Help my poor confused friend

I drive a Chevy Colorado for patrol every day at work. Believe me, at the end of the day I breath a sigh of relief when I get back in my Tacoma. While the Colorado will do nearly everything you ask of it as a truck, it doesn't do it well. The interior is cheap, the suspension is poorly designed, it handles like shit, and the brakes are absolute crap. While none of the major mechanical stuff has broken, I've already had to fix or replace quite a few trim and interior pieces. The grille and turn signal housings are about to (or already have) fallen out due to the plastic mounting tabs breaking from the vibrations of off-road driving. The transmission can never make up its mind (might not be as big of an issue with the V8) and it has virtually no engine braking abilities.

Bottom line: as a work truck, I don't think it would be a horrible option. But if you value comfort, reliability, ease of maintenance, interior and exterior looks, and your resale value, buy a Tacoma!

 

Let your friend buy whatever he wants. It's his money not yours.

 

Well that about says all you need to know. Tacoma > Colorado! The colorado looks flimsy anyway.

 

My buddy had a brand new 2010 Chev silverado, it is already rusting for gods sakes.

 

Tell him to go to Consumer reports' website and register, you can get a month's subscription for like $5. Look at reliability ratings. There's no comparison. Tacoma and Frontier are head and shoulders above the rest.

 

ALso have a friend with a frontier, he loves it

 

The Colorado has one of the best frontal crash ratings of all compact trucks, because every time one gets hit, there's a tow truck in front!

 

Just tell him to get a v6 with a supercharger.. 4 more hp than the v8 colorado...Right?

 

and better gas mileage

 

I peeked in the window of a Colorado at work and I noticed the dash looks like something out of the early 90's. Can you say plain and Boooooring! Huge fail on Chevys part. Go ahead and buy that POS colrado, have fun with shitty resale and falling apart!

 

I could care less about a Colorado, but the Tacoma's interior is nothing to brag about.

 

and it sounds better with that whistle

 

my tacoma now has been beefed in the front end i don't know about before but, now with the arb i'm pretty sure i will be ok lol that thing is huge!

 

tacoma's are bad ass but, the colorado is a turd wagon sorry

 

I would try my best to inform him, and then let him make a decision. Hopefully he will value your opinion or he will end up with a bucket O' turds! When they came out I did like how they looked, but the oddball 5 cylinder engine, and the fact that Chevy really does not make very good vehicles (including trucks), I would never get one. My Dad is all Chevy and he has had them my whole life, but he will tell you they are not the best to try and keep alive. When they hit a certain age they are toast! And it seems to me that they try to make a vehicle you have to replace in a few years. I like the Tacoma alot, and think it is a very tough little truck, and to say little is really not true in the Tacomas place, I am a large guy and it has plenty of room for me. Thumps up for the Tacoma.

 

I'm not finished. That rant was early morning before I had my coffee.

The Colorado is built as if an engineer sneezed on a piece of graph paper, connected the dots of snot, and decided the end result would make a great truck chassis. I am continually amazed at what I can get the Colorado to do, but only because I have such a low opinion of the damned thing that when it actually accomplishes a trail or hill climb that a normal truck can do, I'm shocked! The 3.7L I5 in this truck will not last 100,000 miles, I can almost guarantee that. It doesn't make any measurable power until about 4500 RPM so I have to rev the crap out of it to make it move. Don't get me wrong, if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to choose between the Chevy Colorado and a Dodge Dakota, I'd take the Chevy. But since your friend is very likely NOT in that situation, buy the proper truck!

/END RANT

 

Today, you can trust the full size trucks from any of the domestic makes. That market segment is not only a phenomenal moneymaker (high price, higher-margin vehicles) but also highly competitive, so they didn't let quality slip over the years by cutting corners like they did on their other lines.

For Dodge and Chevrolet, that's about it, I wouldn't trust anything else. Ford has some quality vehicles in other segments that rate well for reliability (maybe that's why they actually make money instead of needing to be bailed out...)

In the light truck segment, there's no comparison whatsoever between Tacoma/Frontier and Colorado, Ranger, or Dakota. Heck my father is in the UAW and he approved of my Tacoma because the domestic offerings in the non-full size truck segment are so far behind.