Chevrolet Silverado Medium Duty

SoonDockin wrote:
I am still hoping stuff like adaptive cruise comes to these medium duty trucks.

Actually Ram is already there with their new 4500-5500 trucks. You can spec all the goodies on the comersial trucks that you can on the other trucks and that includes adaptive cruise!

Absolutely. All the expensive electronics and creature comforts making their way into work trucks is just plain stupid and very costly for those that work fleets of trucks. Especially in construction.
No one needs all that stuff on a work truck that get bombed around by 100 different “drivers” and beat up, covered in mud and tar regularly
They need 4 wheels (or 6) and a big engine and overbuilt brakes and suspension.
My laborers towing an air compressor or backhoe from one end of the jobsite to the other don’t need 360 cameras or even 1 camera. It’ll get broke off the tailgate in the first 2 years. They need an interior where the drivers seat lasts longer than 60k miles, the window cranks are made of steel and don’t break and the ability to clean out with a garden hose like the cab of a skid steer.

It is good to see GM back in the med duty market. But the new ones are just as fugly as the Kodiaks. Which again doesn’t matter if they’re bombproof.

KD4UPL wrote:
I was really hoping these trucks would be suitable for TC use but it sounds like they made the cab too high again. That's unfortunate.
I was thinking I might upgrade to a new 4500 when my current work truck wears out. But, I rarely run over 13,000 on the truck and about 26,000 combination so really I'm within the limits of a new 3500 dually. So, since the cab is so high I'll probably skip the 4500.
I do appreciate that they left these trucks fairly spartan, I hope that helps keep the cost down for those of use that still use trucks for work. The last thing I need on a work truck is a mandatory touch screen, cameras, and heated cup holders. All these driving aids and creature comforts have got to be driving up the cost of even base model trucks.

Cab height is not just important for us hauling TC's. Ford brought out the F600 to have a smaller package than the F650 yet have more GVWR than the F550. I've read about few contractors converting their MDT's to full air ride not because ride comfort, but so they can dump their bags and clear height restrictions while riding on the axle bump stops. It seems like keeping the cab lights and antennas under 7' is a good compromise, but some need under 6.5'.