2022 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Road Test and Review

2022 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 ・ Photo by Ron Sessions

Introduced five years ago, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 brings serious off-road chops to the mid-size pickup segment. Don’t get the ZR2 confused with high-powered desert-running full-size pickups such as the F-150 Raptor or Ram 1500 TRX. Lifted 2 inches and with a 3.5-inch wider stance, the ZR2 may look Baja-ready, but its gas V6 or 4-cylinder turbodiesel powertrain make it more suited for picking its way through difficult terrain than blasting at high speeds over sand dunes. The ZR2’s edge over the F-150 Raptor and Ram 1500 TRX is its mid-size footprint, which not only allows it to maneuver civilization easier, but also lets it squeeze past trees or boulders that would hang up a larger truck.

ZR2 configurations include an extended-cab long-box and a crew-cab short-box. Overall length and wheelbase stay the same for both. The extended cab offers an extra foot of bed length (6.2 feet total), good for toting ATVs, motorcycles and such, but its shorter cab has half-width, rear-hinged back doors and tiny child-size rear jump seats. The crew cab gets an abbreviated 5.2-foot bed, but gains regular rear doors and a 3-across rear bench seat with adult legroom.

The ZR2 is the most expensive version of the Colorado. Including the $1,195 destination charge, the extended-cab version is $43,795 and the crew cab goes for $45,345. All have standard 4-wheel drive.

Competitors to the Colorado ZR2 include the Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, Nissan Frontier PRO-4X, Jeep Gladiator, and the mechanically identical GMC Canyon AT4.

AEV Bison Content

Taking its off-road look up a few notches, the ZR2 test truck was equipped with the Bison package which includes off-road accessories from American Expedition Vehicles. Extended black wheel flares that handle the ZR2’s wider track are the most readily identifiable AEV Bison addition. Also part of the $5,750 Bison package are tubular front and rear bumper guards and side rock rails, front bumper winch mounts, rear bumper recovery hooks, fog lamps, tough boron steel skid plates for the front and rear differentials, engine oil pan, 4WD transfer case, and fuel tank, and AEV monogrammed floor liners and front seatback headrests.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Diesel or Gas Engine

While it offers major off-road cred, the ZR2 is no hot rod in the mold of the F-150 Raptor or RAM 1500 TRX. The ZR2 comes with a standard 308-hp 3.6-liter gas V6, good for mid 6-second runs from rest to 60 mph. It’s a good all-around choice, but needs a lofty 6800 rpm to make maximum power for passing and freeway merging, so it’s a bit peaky for a truck. The V6’s maximum 275 lb-ft of torque is good, but requires 4000 rpm. EPA estimated fuel economy with the gas engine’s standard 8-speed automatic is an unimpressive 16 mpg city/18 mpg highway.

The ZR2 is one of the rare mid-size pickups available with a diesel engine, and even though it’s a $3,720 upcharge, the optional 2.8-liter Duramax 4-cylinder turbodiesel is a better choice for off-roading. With the standard 6-speed automatic, the diesel’s 18 mpg city/22 mpg highway EPA rating means it’s not much thriftier than the gas V6, but with 369 lb-ft of torque on tap from just 2000 rpm, it’ll happily chug off-road or around town with little effort. At just 181 horsepower, however, output is modest at best with 0-60 runs in the 9-second range. One cool ZR2 diesel feature is an exhaust brake which, when activated, uses engine compression to help slow the truck and reduce wear of the brake linings.

If you want a more powerful and more fuel-efficient mid-size diesel pickup, look at the Jeep Gladiator’s optional 3.0-liter EcoDiesel V6 with 260 horsepower, 442 lb-ft of torque and an EPA rating of 22 mpg city/28 mpg highway.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Dash and Front Seats

The ZR2’s 2-inch suspension lift and no side steps make for a pants-dirtying climb up into the cab. And once seated, it’s a challenge to see over the hood or the cab corners. As the most expensive Colorado model, the ZR2 is no sensory-deprivation chamber, however, as long as you like black. Standard amenities include heated leather-covered, front seats with lumbar control, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel. Fore and aft adjustment for the front seats is power operated, but seatback tilt/recline is via an old-fashioned manual lift handle.

Aside from an easy-to-read, white-on-black speedometer, tachometer and analog auxiliary gauges, the ZR2 comes with a driver-configurable dash display with an off-road tilt gauge that shows the truck’s drive mode, front/rear pitch, side tilt, and degrees of steering angle.

Under the automatic climate controls on the center stack is another bank of controls that enable some of the ZR2’s added capabilities, including the driver-selectable full locking front and rear differentials, hill descent control, exhaust brake (diesel only) and above the driver’s left knee, integrated trailer-brake control. The ZR2 can tow up to 5,000 pounds. An Active Tow feature works with the back-up camera to help the driver align the trailer with the hitch ball.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Infotainment 3 Plus

There’s nothing fancy here, just a simple-to-use 6-speaker Chevrolet Infotainment 3 Plus AM/FM stereo with an 8-inch color touchscreen display, Bluetooth, SiriusXM capability, wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, and OnStar-ready in-cab 4G LTE Wi-Fi. The system has large, colorful, high-contrast screen tiles and easy-to-adjust-on-the-fly rotary knobs for volume and tuning beneath the screen. An optional 7-speaker Bose premium audio system is also available. For connectivity, there is a pair of the larger Type-A USB ports, an auxiliary jack and an SD card reader in the forward bin of the console as well. Embedded navigation is optionally available as well.

Chevrolet managed to cram a wireless charger for small-format Qi-enabled phones into the top of the center console, but keep in mind that a larger-size phone such as my Samsung S21 5G phone with a 6-1/2-inch screen is too big to fit on the wireless pad.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Back Seat

The Colorado is available with a choice of an extended-cab or crew-cab body style. The crew cab shown here has much more rear passenger space than the extended cab with an extra 1.6 inches of rear-seat headroom and a whopping 7.2 inches of additional rear-seat legroom. Six-footers won’t be happy in the extended cab’s rear jump seats for anything longer than a short trip.

The crew cab with three-abreast seating is a much more civilized place and includes a fold-down center armrest with a pair of cup holders. The crew cab’s rear bench seat lower cushions and seatbacks are split 60/40. Under the rear cushions are storage bins, great for toting small toolboxes or stashing valuables such as a camera or tablet out of sight. The rear seatbacks also fold down to provide a flat surface for carrying larger boxes and other items inside the cab.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Cargo Bed

Extended-cab models get a 6-foot, 2-inch long cargo bed while crew cabs use the shorter 5-foot, 2-inch bed. A spray-in bed liner coating is standard, but a drop-in plastic bed liner is also available for those buyers who don’t care for the rough finish of the spray-in type. Chevrolet sells dozens of accessories for the cargo bed. These include a variety of tool boxes, dividers, crossbars, and utility racks, a sport bar, sport bar-mounted driving lights, a flip-down bed extender, LED bed lights, four different kinds of tonneau covers, and even a bed-mounted spare tire that gets the stock, under-bed full-size spare up out of harm’s way where it won’t snag stumps and rocks when negotiating challenging off-road terrain.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Off-Road Cred

The ZR2 is exclusively 4-wheel drive, with added capability over the base Colorado due to its extra 2 inches of ground clearance and 3.5-inch wider track. The bumpers are angled for greater tire clearance and steeper approach and departure angles. Side rails under the doors protect the rockers panels from rock damage. Protecting the undercarriage from impacts from stumps and rocks is an extensive array of skid plates.

A ZR2 exclusive are off-road racing-inspired standard Multimatic spool-valve shock absorbers which feature special damping curves designed to take advantage of the ZR2’s longer suspension travel. The payoff in the dirt is an ability to handle rough off-road terrain. But the shocks also help on the pavement, enabling the ZR2 to traverse parking lot speed bumps, as well as rough pavement and the all-too-frequent pothole in addition to keeping the truck’s vertical body motions well damped on smooth roads. The tall 31-inch P255/65R17 all-terrain Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac tires not only help the truck find purchase in dirt, sand, mud, and snow, but despite their aggressive knobby tread pattern, are impressively quiet at highway speeds.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Front and Rear Locking Differentials

In cases where the ZR2’s traction control and Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac off-road tires get challenged on steep inclines or in mud, snow, or loose dirt, the truck’s standard locking front and rear differentials make a big difference. You’ll want to use these sparingly for situations where, say, just one or two tires have traction and the rest are spinning. Try locking the rear first and, if necessary, lock the front. Locking the rear differential increases the truck’s turning diameter while locking the front increases steering effort substantially. But the standard “lockers” impart a tremendous boost of confidence off-road.

Photo by Ron Sessions

Safety and Driver-Assistive Tech

One area where the Colorado and ZR2 haven’t kept up is in driver-assistive technology. It’s equipped with a standard backup camera, but lacks modern safety tech such as automatic emergency forward braking, adaptive cruise control, and blind-spot and rear cross-traffic monitoring. An optional safety package with forward collision alert and lane departure warning is offered with the Colorado’s LT and Z71 trims, but is not with the ZR2.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gives the 2022 Colorado four out of five stars overall for crashworthiness, with four stars for front impacts, five for side impacts, and just three for rollover resistance.

The Insurance institute for Highway Safety gives the Colorado extended cab a Good rating for moderate-overlap front impacts, roof strength, head restraints, and seats, an Acceptable rating for small-overlap driver-side front impacts, side impacts, and LATCH child safety seat mounting, and a Poor rating for the truck’s old-school halogen headlamps. IIHS gives the Colorado crew cab a Good rating for moderate-overlap front impacts, side impacts, small-overlap driver-side frontal impacts, roof strength, head restraints, and seats, a Marginal rating for small-overlap front passenger-side front impacts and LATCH child safety seat mounting, and a Poor rating for the truck’s halogen headlamps.  

Photo by Ron Sessions

Off-Road Driving Fun

With its smaller mid-size truck footprint, available diesel engine, standard 4-wheel drive, locking differentials, and lifted wide-track design, the Colorado ZR2 is the closest thing Chevrolet has to the legendary off-road icon, the Jeep Wrangler and its mid-size pickup offshoot, the Jeep Gladiator. The ZR2 may not be able to handle the big payloads and tow the heavy trailers full-size rigs do, but it offers better maneuverability, garageability, and off-road driving fun larger pickups can’t match.

Photo by Ron Sessions