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Federal mandates require ane camera for backing upwardly in all vehicles. The 2020 GMC Sierra full-size pickup truck matches and raises the feds. You can have cameras on all iv sides, looking down into the pickup bed, another inside your trailer, another looking behind the trailer — every bit many as fifteen camera views of the trailer alone. The most fascinating is an Ten-ray view that effectively sees through your trailer and shows the view. GMC has finally solved the blind-spot problem with trailers.

Add in the carbon fiber bed liner and six-way MultiPro folding tailgate introduced terminal year, more efficient and more powerful gas and diesel engines, and the ability for a pair of the heaviest-duty Sierras to carry the payload of an fourscore,000-pound 18-wheeler, and it shows GMC more than than matches the contest in new features.

Upscale Brand, Corking HUD, Not Afraid to Get Dirty

GMC is the upscale pickup truck and SUV brand to Chevrolet, as Lincoln would be to Ford if Lincoln did more than fiddle in the pickup business concern (Blackwood 2002, Marker LT 2006). For at present, GMC has several innovations — they are more than gimmicks — that make its pickups a viable culling to the similar Chevrolet Silverado that hasn't nonetheless gotten GMC's technology. The 2020 models tested here are GMC's heavier duty pickups, the Sierra 2500 Hard disk drive and Sierra 3500 HD, both of which are beefier than the mainstream GMC Sierra 1500 LD (lite duty) introduced a year agone. The HD pickups are for people who tow big boats or trailers or want a full-size heavy-duty pickup (Sierra AT4) to go off-roading. "Light-duty" is a relative term; the Sierra 1500 LD can tow up to ix,300 pounds, versus 4,000 pounds for a midsize GMC Acadia SUV or eight,100-8,500 pounds for the full-size Yukon Denali SUV.

Here's what I found driving various GMC heavy-duty pickup trucks on the highways, country roads, and hilly/muddy off-road areas of Wyoming and Idaho: These are serious trucks. The new features, such every bit the cameras, multi-way tailgate, and carbon fiber bed liner, are all useful. The crew cab cockpits are roomy, there are enough of USB jacks, the cupholders are sized for Big Gulp cups, the diesels really haul nevertheless 1 gets 30 mpg on the highway, and the contest should figure a way to piece of work around any patents GMC has on its camera system. The head-upwardly display provides the biggest image I've seen, and one of the nigh useful. The one tech downside is the viii-inch center stack display looks positively tiny in a truck that fits three NFL linemen side-by-side in the crew cab row.

GMC Sierra's Transparent Trailer Rear Camera View. Software working with the cameras identifies the edges of the trailer box, outlines them, and makes the inside transparent and then the center stack LCD shows the view as you had an X-ray camera. The software also has to do some parallax corrections since the trailer box camera could exist xxx anxiety backside the truck bed camera.

Amazing ProGrade Trailering Camera System

Rear side camera view when turning left.

No surprise: Total-size pickup trucks are big (213 to a whopping 247 inches long for the Sierra HD). Possible surprise: Non every driver is 100 per centum comfortable driving a pickup and a trailer. Maybe the owner feels savvy, but less so the spouse/partner or young developed family member, who has to share the driving. The ProGrade Trailering Organisation cameras give normal people a take chances to drive more safely and confidently. With the multi-photographic camera package, you take these views:

  1. Front view
  2. Front peak-down view
  3. Front side view
  4. Rear view (with a trailer, yous'd come across the hitch and front of the trailer)
  5. Rear pinnacle-down view
  6. Rear side camera
  7. Rear trailer view (looking back from atop the trailer)
  8. Movie-in-picture side-view photographic camera (rear side views and the view behind the trailer — the view that cries out for a Ram 1500- or Tesla-size LCD)
  9. Bowl view (looking back showing the truck and trailer, using realistic icon imagery, equally if a drone flew 10 feet in front of your truck)
  10. Transparent trailer rear camera
  11. Bed view
  12. Hitch view
  13. Rearview mirror photographic camera (the optical inside mirror that flips to a broad-angle LCD camera view)
  14. Rear surround view (broad-angle)
  15. Inside trailer view

The camera system can switch views automatically, or when you flip the turn point blinker. Say you're driving and showtime to make a plow. The system switches to cameras on the turning side and you get a wide-angle view of the truck, trailer, roadway, and possible hazards such as center berms, curbs, or vehicles perhaps inside the arc of your plow. I found this most helpful making broad turns (the merely kind possible here) with a 30-foot trailer and 14,000 pounds of cargo. Sometimes y'all don't e'er see things, similar say a Suzuki Samurai that is but a blip in the side mirror otherwise.

Currently, ProGrade Trailering works with box trailers (the ones that haul stuff, or horses) or camping trailers up to 32 anxiety long. Boat trailers are currently not uniform.

Land Rover'south Transparent Bonnet concept of 2014 shows what's under the hood when driving off-road.

Ten-Ray Vision: Skilful Thought, Finally in Production

Samsung Transparent Truck

Others have shown X-ray concepts over the years. Land Rover five years agone demoed a Transparent Bonnet, which uses the forrad-facing photographic camera plus fourth dimension-lapse to evidence off-roaders the rocks and hazards under the hood (bonnet). It also showed a concept Transparent Trailer which does exactly what GMC's ProGrade Trailering system does.

In 2015, Samsung showed an even-more conceptual Samsung Transparent Truck. The rear of the truck box would show a video image of the road ahead, useful for showing cars behind when it's not rubber to endeavor a pass on a two-lane road as in the epitome (right).

Hauling Large Loads

The indicate of a heavier-duty pickup is the ability to haul bigger loads, or be set to haul them should the need arise. To wit, a contempo Ford survey of large-SUV intenders said virtually all wanted to tow trailers. But only a scattering actually towed anything their current vehicles. GMC may tell you that'southward SUVs and not pickups, or Ford and not GMC. But however: People often buy vehicles for the well-nigh extreme utilise they might accept over their years of ownership or lease.

A pair of GMC Sierra Hard disk 3500 pickups, suitably equipped, can haul near as much equally an fourscore,000-pound tractor-trailer. A gooseneck trailer (with the hitch in the truck bed) can be 35,500 to 43,500 pounds. Scout your mirrors, Peterbilt.

There are four-, six-, and eight-cylinder gasoline engine choices, at to the lowest degree if you lot include the Sierra 1500 LD along with the 2500 and 3500 Hard disk drive. For hauling, diesels are the selection since you want to maximize torque. Torque, non horsepower, is what gets a truck and x,000-pound trailer up a 6 percentage grade, and torque is an attribute of diesels (also electric motors). The base of operations diesel fuel for Sierra is a 3.0-liter inline half dozen-cylinder with 277 hp and 460 pound-feet of torque, allowing a tow load of 9,100 pounds or a cargo load of one,830 pounds, which is less than the sibling Chevy Silverado, the Ford F-150, and Ram 1500, all rated for x,000-pounds-plus towing. GMC says it wanted a xxx-mpg highway rating for the 1500 LD. For those who dislike pickups because they're big and therefore fuel-inefficient, the light-duty diesel is an elegant rebuttal.

Anyway, GMC says, people who desire to haul more than than 10,000 pounds typically go for the HD trucks. They did this knowing competitors will beat upward on GMC for selling a diesel that hauls less than x,000 pounds.

For the HD Sierras, there'southward a gas-engine six.six-liter V8 with 401 hp and 464 pound-feet of torque, mated to a six-speed automated. An optional Duramax 6.6-liter diesel produces 445 hp (not much more than the gas engine), but with 910 pound-feet of torque and continued to a ten-speed Allison automated transmission. That's a $ix,500 upgrade. Add a second-wheel (yet ane axle) on each side in back, the large Duramax, and yous accept a regular cab Sierra Hard disk DRW (dual-rear-wheel) that has a gross combined weight rating of 43,500 pounds, a fifth-wheel hitch tow rating of 32,000 pounds, a gooseneck trailer rating of 35,500 pounds, and a max payload of 6,532 pounds. Every Sierra Hd, gas or diesel fuel, 2500 or 3500 Hard disk drive, tows at least 14,500 pounds.

Fans of Ford and Ram volition note that depending on configuration, their brand has more of X-feature. Ram's Cummins Hd diesel is rated at i,000 pound-feet of torque, near notably. All this shows that no one has a clear or long-term advantage in the specs wars, which makes GMC's newest features – ProGrade Trailering (the cameras), the MultiPro tailgate and the carbon fiber bed and so compelling.

The GMC Sierra AT4 off-roading and kicking up dirt in the Rocky Mountains. It makes for keen photos. Annotation the photographer mired in the mud, getting in-close for a smashing shot …

Off-Roading: Why Non?

GMC has a solid, midsize off-road capable truck in the GMC Coulee, sibling to the Chevrolet Colorado. Now there's an all-new 2020 GMC Sierra Heavy Duty AT4 with off-route suspension, Rancho shocks, sideslip plates, an Eagon locking rear differential, an off-route mode for the traction choice system, loma-descent/hill-kickoff help, an off-road inclinometer in the optional head-up brandish, and a surround vision system with depression-speed views showing vehicle surroundings such as large rocks and ditches.

… The same Sierra AT4, this time splashing through the mud. Notation the photographer (Non the author) suffering for his art. He stepped back for this lap. But not far plenty.

I toured an off-road course GMC fix for the AT4 and would have happily spent the entire mean solar day there. In that location is nothing similar getting muddied a truck you don't own, and giving it back in the same condition, with no repercussions.

If y'all're an off-roader, you already know this: Big pickups are fine for off-roading in wide-open up spaces. On narrow trails, a smaller vehicle is ameliorate. It'south one reason the Jeep Wrangler sells and sells.

The GMC Sierra pickup ranks fourth in 2019 sales among full-size pickups. (The Tacoma is a midsize.)

Should Y'all Buy?

The GMC Sierra full-size pickups trail Ford, Ram, and Chevrolet in sales. But GMC is alee on features, especially for towing. (Ford has 1 useful feature that hasn't been matched: Pro Trailer Backup Assist, a dashboard knob that turns the whole truck and trailer in the direction you want, without fear of jackknifing or figuring which manner to plough the steering wheel.) The fourth-generation Sierra launched in 2019 with the 1500 LD; the 2500 HD and 3500 Hd are new for summer 2019.

From low to high, the GMC Sierra trim lines are SLE, Elevation, SLT, AT4, and Denali. The carbon fiber bed comes standard in the top three trim lines, optional in the others. In that location are regular and long cargo boxes, and single cab, double cab, and crew cab seating configurations.

If you want the almost flexible towing options, GMC is the go-to make. The camera organization is outstanding and should be put on 18-wheeler trucks besides, to improve safety. GM has improved the land of the fine art, and vehicle rubber, with its ProGrade camera organization. It's a gem.

The carbon cobweb bedliner definitely protects against dents and damage. Some of GMC'southward comparative-reward claims apply extreme tests cases such as precipitous objects dropped from 25-l feet up. Lots of pickup trucks survive extreme daily use with many small dents and never a puncture. A spray-on bedliner minimizes corrective harm, while GMC's CarbonPro bed virtually stops corrective and puncture damage. If you're into a pickup for $sixty,000 or more than, $i,000 for a carbon bed isn't unreasonable.

The Sierra 1500 now gets adaptive cruise as an option, but the best you can get with the 2500 and 3500 Hd is cruise control. ACC on the big pickups would exist a do good, suitably modified so ACC's minimum post-obit distances are modified relative to the cargo you're conveying. A pickup with ten,000 pounds of cargo takes a longer time slow or finish.

There are only a couple downsides you should know nearly the GMC Sierra series. The Sierras you desire toll a lot, same as pickups from every maker. The college-end AT4 and Denali trim lines are quite nice, merely overall Ram and F-150 accept nicer interiors at comparable trim lines, fifty-fifty when GMC is the 1 premium-nameplate, pickup-truck maker.

If engineering matters, GMC has a lot to offering than no ane else: the great head-up display, the unmatched camera arrangement, the carbon cobweb bad, and the multi-manner tailgate.

Now read:

  • 2019 GMC Sierra [1500 LD] Review: Innovative Tailgate, Great Head-Up Display
  • 2019 Chevrolet Silverado Review: 8 Models Gear up to Fight Ford, Ram
  • 2019 Ford Ranger Midsize Pickup Review: What'due south New Once again Is Sometime