Newbie Looking to Buy

jgraves13 · February 1, 2018

Hello everyone,

My name is Josh, I live in Orange County, CA. Currently driving an '03 ranger with mid travel front and rear. Its getting to be too small, and quite frankly I'm over the 'built desert truck' fad that I've been into the past couple of years. Brother has an '04 1500, dad has an '04 duramax, mom has an '07 yukon, so pretty much the whole family drives GM. I will be looking in the next couple months at a slightly used silverado.

I know more than I should about rangers, but don't know much about silverados other than the research I've been doing recently, so hopefully some of you experts can help me out a little bit.

I will mainly be looking at slightly used 2016-2017's, CC 4x4 with LT trim package. As far as gear ratios go, I think the most common is 3.42? When looking at used trucks, what exactly should I be looking for to tell me what gears are in it? I've also seen 3.73's mentioned, are there any trucks that come standard with this gear ratio?

I know 2016 is when these trucks started coming with CarPlay and AndroidAuto standard. That, along with the body style change from 2015 is pushing me towards the newer trucks. Are there any other major differences that I may be missing out on? Any significant changes between 2016-2017? Anything else I should know about when looking at these used trucks?

My plans for the truck are pretty simple:

Exhaust

Some type of leveling kit (either bilstein 5100s, or camburg performance kit if I get a good enough deal on the truck, trying to stay away from spacer lifts)

285/75/17s

Color match grille and wrap headlight bezels if I can't find a z71 package at my price point

Thanks in advance for any help you can give a newbie, and I'm looking forward to learning more about these trucks!