. (Read our Chevrolet Colorado first drive.)

Audience questions
• Electric vehicles, in general, have a lot of torque and are much heavier than most cars, which can accelerate tire wear. Are there some EVs that don’t wear out tires as quickly as others?

• Would most of Toyota’s CR Top Picks still make the list if the company’s reliability was just average? If you take out Toyota’s stellar reliability, would they still rate so high?