2022 Chevy Silverado High Country Review - Does a New Interior Make This the Nicest Luxury Truck?

Hey folks and welcome to the Truck King YouTube channel and lovely Palm Springs, California. Today we are down here to check out some new Chevrolet Silverados and in this video we're looking at this truck. That's the 2022 Silverado High Country. Now this is Chevy's top trim luxury truck and for 2022 it looks different on the outside and the inside and I want to tell you all about it. For 2022 GM has updated its half-ton trucks but this is not a full redesign. It's definitely still a familiar look and the powertrains are all going to be familiar as well. In this case it's the 6.2-liter V8 hooked to a 10-speed automatic. You will notice though there's been some massaging of the style. We get this big kind of eyebrow up here now across the grille. Because this is a high country we get the monochromatic black look with all of the chrome accents. We also get this nice two-tone grille up here in the front plus a huge set of 22-inch wheels. So from the exterior it's not a massive change it's just been massaged slightly and I do think it looks pretty good. Of course now please go in the comments and let me know what you think of this new look and I'm going to go inside the truck now because that's truly where it has changed. Like I said from the outside it's just a small massage. The interior though this is a major change for 2022. We no longer have the little 8-inch touchscreen now we have a 14-inch touchscreen over here in the center stack plus right in front of me a 12-inch digital gauge cluster. So yes GM has gone kind of the full digital route to keep up with the time and everything else in here has just been changed up to make it look more premium. I think the biggest complaint with the last high country was way too much hard black plastic and GM has totally gone away from that. The dash is nice soft touch leather. The door panels all over the door panel is nice soft touch plus this is the first Silverado with real open pour wood. Again something that has kind of come into the industry which Chevy was lagging on. They used to have this fake wood and it looked really fake. Now they have real wood it looks beautiful. So yes they spent a lot of time on the interior of this high country and it definitely shows. Now here we are driving in this new high country and normally I'd start out by talking to you about how the truck actually drives and then I would ask dad how it drives but the honest truth is that Chevy didn't update the way the truck drives. It still drives the same it's the same chassis same engine same transmission all that stuff. So we'll get to that but we have to start with the interior right dad. I mean Chevy went out of their way to make a statement here to say our interior was not up to snuff now here's our new one and yeah I'm feeling pretty good about it. I think the big word for me is competitive. I don't get in here anymore and go what the heck were they thinking. You get in and go yeah that's a really nice half ton truck. That's my general takeaway. What do you think? First of all kudos to GM for listening to their customers and people like Steve and I because we were loud and we complained a lot after 2019 and we said you're selling a premium product with a subpar interior. They took that to heart they went back to the drawing board. What they've turned out now is definitely better and to that extent two quick things. One it's competitive with everything else out there however it wasn't the over the top slam dunk that you might have thought they'd come up with. So if anything it's refined and you know if I'm gonna pay this kind of money for a high country I do want to feel like I'm in a luxury pickup truck and that's that is now how I feel for sure. Yeah like the wood is gorgeous it's actually nice to touch. That was one of the big kind of sins of the last truck is a lot of the materials weren't nice to touch. They were bad plastics and stuff or that fake wood. Another thing I noticed which I like dad is you have the digital gauge cluster over there. Like most gauge clusters these days it's fully customizable. You can change the information it delivers you. That's true about the main screen as well and we're really moving towards that where guys can get in and say no I really want to see these things. You know it reminds me we were talking about this when we got in the truck where I was joking that I wouldn't get to see what the heated seats felt like today because it's currently 94 degrees Fahrenheit here. But you know like you can put that particular app up on the screen you know if you're in Minnesota or you can bury it because you live in Florida. Well actually and I can show you a shot of our screen they actually have the trailering app up there as one of your you know quick buttons. So sure if you're pulling a trailer all the time and you're constantly going to that trailering app well you make it really easily accessible. So that is nice and then sort of on the flip side of that though that is real buttons. They didn't get rid of the buttons and knobs for the HVAC. They didn't get rid of this nice kind of row of plastic buttons or plastic toggle switches that they introduced. So yeah again a nice mixed and a volume knob. They did not forget to leave the volume knob there. No they've they've paid attention because let's face it a lot of the manufacturers that have gone to all touchscreen there's been a lot of pushback. Yeah even even the younger kids don't like all just push stuff. You know the the knob is still where it's at when it comes to being able to turn their volume or set your heat without having to look at it. So a few other small details I've noticed the first one are actually the floor mats that they actually made the floor mats match the contrast stitching in the seats which I've never seen before. So that's interesting plus they have this little metal corner on them with the Chevy logo that looks really nice too. Second thing wireless phone charging not new but I love where it is in this truck kind of tucked down here underneath your center console just enough so you can see your phone but it also really tucks out of the way quite nicely and I do appreciate that. And of course we've got a traditional sort of pistol grip shifter which Chevy frankly had gone away from but I got a feeling that they were concerned because the other guys all still had it so here it is again. Yeah and in fact I mean Ram just reintroduced that like you said Ford's had it forever. Yeah I always liked the fact that GM was really kind of bullish on keeping the column shifter right and I thought maybe they'd just keep it forever they'd be the one brand to stick with it but well you're still going to have that in the HT's I don't think they're going away in the HT's. Yeah so you've seen the way the truck looks outside you've seen all the new stuff inside so now inevitably I do have to ask you dad how is it driving out here on the interstate what are you feeling? These trucks are wonderful I mean the suspension and the anything in the 1500 series this thing heats up the bumps it's quiet and it holds its lane you know I could do a thousand miles without breaking a sweat it's a nice truck man. Yeah and I mean back in 19 when it launched we drove it then and said yeah it drives nice and the powertrains are great big V8s just the interior so again they've really addressed the one thing they felt they needed to and I guess we'll have to wait and see if it reflects in more sales. Yeah we'll have to see how people accept it but my my sense of it is is that they did now what they should have done then but hey better late than never. Yep okay it's happy it went green light right away too huh? Yeah it did green light right away. Nice all right well now we're super cruising and of course this isn't anything new this has already been around for I think two model years now but this is new to dad dad's never super cruised before. This is my first super cruise. I did it once in an Escalade so I guess the question is how are you feeling about it? Uh bizarre. Yeah it's definitely a little weird takes some getting used to and the craziest thing I want to see here it comes auto lane change. It's gonna change lanes which frightens the hell out of me because there goes a motorcycle. Yeah that motorcycle. And and we're coming up behind a Toyota which is really kind of dragging its butt. So you're gonna do it again. It did it it made the lane change. The auto lane change will actually detect when you are approaching a vehicle in front of you. It's gonna do it again. And you have your speed set higher and it moves you left to get out and around that vehicle that's really cool. I just wonder if it's also watching what's behind me as to how quickly the guy's closing in the lane. Oh of course it is. So whether it would have seen that motorcycle come up so quick I don't know. Yeah but it's looking all around. So far so good. The other crazy thing it's doing is it's watching your eyes so if you take your eyes off the road for too long it will shut off. Yeah even with your sunglasses. Even with my sunglasses. Which is pretty cool. I want to see if it gets out of this lane now. See on me I'd already get out of this lane. Sure. I don't want to be I don't want to be in the left lane any longer than I have to. About to get passed on the right. However the other thing you need to know is if you hit the signal to the right the truck will then automatically change lanes when it when it is safe to do so. Oh okay all right. Yeah because that's what I would want it to do right now. Like after this onto pilot. Yes. You can try it. It should pull in. Okay so we will do that. The only thing it's sensing the truck ahead of us so now it's slowing down and it's and the and the hole is closing. Yeah. And the guy behind me is getting mad and giving us the finger. Well yeah this is normal that that quote unquote regular drivers get angry but this also happens with adaptive cruise control because the vehicle keeps that distance and other people on the road don't realize that you're matching the speed to the vehicle in front of you. Yeah. People are very impatient so they just run ahead and close the gap. Okay. And then you end up backing up. All right so I have put the signal on and it has changed lanes when it was safe to do so. Cool. All right so. Well I don't know it's certainly not a bad system but I think we've already just identified it's still not a human driver at the end of the day and I think that's where some of the leeriness still comes from. It doesn't react as quickly as I would. Sure. It's not looking at things like that motorcycle. Yeah. Which was sort of on the line almost so it might have seen it as being the lane was open but that bike was like like a foot into the lane and wailing by us and then the other thing I'm always looking at most people are is is if you're going to change lanes the guy who's coming up on that lane how quickly is he closing so anyway I mean on the flip side I was coming from a guy who just drove across the country do you feel like you would use this if you were going long distance here's the thing in in in busy traffic like this here no but I also drove hundreds of miles on relatively empty two-lane you know sort of divided highway where it would be perfect just to remove the stress yeah well yeah and you're still paying attention you're still monitoring what the truck is doing you're just not making all those decisions so like you said it's a little less stressful yeah yeah well I certainly get it well folks we have arrived at the end of this one now for 2022 it is obvious chevy wanted to make sure that its luxury truck could compete with the other luxury trucks on the market in terms of how nice the interior is and I think they absolutely nailed it of course now though we want to hear what you think so go in the comments let us know what you think of this new silverado high country as always while you're down there don't forget to hit like hit subscribe hit join to become a member and then come right back here to trucking to see what we're testing next see ya