I'm far more interested in it's downhill performance than it's uphill performance. I think to a point, folks get way too wrapped up in the "how fast can I climb this hill?" scenario. It's the downhill "fast" that can get you killed, not the uphill "fast". I've scraped way too many truck/trailer combos off the sides of canyon walls, and winched them out of deep gorges, that went down a hill too fast. I was a medium and heavy duty recovery wrecker operator in AZ for a few years. We had one of the AZDOT contracts for recovery work. Been called out to some bad ones.
They didn't go into much detail on HOW they set up the truck during the downhill portion. They said they were in Tow/Haul, ok great. But were they just relying on the cruise control, or? And 9 or 10 brake applications over 8 miles of 7% doesn't sound too bad to me, considering how heavy they were loaded. If they were to manually pull it down into a lower gear at the top, and let her buck in that gear, it may have changed the outcome a bit (for any of the test trucks). But I'm always leery of guys that just let the "truck computer" drive the truck down the hill. But I'm mostly just interested in more detail on how that part of the truck is set up (and how they operated it).
New trucks are certainly expensive. They also seem to only want to "test" the highest option and trim level trucks, with all the extra gizmos. And with list prices hitting $70K-80K plus, for some of these lux-O-cruisers, it seems pretty ridiculous to me. Leather wrapped and heated steering wheels are not going to make the truck pull better. Neither will sun/moon roof cabs.
So I thought the "objective" portion of their tests were interesting. But their "subjective" portion belongs in an issue of Car & Driver Magazine.
At least they're trying to use identical loads and conditions in their comparison tests now. That is a big improvement in objective testing.
Chevy Silverado HD Keep Up With a Diesel? Ike Gauntlet Towing Review (Video) - The Fast Lane Truck
