2021 Chevrolet Silverado Trail Boss Custom Review and Off-Road Test

On this episode, we test the new Silverado Custom Trail Boss. It's a full-size truck with a big engine and an affordable price. That's coming up right now on Driving Sports TV. Usually when we get a full-size truck in to test, the manufacturers send us the biggest and baddest versions, often priced at over $75,000. Well, not everybody wants that. In fact, I expect many of our viewers will love this. It's the 2021 Chevy Silverado Custom Trail Boss. Why? It starts right here under the hood. That is a 6.2-liter V8 good for up to 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque. It's connected to full-time four-wheel drive with a two-speed transfer case and a 10-speed automatic transmission. To complete the package, our test rig is optioned with all-terrain tires and a standard auto-locking Eaton differential in the rear. EPA rates this setup at 15 miles to the gallon in town and 19 on the highway. All that sounds pretty good, right? Well, it gets better. Price as it sits here, only $49,290 including destination. So what gives? Why does every F-150 and Ram we test price out at more than the cost of a small house? It comes down to the rest of the package. This Silverado is basic, but basic isn't necessarily bad. Let's check out the rest of what it does have and if this is a package worth the compromise. In the back, the Silverado includes a tow hitch. With this powertrain, it can tow up to an impressive 13,300 pounds. The rear gate is nicely damped, dropping smoothly with the push of a button. Built-in bumper steps make getting into the bed easy. The bed is also lined, so you don't need to worry about scratches. In the second row here, we can pull up the seats for lots of cargo. However, if you need passengers, you just yank them back down again. All the room you really need. I got tons of legroom, lots of headroom. I don't really have anything as far as amenities go, but I do have a couple vents down there. But again, this is a truck. This is fine. Moving up front and the low price starts to become a little more apparent. Wow, this is basic accommodations. In fact, it doesn't even have a push button start. Instead, I get an old-fashioned key. This is kind of like the truck enthusiast special, you know? It has everything that you want. It has the big engine, big burly V8, has the dual-range transfer case, and two-wheel drive if you want economy. Although, if you have a V8, you're probably not thinking about economy. Here we have a basic but small system. That screen is really small, but again, it's okay. That's not why you're buying this truck. You're not buying it for entertainment value. You're buying it because, look, it has trailer lights option. It does have Wi-Fi, but it also has Apple CarPlay. Plug it in, boom, Apple CarPlay. This is like a massive monolith of a car interior and with this tiny little screen. But the fact that it has Apple CarPlay, as well as a backup camera and all the basic stuff that you need, it's fine. And one thing I do like about Chevys is the way that they deal with the front seat. Here, it is a bench seat, and I can actually put three people across. However, if I want an armrest, just pull it down. Now, I have all these great bins. I can put my phone there. I can put my phone here. I also have storage right in there. Yeah, this is great. Row of buttons here. You can turn off the auto engine start stop, which is really nice to have that convenient. Lower the back with a push of a button, traction control, and then hill descent control. Even though it is basic, it does have collision mitigation, as well as adaptive cruise control. Though, it doesn't have lane detection, which is fine. It also doesn't have blind spot warning. Instead, you get just the dual pane side mirrors, which are, again, okay. But my question, how much fun can we have with this thing? Because it's got big, mud-eaten tires. So, let's take it out and have some fun. Oh, chunky lever. Even though this is the cheaper version of the Trail Boss, the more expensive one being the LT, the custom here actually comes with adaptive cruise control and collision mitigation. It used to be an add-on option, but for 2021, it's now standard. And it works like you would expect. You just turn on your cruise control, target a speed, and then set your gap. And now it will mirror the car in front of you, so long as you've picked a speed that's faster than the vehicle in front. It's really good for those longer road trips. However, this does not have some of the other things that you might consider basics or necessities in 2021. There is no blind spot monitoring, and there is no lane detection or lane centering, of course. Considering this is a basic truck, I think that what they do provide is pretty good. On the freeway, there is a bit of noise, and that is because this is running all-terrain tires. All-terrain tires just happen to make more noise on the freeway. It's kind of one of the downsides of them, but it's not too bad. Adaptive cruise control is still working in this weather, which is nice. Okay, well, I thought it was going to be a dry filming day, but yeah, no, it's going to be wet. Glad I packed the rain pants. Definitely putting those on. On the freeway, one of the great things about this truck is the visibility. Of course, it has a factory two-inch lift, so you are high above everybody else. Well, except that Ram 3500 Bighorn that just passed me. He's actually a little higher, but for the most part, you are higher than everybody else. I should point out that visibility is great for me. If you're shorter than me, you might have issues because this seat is not height adjustable. I think that's a pretty big problem for anybody who's short of stature. This vehicle competes most directly with the Ram Rebel. Speaking of Ram vehicles, I've never driven a Ram Rebel, but I do know for the most part, I do prefer the Ram interiors to the Chevy interiors. On the higher trims especially, Chevy just doesn't seem to really measure up, so in this, the lower cost Chevy, it actually makes a lot more sense. You're looking at under $50,000 for this thing, and yeah, you get cloth seats, you get the dinky navigation system, but you do get a full-time all-wheel drive system with a dual-range gearbox, and it also has an auto-locking rear differential. We're going to try that out in a little bit. Even though you can run this in all-wheel drive format, you can also run it in 4 high or 4 low because it has a dual-range gearbox and a locking center differential. These are things that you usually pay a lot more for on a truck. In fact, this vehicle is thousands less than the equivalent Ram Rebel, so that might get you thinking. But on weather like today, it's really nice to have that auto all-wheel drive option because it's hailing out, the ground is wet, it's not really slippery enough for me to put it into 4 high and lock that middle differential, so it's nice to still have, you know, that everyday drivability of all-wheel drive without the compromises of having to lock that center differential. Of course, if the center diff is locked, that creates binding between the front and rear as you're turning in a corner. You don't really want to do that. It's a lot of stress on the drivetrain, and it also is really kind of... it's stressful from the driver perspective to hear your vehicle making noises like that. This is a truck where you feel like you own the road. Maybe that's why some people buy trucks like this. I like trucks like this until you get them into a parking lot, and then all of a sudden you start to question your daily driving decisions. Because, like, yeah, mall parking lots, these things suck, but everywhere else, fantastic. Thankfully, the whole world is not mall parking lots. I was hoping to do this in the drive, but it looks like we'll have to have a wet 0-60. I'm in all-wheel drive, it's hailing, 3, 2, 1, go. Mercy! 5.73 seconds, 0-60. Holy moly, that was fun. We've confirmed that this truck has some great day-to-day drivability, and it's pretty quick. But now let's see how it deals with an actual off-road situation, and more specifically, I want to know how well that rear auto-locking differential works. Will you look at that? It's snowing, and sticking. This suddenly got a little bit more interesting. So I guess we'll find out how well these Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrains deal with snow today, too. Wasn't the plan, but snow day. It's not very common that we get really nice, puffy snow at this level this late in the season, but hey, I'll take it. I just realized how slippery this is. It's because it's right at the edge of freezing, so it's not just snow, it's also really slick, icy, slushy stuff. Oh boy. Gotta be careful here, because there's a little bit of a cliff out there on the side. Normally I wouldn't bother putting a truck with All-Terrains and a 2-inch lift on the trail. However, it is snowing today, so that does add additional challenge here. Let's give it a try. Nothing really to do here. I'm going to start this climb in 4-auto, and we'll switch it up as necessary. Now this has the automatic rear locker. It's an Eaton rear locker, and when it detects a differential in speed between the two wheels, it's supposed to clamp down and provide a differential, a locked effect. We'll see how well that does. I love all this clearance. I mean, I have no doubts whatsoever that we can get up here. I mean, I could probably do this at like four times the speed, but the idea here is to show you how this four-wheel drive system responds to tricky conditions. So now we have no traction on this wheel or that wheel. I'm just going to lay on the throttle a little, and you can see how the wheels respond. Let's do that again, and this time I'm going to pull up the display of the four-wheel drive system so we can see what it's doing. As I accelerate, it's detecting slippage on the outside and clamping down and moving forward, just like it's supposed to do. No issues so far, so I'm just going to go up all the way. Okay, easy. Didn't have to change anything up. Could even take the hard line. No problem. There's one more feature I'm going to test here before we move on to more challenging stuff. Hill descent control. So I just hit a button there. It indicates there. Now the question is, can I control it? Okay, I'm going to stop completely. I don't see anything on the dash indicating that I'm controlling speed here. I'm hitting down, and it's doing nothing. Although the descent speed is reasonable, it might be one of those systems that detects your entry speed. Oh, it stopped me completely. I have not put my foot on the brake. Move forward a little. Okay, now this is reasonable. It detected a precarious situation, and it's like, whoop, hold on. That's nice. Okay, so it's a pretty smart system. That's great. Now let's move on to more challenging terrain and see how well this four-wheel drive with the auto rear locker can respond in conditions like this. Okay, now we're going to turn into Powerline Park. Now the access here is a little challenging. We could take the easy route on the right, but I'm going to go ahead and put my wheel all the way in the hole because I know this thing will have no problem getting through it. Unfortunately, the track I had in mind is covered with three to four inches of wet, sloppy snow. Luckily, I've been up this before. I know where the line is, and the snow normally can obscure challenges, but I'm going to assume that it's basically the same as it was before, just with the extra element of snow. To prepare, I am going to put the vehicle into four low, which it wants me to shift into neutral for that. Fine. Shift in progress. Traction off. Drive. Now that rear locker should engage automatically as I need it. There's nothing else really for me to do here. Let's see what this does. Now this is a much bigger vehicle than I brought out here before on this, so it'll be interesting to see how well this handles it. Whoa, whoa, I can feel that locker kicking in. Come on, you got this. Oh, you got, whoa, it's doing it. It's doing it. I just have to keep the faith and keep my foot on the throttle. Is it going to drag anything? Because it's so long. Let's back up a little bit and re... Okay, let's go there. Now this does have underbody protection, so that should help in the event that we get slipped. Oh man, this is so steep. I can feel that rear dip. Now hopefully we're seeing something with that rear camera. Let's go reverse. I'm wondering, am I actually dragging on these rails? Yep, my rails are actually dragging. Huh, well that's problematic. Let's see if maybe I can go a little more to the right. Can it do it? Can it do it? No, we're getting stuck here. It's just physically too big, but we were able to feel that rear differential really do its job, and that's kind of what we're doing here. We don't want to necessarily accomplish the course, although it's not bad to do it, but it's really about learning what the system does in response, and physically this vehicle is just too long. However, that rear diff really did engage, and that is a good thing. Let's see if we can find some other place to play here. Okay, so I bit off a little more than I could chew with that first one. Let's kind of explore the area in the snow and see if there's a better line for me to take here. Man, this thing is big, though. Got to be careful not to scratch it or hit any unexpected rocks. However, with the extra two-inch lift, that'll minimize that issue. Let's turn around here and try to...oop, that throttle. When that V8 kicks in, it kicks in hard. Getting the good line is right, and this thing is so big I'm not going to make that corner because, of course, this is a full-sized truck. Proper one at that. I still think I need to go a little bit more that way. Now, I am in four low still, so I'm going to get binding on the turns, but that's okay because I'm on snow and it's really slippery. Let's see if we can get up this part now. I would rate this one as easier than that other climb, but there is a point where physically your wheels aren't touching because we were on the sliders, so that really doesn't say anything negative about the all-wheel drive system, four-wheel drive system. It just says that this is a big truck. So, going up here, oh yeah, like butter. No problem at all. Now, it's a little deceiving. There are some really deep trenches in this snow, but you can't really tell because you're covered in snow. So, I took the 4Runner and the LX570 up here and there were several spots that I had to be really careful not to scrape. So, that holds true here even with the two-inch lift. Nice. Okay. Yeah, no problem at all. Now that we made it to the top, it's time to consider what to do next. Of course, one of the best things about snow and over 400 horsepower in a truck is switching into too high. Traction control's back on. So, let's turn off traction control. Where is that? Right there. And snowblower mode. More than just for fun, you can actually see the rear diffs kick in right here. As the differential detects a significant variance in rotational speed from left to right wheels, it locks, allowing the wheels to rotate at the same speed, which just happens to be great for snow nuts. The Trail Boss is a nice package if you want to have something that can tow a lot but also is capable of having fun on the weekends and you don't want to spend 80 grand on a pickup. I'd definitely consider the Silverado Trail Boss Custom. It's unfortunate we weren't able to try this out like on proper dirt. Snow can add to the hazard, that's for sure, but we had some fun today. What do you think? Would you pick this or would you pick the Ram Rebel? Post a comment below. For Driving Sports TV, I'm Ryan Douthit. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again right here next week. Oh, and drive safe.