2019 Chevrolet Silverado Towing Test Review: Lifestyle Trucks
New Silverado is jam-packed with technology for the daily drive, hauling your weekend toy, and everything else along the way.
Before we jump into it, I need to clarify my position, and possibly ostracize some readers along the way: I am not a truck person. To me, a truck is only as useful as what it can store, haul, and tow. So, perhaps, this may in fact make me the ideal candidate for doing a tow review of the all-new 2019 Chevrolet Silverado. After all, I have wheeled away broken race cars from the track more than enough times to have a feel for how a good tow rig should work.
And so it was on a bright Friday morning that I arrived at a quiet air hangar in Santa Monica filled full of shiny, brand new Chevy trucks. Six variants of the all-new Silverado were in attendance, including the wicked looking Red Hot Trail Boss model. Hitched up to them were trailers with Polaris RZR XP 1000 side-by-side ATVs parked on top. These would be my tow rig and subjects for the day, culminating in a little bit of off-roading with those RZR 1000s.
Before the 2019 Silverado and I hit the road, the people at Chevrolet gave me a demonstration of the trucks’ features. I figured it would be a lecture about how I shouldn’t try to do burnouts while towing, or something like that, but instead, it was more practical, useful stuff.
Towing Technology
Chevrolet has said that when designing the new Silverado, a common sentiment from customers was that they wished the towing process was simplified. Specifically, Chevy customers were looking for ease of hooking up the truck and trailer, as well as an easier drive while towing, which is fair.
To their credit, Chevy has done just that. The 2019 Silverado has up to four cameras on tap, including a “hitch view” mode with a hitch guidance line system. What this means is that the standard back up camera has different sight modes to toggle between, and the tow-based modes show you the hitch trajectory as you back up your truck. There is a rear bird’s eye mode that looks directly down upon the hitch to show how close the hitch and trailer are to one another. It works excellently. Additionally, when using the hitch view camera, the Silverado will use “auto parking brake assist” to hold the truck exactly where you parked it. This keeps everything perfectly lined up without the need to account for any rollback as the transmission engages the parking pin.
Hooking up the Silverado proved to be a cinch as a result of all of this. After plugging in the harness for the trailer lights, it was time to hop in the truck and…not drive. Instead, Chevy had one last party trick to show off.
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There is both a downloadable app for your phone, and a screen in the infotainment system for tow-specific systems. That trailer light harness also has a provision that allows the truck to ‘talk’ to the trailer. Chevrolet says they worked directly with many prominent trailer manufacturers to create this system. This allows for the Silverado to do things like run through a remote trailer light self-test, send alerts if the trailer is disconnected while the truck is locked, and also has a provision for checking trailer tire temperatures and pressure sensors. It’s a slick system.
2019 Chevrolet Silverado Towing Test Review: Lifestyle Trucks continued…
