This is the Silverado 2500 HD LTZ Premium and it’s the biggest vehicle I’ve reviewed to date. So big, that’s it’s just 733kg under the legal limit for driving a vehicle on a standard car driver’s licence. This Silverado is the best part of 21 feet long and 7.5 feet wide that’s over 155 square feet in total and it’s about 6.5 feet high.
If you live any closer to a city than its peri-urban outskirts, I don’t recommend the Silverado for you as you’re likely to scare fellow motorists in it. But if your family loves the great outdoors and getting off the beaten, potentially searching for a creature in folklore, then the Silverado could be for you. The 2024 Silverado 2400 comes standard with the Z71 4×4 Off-Road Pack with Automatic Rear Locking Differential, Z71 Off-Road Suspension Tune with Rancho Twin Tube Shocks, Z71 Skid Plates, and Goodyear Wrangler Trailrunner AT Tyres.
There’s Normal and Off-road drive modes and the 2 Speed Transfer Case has Push Button Controls for the 4WD options, which are 2WD, Auto, 4WD HI, and 4WD LO. You engage gears on the 10-Speed automatic transmission using the column mounted gear shifter that you can also use to select either L1 or L2 and this really gave me an authentic American feel on top of driving such a big truck.
The running ground clearance is 251mm with an Approach Angle 28.5 Degrees, Breakover angle of 19 Degrees, and a Departure Angle of 23.6 Degrees. The Silverado didn’t even break a sweat on the hill track that I took it on, I actually think the Silverado laughed at me because it was so easy for it and didn’t even need to engage the Hill Descent Control to come down.
The 2024 Silverado has an enhanced 6.6 litre Duramax Turbo Diesel V8 engine with 350kW of power and a whopping 1,322Nm of torque and it even has a diesel exhaust brake. Such a big engine needs a big fuel tank and the Silverado has a 136-litre tank and I wasn’t able to find any official fuel consumption figure, but for my week doing mostly on-road driving I used 20.1L/100km of diesel.
The maximum braked towing capacity of the Silverado 2500 using a 50mm ball is 3,500kg and using a 70mm ball it’s up to 4,500kg thanks to its advanced trailering technology. The maximum towball down load for a 50mm ball is 350kg and for a 70mm ball it’s 450kg and the maximum unbraked towing capacity is 750kg. The Silverado has an excellent towing setup menu with a check list and trailer light check function so that you can do this with just one person. There’s even a camera option on the menu for your trailer/caravan and the Silverado has 2-way side mirrors with the top mirror having power adjustment and the lower mirror manually adjusted from what I could tell? The mirrors can also have the ability to extend out with powered adjustment for this as well.
A truck this big obviously has a big tub and the overall length of the Silverado’s tub is a smidge over two metres and there is a whopping 1.3 metres between the wheel arches. It has a 733kg payload capacity using standard car-licence and 1,386kg with a NB2 Category licence for over 4.5 tonnes, up to 12 tonnes ‘Gross Vehicle Mass’. This Silverado is fitted with an optional an Electric Retractable Tonneau Cover ($3970 plus installation) and this overhangs into the tub about 35cms and blocks the two highest tie down points at the front of the tub. The roller cover on this Silverado could be opened/closed from a separate fob.
The tub bed is lined with Chevytec Spray-on bedliner and there are 12 tie downs in total, three in each corner spaced evenly from top to bottom on the side of the tub, but there’s no 12V socket in the tub. There’s even a camera that looks into the tub and lights that you can turn on and off from the cabin. The Silverado also has a luxury I think all high-end utes/trucks should feature should have and that’s a powered tailgate that can be opened/closed from the tailgate, key fob, or a button in the cabin. There’s also steps on each side of the exterior of the tub at the front and rear of the tub so you can step up to access it.
You will definitely need to use the side step to get up in the Silverado because it’s a long way up when you climb into the Silverado. The upside of this is you get a birds eye view of the scenery around you, the downside there is no way that you can see over the bonnet. Chevy have you covered for this though with one of the on-board camera options being a front view camera that looks down directly in front of the vehicle and the camera can remain operational even when you are driving at full speed.
The all-new redesigned interior now features a 13.4” infotainment screen and a 12.3” configurable driver’s dash and head up display. The infotainment system supports wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and the latter worked well for me. You get a Bose Premium seven speaker sound system with media sources including AM/FM radio, Bluetooth, USB, and smartphone. There’s a wireless phone charger located just at the front of the arm rest, which is large enough for a handbag, with one USB-A and one USB-C port located in the cubby under the arm rest.
In addition to an upper and lower glove box, there’s a large cubby at the front of the centre console with another USB-A and USB-C port and the cup holders with grippy sides to hold your drink in place on rough roads. Considering the size of the front doors I thought the drink bottle storage in their cubby could have been a little wider to accommodate larger drink bottles.
The climate control struggled to cool the large cabin on a hot day and even the cooled seats could not help overcome the heat. For colder weather the outer rear seats, steering wheel and front seats are heated, with the option on the fronts to heating on back only or back and base of the seat. The leather appointed front seats have power adjustment for recline, forward/back, single seat height (dual height adjustment on the driver’s side), and 2-way lumbar support with the driver’s side also getting two memory positions.
There is acres of head and leg room in the rear seats of the Silverado, but I would have liked some more under thigh support. For younger passengers there are two ISOfix child seat restraint points on the outer seats and for the seat on the driver’s side the rear tether point needs to be fed through a tether loop and then fixed to the centre rear tether restraint point, so the installation is potentially open to mistakes being made. You can fit a rear tethered child seat restraint point on the centre seat or on the two outer seats with a proper child seat restraint point located on the passenger side as well.
The centre seat folds down as an arm rest and has two cup holders with grippy sides in it and there are another two cup holders at the rear of the centre console that rear passengers can utilise. While the square shaped drink bottle storage in the rear door cubbies suitable for medium sized drink bottles. There’s storage in the back of the two outer seats and the rear seats flip up with a 60:40 split fold and there is storage under the seats for the tyre change equipment. A full-size spare tyre is located under the rear of the vehicle.
Rear passengers get two small central air vents with individual direction and open/close controls, but the Silverado really does need some additional air vents in the B-pillars for rear seat passengers. There is one USB-A and one USB-C located between the two rear air vents and I think there should be a single mat over the entire rear floor as the transmission tunnel is low.
The Silverado has extensive camera technology with up to 14 camera views, including a front facing, front facing directly down, a camera looking at the front wheels, a towball camera, and a rear-view camera with a 360-degree view reversing camera with front and rear parking sensors. I like that the camera switches from rear view when reversing to front view when you engage drive it switches to the front view camera automatically and there’s a digital rear view mirror as well.
In addition to six airbags, the active safety features on the Silverado include Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Alert, Trailer Side Blind Alert, Lane Departure Warning, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Forward Collision Alert with Low Speed Autonomous Emergency Braking, and Front Pedestrian Braking with the alert detection including haptic seat vibrations. There’s also an option to set a custom restriction for teen drivers, to help “your teen make good driving decisions,” according to the Silverado’s menu. For convenience you also get auto lights with auto high beam and auto wipers.
The Silverado comes with a 3 years or 100,000 km (whichever comes first) warranty and 3 years roadside assistance. Servicing costs may vary for many reasons such as vehicle use; between Dealers due to labour rates; and transactional parts pricing. Servicing costs may vary for many reasons such as vehicle use; between Dealers due to labour rates; and transactional parts pricing.
The MY24 Silverado 2500 HD LTZ Premium is priced from $163,000 plus on-road costs, or to express that another way $1,035 per square foot. As tested with Slate Grey Premium Paint ($1,250) and the Electric Retractable Tonneau Cover ($3,970 plus fitment) my Silverado was $168,220 plus on-road costs. Visit your preferred GM Specialty Vehicle dealer for me information.
| Pros | Cons |
| There’s loads of cabin and tub space | It’s really big |
| The camera technology | Needs better cabin cooling |
| The off-roading pedigree | The potentially confusing child seat restraint points |
Photographs by Driven Women Magazine.