New 2014 Chevy 1500 Towing Review

OnlyOneDR

OnlyOneDR

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2006
Location
R
I just got home from Windrock last night after towing my recently finished Nissan Frontier project out for a shakedown run. I scaled the truck at 14340 before I topped off the tank and jumped back in the truck. She was probably loaded total about 14500. GCWR is 15k for this truck (Double-Cab Short Bed 2wd)

It pulled my 20' dovetail Kaufmann 8k with my 6200# truck on top over Old Fort Mt on I-40 and she did not get below 60mph (could not go faster due to traffic). Trans temps hovered in the mid 190s except for that hill where she touched 216.

I was highly impressed with how capable the powertrain in this new truck is (5.3 Ecotec3, 6-speed, 3.42s) and will say she pulled harder than my '06 2500 Dodge Hemi and handily smacked down the '10 Chevy 2500 6.0 I had previous to this truck.

Handling-wise, I could tell I was driving a lighter duty truck. Even with weight distribution she bobbed front to back a bit more than I am used to but my last two trucks were long bed crew cabs with a lot longer wheelbase and more truck weight. I think if she had LT tires on the rear it would have been more stable, as it was I inflated those P-metrics to the max 44psi. It was still competent and capable of that load.

Overall, I am pretty impressed. 11mpg all the way there and back cruising 70-75mph the whole way, and she does get 18-19mpg in daily driving. Anyone else have one of these?

And of course, since without pics it didn't happen:

ai233.photobucket.com_albums_ee179_trustonlyme_WindRock_20September_202014_0DSC06292.jpg
 
Last edited:
I'm not big on the styling as of late, but Chevy's drivetrains keep getting better and better! I think I'd get used to the looks if I had something that towed that well and got that kind of mileage.
 
Cool to see people using these things..... I was going to buy one from work (I work at a Chevy dealer) but even with my discount i couldn't pass up the tundra I got.

Cant wait to see how mine does towing
 
Loganwayne said:
Got a build thread on the frontier? I always wanted to build mine, to bad I loaned it to my dad and he totaled it.
Click to expand...

I never posted anything on NC4x4 or anywhere else, I figured people would get bored of checking back the same old thread for the 3+ years it took me to get where it is. I will probably do something here soon.
 
I have a 1500 crew cab 4x4 and it pulled my 18' trailer and buggy very well. Never gave me a problem. Love my truck
 
Unrelated question: Dodge started making a "real" quad cab, and Chevy started making a 3/4 quad? WTF? When did that happen?
 
shawn said:
Unrelated question: Dodge started making a "real" quad cab, and Chevy started making a 3/4 quad? WTF? When did that happen?
Click to expand...

For the 2014 they went to forward swing rear doors for the "Double Cab" configuration. They still sell a true Crew Cab. They also moved the B-pillar forward a couple inches compared to the last body style so the front doors are a little shorter and it is a little easier for egress into and out of the back doors.
 
I upgraded my weight distribution to 800# trunnion bars and most of the bobbing action subsided. I towed the same setup out to Uwharrie a couple weeks ago and am pretty happy with it.
 
Updating this thread.

I just returned home from a round-trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon. Epic trip along the North Rim camping and four-wheeling through the Kaibab plateau and seeing all sorts of things that you cannot get to without a 4x4.

The Chevy, with 80k on the clock, hauled my buddy's Xterra without a sweat all the way out and back for over 4400 miles of towing at 70+ mph all the way. Averaged 10.5 mpg almost every tank except for a couple with a lot of downgrades coming out of AZ and NM (touched 12 mpg once), all either 87 or 88 octane. Strangely the worst tank of the entire trip was in AR when I filled up with non-Ethanol fuel; the ECU must not be able to adjust trims fast enough to adjust for different fuel.

My scale tickets had me at 14340 combined with about a half tank of fuel. I had to run over the scales to get the load balanced as my rear tires were 200# overloaded when we left town. We had all our gear, supplies, extra fuel, etc so it was not a light load for the truck.

She returned a 20.5 mpg tank a few weeks before I left for the trip. Still impressed with this truck. Still wish it had LT tires. The only real shortcoming is the small fuel tank at 26 gallons. It just doesn't give you the range needed to prevent stopping so often on long hauls like this.

Here she is at an overlook at 5840ft on US-89 south of Page, AZ on 8/27:

alh3_googleusercontent_com_JSRHmyb3oI6bwhOvrIG_Vr5GJthFD4Cj7IRe198e22f1577b5b5760272c4fc6183a1.jpg


Of course the view looking out the other direction was better:

alh3_googleusercontent_com_XSdnhLaQDYUt6STAv01Yn_CwOMcTZ1MBvQ71692bbc87264853081abf42dd1b9fc41.jpg


Scale tickets (I was standing off the scale and weigh ~180#)

alh3_googleusercontent_com_g9fZ0_QqM7f3HJlyrUsUGPfC4l5PWlOcR850ea73bdc6b421c62b57e12741a72b8c2.jpg
 
Great write up. I forgot you had started this thread when you got the truck.

I recently got a 16 Crew Cab Shortbed 4x4 with the 5.3 and 3.42's. The gears are the ticket. I drove a 3.08 geared 5.3 and it was a turd. I'm sure the highway mileage would be great but it put the engine in an rpm range that made it feel like a totally different truck.
 
StretchASU said:
Great write up. I forgot you had started this thread when you got the truck.

I recently got a 16 Crew Cab Shortbed 4x4 with the 5.3 and 3.42's. The gears are the ticket. I drove a 3.08 geared 5.3 and it was a turd. I'm sure the highway mileage would be great but it put the engine in an rpm range that made it feel like a totally different truck.
Click to expand...

Yup, the gears are the ticket. They offer a max towing package with the heavier 9.76" axle and 3.73s but I wonder it that is going a bit too far to over-wind the engine. She wails pretty good in 3rd up highway grades, I think 3.73s would limit it a bit. The idea of a heavier axle is nice, however. I use the manual mode when I tow so I can take advantage of engine braking downhill (the grade active braking rarely activates) and anticipate uphills a little in advance (the 5th to 4th gear change is a bit rough on this transmission and I had the same experience on my '10 2500).

Once you get through break in I highly recommend at least one smokey burnout if only for the incredible laughter that ensues (do it with a passenger that can appreciate it!). Leave it in D, click off the traction control, mat the brake, mat the gas, start letting up on the brake pedal, she'll shift to 2nd after a few seconds of tire spin then let up on the brake completely and go! She can put 40' two-tracks on pavement. Friggin' amazing.

I have already done a transmission flush about 20k ago, rear diff fluid change, cut the front rotors and new pads just before the trip. It is getting low on its second set of tires with nearly 85k on the clock now after the trip and will probably need them by 95k. They wear fairly evenly although I have noticed some inside wear on the left front so I will have the alignment checked when it gets new tires.

I had the infotainment system software updated a little while back and now my phones pair with the Bluetooth about 99.9% of the time, which is way up from the 30% or so it was getting prior to update (had issues with both Android and iPhone). It has had two recalls, one for a safety belt tensioner cable on the driver's side and the other for the receiver hitch. I have to schedule the hitch replacement but both I and the dealer inspected it before I left for Arizona and did not see any defects (apparently some went out with faulty welds).

The integrated brake controller can be a complete pain in the butt but only if there is actually an issue with the wiring on the trailer somewhere. I dealt with the dinging from the dash literally hundreds of times over the course of time while I troubleshot wiring all over my trailer. Finally found a chafed wire inside the axle tube that was making incidental high-resistance grounding. I replaced that wiring (after having done everything else of course!) and the issues went away, so it was doing it's job.

I need to try to determine how many towing miles I have on this truck...

*edit* I worked it out to be around 12000 towing miles, over half of that is towing my Frontier which is close to max capacity.
 
Last edited:
Awesome advice. I opted for one without the integrated brake controller after reading some of the other issues people have had about them being tempermental. I already had a Prodigy 2 from my Dodge that I kept when I traded it in and like that controller a lot. My little enclosed doesn't have brakes on it anyway so I won't need it until I upgrade or the day comes that I build another rig.

The grade braking is hit or miss on mine as well. IMO I would (and will eventually) delete it all together if possible once warranty is up in a few years and I get the truck tuned. Just not a fan of the way it does it being rather unpredictable. The tap shift is better for this since there aren't any surprises.

My only real gripe is the drivetrain clunk at times. Roll on the throttle after coasting for a bit and you can hear and sometimes feel it. I have found a few TSB's about it but am still going to have the dealer address it once I take it in for its next service.
 
I have a 2015 Sierra crew cab 4x4. I've only done a few short towing trips with it, 3 hours at most, but I'm very happy with it. I've pulled a 16 ft all steel trailer and a uhaul type trailer with either my LJ, dad's TJ, or brother's toyota and it's done fine. I don't have a load leveling hitch and don't feel like I need one. I havent noticed any issues with the P tires either, but mine has 20s so less sidewall may make the difference.

My brother's trailer does the same thing with the check wiring chime, very annoying.

Over the trucks life (20k miles) it's averaged 17.7 mpg. My commute is 35 miles each way half interstate half city. Work commute averages 18.5, and my 50 mile best is 24.3.
 
LBarr2002 said:
I don't have a load leveling hitch and don't feel like I need one. I havent noticed any issues with the P tires either, but mine has 20s so less sidewall may make the difference.

My brother's trailer does the same thing with the check wiring chime, very annoying.
Click to expand...

Over a certain weight the truck requires the use of a weight distribution hitch to be legal and safe. For 1500s it's over 800# of tongue weight or 7000# of total trailer weight. Electric brakes are required over 2000#.

I am sure having a shorter sidewall does make a difference with the squirm that I notice.

If your brother's trailer is causing issues, then the trailer is the issue. Mine was fine for about a year then started acting up and it took me quite a while to find the cause. The thing I really do not like about it is when you get the error message it will not output voltage to the brakes until the system resets (shows "trailer connected"). This is really dangerous when driving along and all the sudden the brakes stop working. I had a really nervous trip down Roaring Gap from Glade Valley a few months ago when the brakes suddenly just quit working on a wet and winding US-21. They would sometimes kick back in mid-turn and jerk the entire truck and trailer.
 
Updating this thread for probably the final time. Turning this truck in and it is being replaced with a 2016 2500HD 4x4 6.0 gasser 4.10.

The truck has 156k miles on it now, can still do smokey burnouts, but has a transmission issue. It is a fleet vehicle so I took it for all scheduled maintenance but also had extra transmission flushes done (about every 50k). After the last flush it went about another month then started making a terrible whining noise. It sounded like the torque converter was starving for fluid. The dealer never changed the filter so I suspected and issue there. Had to drop the exhaust Y-pipe and the pan to change it. Apparently they use a media filter now instead of a screen and it had plenty of metal crap in it. If I run it in Tow/Haul mode it generally drives fine; normally it will shift erratically somewhat at lower engine RPMs.

I am trying to see what the buy out is for the truck as I may keep it.
 
Curious for the update on towing with the new truck, as that is exactly what I would like to have down the road.
 
77GreenMachine said:
Curious for the update on towing with the new truck, as that is exactly what I would like to have down the road.
Click to expand...

I borrowed this very truck in early 2017 to tow my Nissan up to Harlan when the 1500 was in the shop. It easily gets the job done; fuel mileage was similar at ~10mpg. Since the suspension is fairly balanced and stiff the trailer doesn't push the truck around as much. E-load rated tires and an overall heavier platform dictate as much. The brakes are also much stronger than the 1500. I started regularly driving it two weeks ago. It always feels a little winded driving unloaded as the engine revs a lot more (expected with 4.10s). The 6.0 was and is not known as a powerhouse. Chevy really needs to put the 6.2 in the HD trucks but then it would chip away at their Duramax sales. This 2016 drives better than the 2010 Chevy 2500HD 2WD Long Bed 6.0 gasser 3.73 that I used to have, the suspension feels more balanced out. That one was always too stiff in the front and soft in the rear.

Still trying to figure out why in the world these newer "HD" trucks need to be so damn tall. It is a hike to get into the thing and with a wall of truck no wonder it only gets 12-13 mpg all the time. I took it to Asheville two weeks ago and the best tank was ~13.3mpg (hand calculated). I swapped the fiberglass shell onto it from the old truck and there is no way I could ever reach into the bed on the sides now. Hiking up into the bed is also more of a challenge even with the integrated bumper steps. The hitch receiver is almost 4" higher so I will need to re-adjust both of my trailers and probably get a deeper drop hitch for my small utility trailer. For contrast I had a 2006 Dodge 2500HD 2WD Long Bed 5.7 Hemi 3.73 that returned an honest 14-15 mpg all the time, was low enough to actually work out of, and rode/drove pretty well.

All that said I am going to miss the "little truck that could." Over six years of service and that truck will still "get it".
 
Last edited:
Back
Top