2004 chevy 1500 silverado 5.3 2wd

Author's Rating:

Pros: power, milage, reliability

Cons: i guess the gauge problems, but not really

The Bottom Line: 
great for a work truck.  solid as a rock-almost indestructable.

Author's Review
2004 chevy 1500 silverado w/t 5.3 with an automatic trans.  This truck was bought with 125,000 miles on it.  I figured that it would be a nice temporary addition to the fleet and I was going to give it to the foreman.  I love it!  It has unbelieveable power, it rides like a dream, it pulls like a mule.

Towing-this truck came with the "tow package" a 7-pin r/v plug, a class 3 receiver that is rated 500 LBS tongue/5000 LBS pull, and a "tow/haul" button on the gear select tht adjusts the shift points.  I have pulled a 28 foot car trailer with a car in it, and a 14 foot window trailer.  Although the trailers have brakes, the truck has no brake controller.  It pulls very strong, stops very well even when overloaded.  The only complaint is that if I put too much tongue weight, it will squish the rear suspension and pop the front end up, but that is when I totally and completely overloaded it.

Day to day driving- this truck has a TON of power with the 5.3 vortec motor.  It feels like some of the sportscars that I have owned-it will spin the tires from a stop for as long as you want to. I probably average from about 9 MPG when towing to about 17 MPG when driving over the road.  I can also tell you that truck will easily do well over 100 MPH

Working- I have now driven this thing to the florida keys and back 2 times, 1800 miles each way-3600 miles per trip for a total of 7200 miles inside of a couple of weeks.  Not a problem, not a miss.  I have loaded 80-80 lb bags of concrete in it for a total of 6400 lbs-a payload of OVER 3 TON in a 1/2 ton truck.  It ran like a champ. This truck is a good truck, bottom line.

The interior is, well, a truck.  It has the fake pleather bucket seats, with this thing in the middle that usually is a fold-down armrest (just not in mine) so it really is a bench seat.  the seats are very comfortable despite the 24 hour journeys.  being a standard cab, the seats do not recline all that much, but the passenger seat operates independently from the drivers so you can slide the seat forward and get enough incline on it to almost sleep comfortably.  Day to day comfort is great.

Gauge problems-the speedo went bad, I had to buy a $8 part from ebay, solder 4 points and that was all.  It works great
Update:  roofing and boating season is coming to a close.  this has towed the boat about 40 times 60 miles each way without a problem, and I have regularly overloaded this beast until the rear end was on the rubber bumpers.  It now has over 155,000 miles on it and it still runs and rides great and still kicks like a mule.