Whether you like them or hate them is inconsequential because their popularity far outweighs any qualms you might have about their presence on our roads or any perception of their impact on the environment.
You can’t argue with the suitability of a US pick-up as a towing platform for hauling massive loads (think horse floats, big boats, that sort of thing) because they’re engineered for that purpose.
Price and features – Does it represent good value for the price? What features does it come with? 7/10
The 2024 Silverado HD LTZ Premium has a recommended retail price of $163,000 (excluding on-road costs), according to General Motors Special Vehicles (GMSV) in Australia.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
Other upper-spec frippery includes a heated leather steering wheel, rain-sensing wipers and headlights, and LED lighting.
Not so frivolous is the underbody bash-plate or the Rancho twin-tube shock absorbers (aka the “Z71 Off-RoadSuspension Tune”).
Exterior paint jobs include Summit White, Black and Red Hot. Premium paint, such as Slate Grey which is on this test vehicle, cost $1250.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD | Features Gallery | Marcus Craft
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD | Features Gallery | Marcus Craft
Design – Is there anything interesting about its design? 7/10
To state the obvious: the Silverado HD LTZ Premium is big. It’s 6387mm long, 2263mm wide, 2039mm high and it has a listed kerb weight of 3762kg, to be exact.
This ute’s dimensions, and not its looks, are the most striking factors about this vehicle, at least initially.
It’s blocky, with the long slabs of its body taking up valuable land which could otherwise be used for a block of flats to help sort out Australia’s housing crisis. Kidding – or am I? The Silverado has a sufficient amount of contemporary styling to keep it in the realms of what many reasonable people would consider an inoffensive appearance.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
While the exterior is a fair bit of in-your-face action, the interior by contrast is a low-key space with some nice touches – such as leather trim with stitching and soft-touch surfaces everywhere – that keep this ute from looking and feeling like an ugly and clumsy big bro to other ‘normal sized’ utes on Australia’s roads.
The tub is another striking feature and again mostly because of its size: it’s 2089mm long, 1814mm wide (1317mm between the wheel arches) and 533mm deep from the floor to the tub’s top edge. The tub has a listed cargo volume of 1968 litres – there’s more about the tub in the ‘Practicality’ section.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
Practicality – How practical is its space and tech inside? 8/10
Given the sheer size of the Silverado, it's no surprise that this five-seat ute has a cavernous interior.
There is an abundance of storage and charging options for the driver and front-seat passenger including two glove boxes, a huge centre console that could probably fit a toddler (don’t try it!), roomy receptacles for your everyday carry stuff, and big door pockets.
The cabin is a more-than-satisfactory mix of form and function with the aforementioned soft-touch surfaces, but also life-friendly materials such as carpet floors with rubber mats.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
The rear seat is spacious, with ample head, shoulder and leg room, and passengers back there are spoilt for mod cons with climate controls, cupholders, storage space under their seats and power outlets.
Back in the business end, the tub has a remote-controlled electric roller cover, electric tailgate, LED cargo area lighting, spray-in tub liner, and 12 (count them!) tie-down points
The Roll N Lock roller cover offers a degree of security from thieves, and protection from the elements (rain, mud, snow etc), but the drum (into which the cover rolls when it is retracted/opened) does impact the load space’s packability – not a whole hell of a lot but you know it’s there.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
This 2024 Silverado HD LTZ Premium has a GVM of 4495kg and it has a 50mm ball mount (tongue) so it is classed as an NB1 Category vehicle, which means its maximum payload is 733kg and maximum braked towing capacity is 3500kg; if you’re using a 70mm ball mount that puts you in the NB2 Category, so payload is 1386kg and maximum braked towing capacity is 4500kg.
There’s a catch though: NB1 you can drive with a normal car licence; NB2 you need a truck licence – check with your state government’s transport authority for guidance on this. NB denotes a medium goods vehicle, that is a “goods vehicle with a ‘Gross Vehicle Mass’ exceeding 3.5 tonnes but not exceeding 12.0 tonnes”, according to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
It has a two-speed transfer case with push-button controls, offering 2WD (two-wheel drive), Auto, 4WD HI (four-wheel drive high range), and 4WD LO ((four-wheel drive high range).
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
Driving – What's it like to drive? 7/10
This is the part where, when reading a review about a gargantuan US pick-up, the dear reader expects the motoring writer to pen something along the lines of: “Once you’ve driven the [insert gargantuan ute’s name here] for a few days you get used to its size." Well, I’m here to tell you that's not the case with this vehicle.
Sure, you learn to live with it and it does become slightly easier, more familiar, by increments, to drive but this is still a big vehicle to steer around, no doubt about it. You never forget about its size, you are always conscious of it – in fact, its massive 16.1m turning circle doesn’t let you forget the Silverado’s size either.
But its mammoth size isn’t the deal-breaker some might imagine – especially when this ute has so much going for it.
Visibility is plentiful from the driver’s seat and the Silverado has a set of big power-adjustable wing mirrors to extend when needed (for instance, during towing). The mirrors also have built-in lights and cameras.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
The digital rear-view mirror will come in handy when you’re towing a caravan or the like – because you’re able to essentially erase the towed item from view if your trailer has a camera – but with general use it’s a headache-inducing novelty due to its slightly blurry fish-eye view of the world at the rear. I tried to flip the mirror down so I could get a full real-world view to the rear, but the mirror could not be angled enough to offer an unobstructed view.
Steering is light and precise for such a big vehicle and it makes the experience of driving this Silverado around more direct-and-drive than point-and-pray.
And, of course, the 6.6L turbo-diesel V8, now with a new turbocharger and new fuel injectors, among other things, is the rumbling heart of the beast, but the 10-speed auto reins that in appropriately to keep a lid on things, helping to produce a relaxed delivery of power and torque to the sealed or unsealed surface you’re on unless you really put the foot down.
I’m not a big fan of the Silverado’s column shift though because it just feels clunky and counter-intuitive. You may get used to it, but after a week of testing this ute I still wasn’t keen on the column shift.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
For all of its cumbersome clumsiness around a metropolitan area – steering it through Sydney’s back streets is a masterclass in patience; forget about reverse-parking it – this ute is a great open-road cruiser with a controlled and considered presence on the highway. All of the elements that make this Chevy what it is – engine, auto, robust chassis, stretched wheelbase – are only given the opportunity to fully mesh when you’re out on the open road.
Ride and handling are unsurprisingly impressive even unladen, and its suspension setup – independent front and leaf spring rear, bolstered with the Z71 off-road suspension tune with Rancho twin tube shocks – works well, even as the surface becomes increasingly bumpier and potholed.
But while it’s just as comfortable at speed on dirt tracks and gravel roads as it is on sealed surfaces, a few factors prevent it from being a total off-road beast.
Nothing wrong with its 4WD set-up – off-road traction control, dual-range transfer case and automatic rear locking differential – and, with 1322Nm on tap, it certainly has torque aplenty.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
And it has a listed running ground clearance of 251mm, which is nothing to turn your nose up at.
But it’s this Chev’s physical dimensions, which ultimately hamper its efforts on tight bush tracks or steep rock steps.
Sure, its approach and departure angles are okay for something this gargantuan – 28.5 degrees and 23.6 respectively – but its rampover angle at 19 degrees is difficult to work with, especially when terrain gets very steep and the crest of a hill-climb is at such an acute angle that this ute will ground and possibly get hung up on that point.
And something this big needs to be driven with extra care and consideration in order to avoid getting scratched, scuffed, bogged or otherwise stranded. Again, not world-ending but you have to think about these factors if you’re seriously considering laying down some hard-earned cash on a ute like this.
Efficiency – What is its fuel consumption? What is its driving range? 7/10
No official GMSV fuel-consumption figure is available for this ute, but on test I noted a dash-displayed best figure of 8.8L/100km (not likely) and an Average of 15.8L/100km (more likely). We were never anywhere near fully loaded or towing a massive boat so expect that figure to climb in relation to how much extra weight you burden your Chevy with.
For reference though, this Silverado has a 136L fuel tank so, going by the more realistic of those two fuel-consumption figures above (15.8L/100km), you should be able to get a driving range of about 860km from a full tank.
Don’t forget that it also has a 26.5-litre AdBlue tank.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
Safety – What safety equipment is fitted? What is its safety rating? 7/10
The Chevrolet Silverado HD LTZ Premium does not have an ANCAP safety and is not scheduled to be tested because it’s so big it falls outside of ANCAP’s realm of expertise.
It does, however, have six airbags, power-adjustable folding/extending vertical trailering mirrors and a raft of driver-assist safetytech, including AEB, adaptive cruise control, lane change alert, trailer side blind zone alert, lane departure warning, following distance indicator, front and rear park assist, teen driver alert and a tyre pressure monitoring system with tyre fill alert.
2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD (Image: Marcus Craft)
Ownership – What warranty is offered? What are its service intervals? What are its running costs? 7/10
The Chevrolet Silverado HD LTZ Premium is covered by a three-year/100,000km warranty, which is on par with the RAM 2500, but still not great. In contrast, the Ford F-150 is covered by Ford's five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.
It has a smaller price-tag than some of its chief US rivals, namely the Ram, and also manages to be bigger in size and beastier in terms of engine and performance than any other similarly sized utes, but there are always other options.
As an open-road tourer and towing platform, the Silverado has plenty of factors in its favour – and if you want/need a bigger-than-usual ute, then perhaps this Chevy should be in your sights.
Disclaimer: The pricing information shown in the editorial content (Review Prices) is to be used as a guide only and is based on information provided to Carsguide Autotrader Media Solutions Pty Ltd (Carsguide) both by third party sources and the car manufacturer at the time of publication. The Review Prices were correct at the time of publication. Carsguide does not warrant or represent that the information is accurate, reliable, complete, current or suitable for any particular purpose. You should not use or rely upon this information without conducting an independent assessment and valuation of the vehicle.
