The 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 sits in a comfortable middle ground between heavy-duty work truck and everyday get-around-town vehicle. Are there more powerful trucks available? Sure, but not with this gas mileage and versatility.
What are the 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 specs?
Here are some key specs:
- 9,500 – 10,000 pounds of towing capacity
- 4- and 6-cylinder modes
- 19 mpg city/22 mpg highway
What else do you need to know about the new 1500? Read on and find out.
Three Generations of Silverado
The current Silverados are the third generation of a line of full-size and medium-duty trucks that began back in the late ’90s. The Silverado served to unify and update many of the other trucks that Chevy had on the market at the time, like the GMT400s.
The 1998 Silverado saw 698,809 sales in total. Sales slowed down a bit toward the end of the 2000s, though, helping to spark the third-generation redesign for the 2014 model year.
Adopting a K2XX platform, the truck hit a half-million sales for the first time since 2007, and the Silverado was back on top.
Versatility and Strength
The 2500 is a towing machine; the 3500 will pull a small house. The Chevrolet Silverado 1500 specs are still tough, but far more versatile, and easier to drive off the job site.
The standard engine is a 4.3-liter EcoTec3 V6 – E85 flex fuel with a 24-gallon tank, 305 to 355 foot-pounds of torque, and 285 to 383 horsepower. It’s got a towing capacity of 9,500 to 10,000 pounds and gets 19 mpg in the city and 22 mpg on the highway.
The neat thing about this engine is that you can operate on four cylinders for light hauling and grocery trips, or use all six when it’s time to put some work in. It’s like a Transformer you can switch between car mode and truck mode.
You can do zero to 60 in about seven seconds, but that’s assuming perfect conditions. Even if conditions aren’t perfect, though, it has a lot of get-up-and-go for a truck with a curb weight of around 5,000 pounds, depending on your options.
The truck has an overall crash rating of four stars from the NHTSA. But it earned five stars on everything except for rollover and frontal crash, where it has four stars in both instances.
Additional Features
You don’t need a lot of bells and whistles for a work truck, but if this is going to be your everyday vehicle, it’s nice to have a few extra features.
The 1500 comes with everything you’d expect: a USB port, easy-to-clean rubberized-vinyl floor covering, four-way manual seat adjusters, an exterior temperature display, and of course, a Chevrolet Infotainment 3 system with a 7-inch diagonal touchscreen.
What Are the Drivers Saying?
At the end of the day, specs are just a bunch of numbers. Here’s what the drivers are saying.
Pros:
- Handles trails and rough streets like a champ. Even if your 1500 never sees a day on a construction site, it’s nice having a vehicle that can take any hill you throw at it
- Excellent sound system
- Roomy interior.
Cons:
- A number of drivers have pointed to electronic issues such as the dash going out
- The manual four-way driver’s seat can be a bit of a pain for shorter drivers
- No power-steering option
- Know what you’re getting
If you’re looking into a Silverado, you’re probably comparing it to an F-150 or a Ram 1500.
