The current hottest automotive vehicle has to be the smaller truck category. When I got offered to borrow the 2022 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 for a week, I immediately said yes. The Crush color with black accents had me wishing fall would come soon. The red recovery hooks also stood out to show that this is a slightly higher trim of the Colorado. Speaking of higher, the Z71 off-road suspension and leveling kit had this Chevy sitting nice and high. The larger tires begged me to take this on some unpaved backroads which made the 17” black wheels to be gray. Not to worry, this truck looks good wether it is clean or dirty.

For this Chevrolet Colorado, I had to hop into the cab as it didn’t come equipped with side steps. Not to worry, Chevy offers multiple side step options which made my kid happy to know should I decided to buy a Colorado. Once inside, the interior was fairly comfortable with plenty of room in front or in the back. There were a couple of things that this Colorado was lacking. That was quickly remedied as the 2023 model was announced 2 days after having the 2022 loaner. The first thing was the gauge cluster that will get rid of the analog gauges and move to a full screen display. The customization and better layout will help elevate the driving experience. The infotainment screen on this 2022 was also another item that I wish were bigger and the 2023 has granted me that wish. The new infotainment screen will resemble the Silverado’s new system. I do hope they maintain the same seat comfort as the jet black leather seats were great for long drives.

Under the hood, the relatively large 3.6L V6 actually had lots of space to sit in the truck. The 8-speed automatic did have a small issue. The ratios worked well and so did the upshifts. I encountered an issue during highway passing downshifts. There was a significant delay and required a large amount of throttle input similar to an “Eco” drive mode. I’d like to report that the 2023 has had the transmission tuned for better and faster shifting. We hope that fixes the downshifting issue I encountered.

To wrap it up, after my initial drive around the block, I was already on the Chevy website building my Colorado. A couple of days later, I was seeing things that needed improvement. It was only a day after that, Chevy announced the new 2023 model which they list improvements in all the items that I had concerns with. The 2022 model was definitely a great little package with a ton of fun and I can’t wait to see what the 2023 has to offer.