the wanderer

Your 4.3 has the same avg MPG on fuelly as the 5.3, so the 2.7 should get you (personally) better MPG than your 4.3 does.

Well they're averages so it's easy to get dragged down by guys who tow a lot or do a lot of city driving or run lifts or offroad tires etc. I beat both those averages in my truck but I know for sure I'm an outlier. I also beat the highway EPA for my truck, I have in all my cars. But if I'm doing all city it can take a pretty bad nose dive, and that's where the 2.7 probably shines best if you can keep the boost down.

Fuely is a better spot to compare: https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/silverado_1500?engineconfig_id=95&bodytype_id=&submodel_id= https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/silverado_1500?engineconfig_id=63&bodytype_id=&submodel_id= On top of that, the 2.7 has a lot more torque, and it comes on faster/lower. It feels much stronger around town than the 5.3 much like diesels do. In a 0 to 60 WOT haul, my money would be on the 5.3 as it still has more HP, but for actual driving and towing the 2.7 is better. Reliability/durability - yet to be seen, but so far so good.

Yes they are, but they demonstrated the problems with the 6.6 very nicely. Whatever it was, they had the pedal planted to the floor and the truck could only do 2400 RPMs by the time it hit the top. I always understood it was a transmission tuning, not downshifting when it should be. In any case, more gears would help prevent that.

Do you have details on that or just guessing? I'm kind of curious, because I've seen more than one report that the 6.6/6 speed has trouble climbing long and heavy grades so I don't think it was a "one off" issue.

Don't know where you've heard that. This forum certainly loves the 10 speed. There is also a difference between "using" 10 gears and "hunting". Just because you hear it using a bunch of gears, doesn't mean it's hunting. The question is, is it always in the right gear at the right time? With Ford, I've heard the answer is "no". But with GM's tuning I've never heard reports about hunting. Remember it has 10 gears. The point of them is to use them. That means it picks the best gear going up a hill to keep you in your power band without over revving/screaming, and it means it can brake assist going down without revving too high and slowing you down too much, or revving too low and not providing any brake assist. It also means when you're towing for 2 hours straight, your RPMs are right where they need to be to minimize revving and wear, and maximize mpg. There is literally no downside to a 10 speed if the tuning is right. For myself, I can finally put the 6.6 gasser on my list for next truck. There is 0 chance I'm getting the 6 speed as TFL has demonstrated that the tuning is very poor.

Ford plays the spec game really well. You don't see the marketing/customer mindset advantage of having a more powerful base engine in their truck, then the top gas engine available in either Ram or GM? I certainly do. When it comes to drive trains on paper, Ford eats everyones lunch. They have for years. I would never own one, that's why I said "on paper" as there is more to a truck. But Ram and GM need to step up their gasser game.

There is no GM 6.1. Assuming you meant 6.2, you're not comparing engine vs engine you're comparing an engine in one truck to a different engine in a different truck. There is more going on at play, such as GM's use of 10 speeds vs the 8 in the Ram, different body style/aero, the GM's on average are several hundred pounds lighter due to their strategy of mixed materials, Ram's are quite often running a higher gear ratio (3.92 is extremely common, GM uses mostly 3.23 IIRC). The hemi also has an older MDS system (equivalent to AFM) vs GM's newer DFM. Etc etc. As I said in a previous post I recently got 27 mpg, and have no problems whatsoever getting 23+ on a very regular basis. But the hemi was originally designed in early 2000's, it's had a refresh in 2009 adding VVT and MDS but it's not a modern engine by any means and has definitely reached end of life. The new inline 3.0L hurricane coming in the next Ram refresh will produce more power (510 hp) than the GM 6.2, but I sincerely doubt there will be much difference in terms of MPG for the same reasons I've already mentioned. Modern engine designs can do a bit (so going from a 20 year old design to a new design you can eke out some tiny gains somewhere), but as a general rule you simply cannot make more power without increasing fuel. But if you're going call names and respond like a child I have better ways to spend my time. So this is my last response to you. Enjoy your evening.

Look up stoichiometric mixture. You cannot possibly increase the displacement of an engine without also burning more fuel. And when you throw turbos on a smaller engine, that's equivalent (in terms of fuel/air ratio) to running a bigger engine without turbos. There is no free lunch. The second those turbos are doing their thing, you may as well be driving a v8. If you watched a Ford turbo towing review you'd know this.

I'm not comparing the engines per se, I'm looking at the total package; what do I get, what I pay, and what do I compromise. My issue is not that the 2.7 is a poor engine, it's a great engine in the right package (like a base half ton) but the new colorado doesn't have that package that interests me. As I said, the new colorado doesn't have an engine choice that gives you best in class performance, or if you want best in class MPG, or if you want best in class reliability etc etc). Based on my priorities, if I wanted a quarter ton I'd have to get the current canyon with the 2.8 diesel. If I had to replace my truck with another half ton, I'd get another ram (although the 3.0 diesel with the 10 speed is the better drivetrain, I'm not paying 15 to 20K more for a bunch of other stuff included in the package that doesn't interest me). If I needed a heavy duty it would be the ford with the 7.3/10 speed. These 3 picks of mine are still compromises, there are many things I like about other trucks, but I can only pick one. I think the new canyon will not get that good mpg. If it turns out I'm wrong, perfect I may reconsider, but I've given actual fuelly reports to explain my opinion and suspicions.

Read my post again, it was an MPG comparison only; in other words, the current 4 banger gets poor fuel economy compared to the 2.8 diesel, not a chance that adding a turbo and increasing the displacement is going to get you any better fuel economy. Perfect doesn't exist, only compromises. You pick the truck that works best for you, but nothing is perfect not even my current truck.

The 2.8 diesel isn't for everyone but if they put some effort into it (like they did the 2.7 gas) they could have advanced it further it would be a great towing truck for smaller trailers like mine. I browse a bunch of different truck forums as I'm not a brand zealot and will buy the best truck for my needs. The 2.7 turbo is currently the best base engine in a full size, I almost bought one; but they missed the boat when it came to the colorado in my opinion. It doesn't do anything particularly well compared to competitors; if you want MPG it sucks compared to diesel, if you want performance it sucks compared to ranger etc etc, and I'm not going to pay for a software upgrade either. All my 2 cents, no need for some of you fine gents to get that offended over it.

That's your only play, making everything personal and start calling names. Well done!

Well my hemi got 27 MPG the other day on a 3 hour trip, somehow I suspect you won't be as excited to use individual user reports for that my guess is you'll just prefer the fuelly.com rating which is well below 20, right?

Nobody cares about ratings or what you're getting individually, that's meaningless. What are the averages in the real world? The current 2.5L 4 cylinder in the colorado gets on average about 21 to 22 mpg: https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/colorado?engineconfig_id=53&bodytype_id=&submodel_id= Throwing on a turbo, and increasing the displacement to 2.7L is not going to make your MPG better; both those actions reduce MPG as soon as you start using the truck beyond sunday-strolling through town. The current 2.8 diesel is about 24 to 25: https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/colorado?engineconfig_id=229&bodytype_id=&submodel_id= Diesel gets you much better MPG while also giving you very high tow ratings (important to many truck owners). Now for the silverado. The silverado with the 2.7, on average, gets about 19 to 20 mpg: https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/colorado?engineconfig_id=229&bodytype_id=&submodel_id= With the 3.0 diesel it gets about 26 mpg: https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/silverado_1500?engineconfig_id=148&bodytype_id=&submodel_id=

We already know what a N/A 4 banger in a colorado style truck gets for MPG as that's been an option in the current gen for years, you can check fuelly but it's nothing special at all and its far far less than the 3.0 diesel. Now making the 4 banger turbo charged will only give you worse MPG. You can't force more air through a bigger engine without also increasing fuel consumption, the old n/a 4 cylinder was even smaller in terms of displacement than the new 2.7 is. I highly suspect the opposite: like we see in the silverado, the diesel options are still king for MPG by a huge margin (at least 5 mpg). Dropping the 2.8 diesel from the colorado is a big mistake. GM should have further developed the diesel. And the 4 banger turbo as impressive for power as it is from only 4 cylinders, will still get stomped by the v6 turbo in the ranger. So the new colorado neither wins any awards for fuel savings, nor for best performance. I smell a dud. GM tries to spin bad decisions into good outcomes but it's all BS. The 8 speed is not good enough when the ranger has 10 gears and even more power. Dropping the diesel option is about cost cutting, not because the new turbo is able to compete with it in MPG and towing at the same time. I'm not impressed in the slightest. Guess I'll have to keep looking for my next truck, hopefully I get a few years yet out of my current one.

I said "software upgrade". The engines are mechanically identical, the "upgrade" in the engine options is just software/tunes, nobody wants to pay for that type of BS. It's a turn off.

Unfortunately that 2.7 (as good as it is as a base engine) is still way down compared to the new v6 turbo raptor/ranger. And nobody wants to pay for a software upgrade, the three 2.7 variants are all mechanically identical. Then they make the BS claim that the 2.7 doesn't need the 10 speed because of the torque it delivers, and yet throw the 10 speed behind the 3.0 diesel in the full size which makes way more torque. Typical GM.

Why, you still got another foot left yet, don't you?

You can't just compare two peak hp/torque numbers and get a proper impression of how an engine feels. Power under the curve is more important than peak numbers even though we all like to fixate on just the peaks. The diesel feels stronger across the board, especially while towing. I'm willing to bet that on the highway the MPG difference is 5+ mpg at least. Diesels want to run long distances, gassers are better in the city. So there are definite differences between these two engines, I would not say the one can replace the other. The real competition for the 2.7 is the 5.3, which IMHO is now completely irrelevant except for those who want that v8 sound. I would never purchase the 5.3, it would be 2.7 or the 6.2 when getting gas. That diesel is also attractive, but sadly they only put it in pricey trims with all kinds of stupid tech gizmos that I have no interest in using or fixing.

As a computer science guy I'm well aware of what military grade encryption refers to. I'm simply telling you that "military grade" is something marketing guys latch onto because it sounds impressive. It's not something special, it's just off the shelf encryption. All you need to say is "the communication system in the these trucks are encrypted" but some how that lacks the ... "bling" of military grade. Anyway the point is not that the system is encrypted, the point is that it has to be decrypted at some point because hardware doesn't understand encrypted messages. That's the way in. You don't need to break encryption at all.

Side note, but military grade encryption? That's funny. The military doesn't come up with encryption algos, the computer science guys do. Military just uses standard off the shelf encryption algorithms, your bank or even this website are protected by the same stuff. And while the encryption algorithm is not breakable, the truck comes with everything it needs to communicate which means the encryption keys probably have to be stored on the truck (much like a dvd player is crackable). Or there will be another way to crack in since all these devices don't operate on encrypted streams, they need to decrypt at some point in order to read the actual communications. There is always a way in, it's just obfuscated a little more than in the past.

To be honest, I'd never purchase a new 6.6 gasser from GM until they pull their head out of their butt and give us a real transmission. The Ford 7.3/10 speed would pull your trailer like a freight train, there is no comparison between the two trucks.

You have the right idea, torque under the curve is far more important than 0 to 60 time under WOT. A truck can feel more sluggish around town than a second truck, even if it's faster under WOT. This is the case with the 2.7. Around town and pulling a trailer, it builds more torque (and far quicker) than the 5.3 does. Only when you mash the pedal does the extra HP from the 5.3 win out. Both are probably fine options, I don't own either of them but if I had to pick it would be the 2.7 every day of the week due to what I want from a truck; great power low down and early on. Trucks that need to rev to high to make power but win 0 to 60's are completely irrelevant to me. I haven't yet driven the updated 2.7 but it will probably beat the 5.3 in normal usage. Very subjective of course, but I've driven the old 2.7 and the current 5.3 and my vote is 2.7; can only imagine what the updated 2.7 feels like.

I mostly agree with you, but one thing to keep in mind (in addition to computer MPG readings being "off"), is that when we're talking 10 mpg, an additional +/- 1 MPG is a difference of 10 percent. So when we talk about half to 1 mpg we don't think it means much but when we convert that to a percentage it can still be somewhat significant especially over long distances.