2015 GMC Sierra 1500 review notes: Needs a few more features

A blue-collar truck with a white-collar price

ASSOCIATE EDITOR GRAHAM KOZAK: There’s something to be said for a good, solid, workingman’s truck without all the bells and whistles we grew accustomed to on our long-term Silverado. Implicit in the whole “workingman’s truck” thing, though, is that said truck will provide said workingman some value for his hard-earned dollar.

At close to $ 37,000, this GMC Sierra is not that truck.

It’s not that $ 37,000 is a lot to spend on a full-size pickup truck these days; Indeed, this is nearer to the bottom of the pricing ladder. It’s that $ 37,000 doesn’t get you anywhere near the sort of features we’ve become accustomed to in 2015. There’s no four-wheel drive. No steering wheel-mounted audio controls (an omission that I found unexpectedly frustrating). No navigation, or even satellite radio, on the tiny 4.2-inch screen. No parking assist or backup camera. No sunroof!

OK, we may be a bit spoiled over here; a truck doesn’t need a sunroof. Strip all the goodies away and you’re still left with a fundamentally solid truck that rides extremely well, packs a powerful engine and has a quiet –- if somewhat feature-starved — cabin. The convenient fold-up rear bench seat provides a decent amount of cargo-stashing space, so if rain renders the pickup bed less-than-usable, you can still haul some stuff.

But if I spent this much on this particular truck, I think I’d soon be suffering from a serious case of feature-envy. I’ll hold automakers, including GM, somewhat responsible for elevating my expectations; we’re typically treated to top-of-the-line trucks that, while arguably unnecessary, raise the bar for the sort of luxury this once-rugged segment is capable of offering.

But a bigger part of it is that I’ve become accustomed to silly but increasingly widespread things like parking aids, and I’m loath to do without them. In that regard, I don’t know that I’m all that different than a typical consumer. True, you didn’t need a backup camera on a pickup two decades ago, but trucks back then weren’t quite so hulking …

So again, at close to $ 37,000, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but your mileage may vary. In case you were thinking you could grab some savings by going the Chevy route … think again. A similarly configured Silverado 1500 clocks in at roughly the same amount thanks to a starting MSRP of $ 31,390.

On the other hand, you can get yourself into a really, really nice Colorado or Canyon for this kind of money (which might be the thought behind this pricing structure). Given the sort of things I do on a semi-regular basis, I’d take the well-equipped midsizer over the bare-bones full-sizer any day of the week.

2015 GMC Sierra 1500 review notes: Needs a few more features

2015 Sierra 1500 Photo by GMC

DIGITAL EDITOR ANDREW STOY: Let’s get this pricing nonsense out of the way first. As with everyone else in the office who drove our Sierra Elevation Edition, I questioned the silly MSRP. Knowing GM’s propensity to overprice then incentivize, I decided to visit gmc.com to build and price my own and see what the bottom line price looked like. I never got that far — the first thing I saw on GMC’s site was this:

Remember folks, MSRP means Manufacturer SUGGESTED Retail Price …

So, there’s that. Realistically, this is more of a high-$ 20K/low-$ 30K proposition, which makes it a heck of a lot more palatable and a lot more competitive with the midsize trucks now on the market (most of which aren’t going to carry nearly the incentive package the massively produced full-sizers do).

Once past the price, the revelation that struck me driving the Sierra is that this is where all the full-size American car customers have gone. That’s what this is — a tall ’78 Caprice. Big V8 up front, column-shifted automatic transmission, rear drive, body-on-frame construction and two big bench seats. The irony, of course, is that today’s full-size pickups drive and handle better than the full-size sedans of a generation earlier, and our Sierra is among the best of the modern half-tons. It’s supremely quiet and smooth from side streets to highways and displays the same leisurely but inevitable acceleration of the best big-vehicle/big-torque combos. This is the kind of truck I want when I’m a grandpa puttering around my (fictitious) lake property.

Equipment levels are an issue, but a few minor tweaks of the option boxes would fix my complaints: First off, anything this big needs both a reverse camera and backup sensors standard, period. As a dad in a neighborhood full of kids, no amount of driving experience and careful backing up can offer the extra security of a high-res monitor on the tailgate. Second, the standard head-unit screen is tiny, but it’s in a space reserved for a huge touchscreen setup; as such, there’s a ton of unused black plastic space on the dash which could be turned into storage bins or something other than a constant reminder of the infotainment unit you COULD have had.

Otherwise, this is a great truck, and it’s nice to see a basic, cloth-interior, rear-drive pickup come through the fleet. We used it for mulch, fill dirt, metal recycling and a trip to the ice cream parlor — just like full-size pickups have been used for generations.

2015 Sierra 1500 Photo by GMC

ASSOCIATE EDITOR WESLEY WREN: When I stepped inside this truck, I instantly wanted to listen to some Waylon Jennings and start chain smoking. I did one of those things.

This truck is as stripped down as you can get a crew-cab GMC (at least on the inside), but it feels like the quintessential truck. Actually, it felt a little better than what one would normally expect out of a full-size pickup. It is kind of nimble, which was a pleasant surprise as most full-size pickups are laboring hulks that aren’t very city friendly. The fact that this model is a two-wheel-drive variant probably didn’t hurt the nimble nature of the handling but would make it worthless in an Arctic endeavor.

The 5.3-liter V8 provides more than enough power to get this sucker rollin’, and sucker it is, only netting around 18 mpg. The V8 is backed by a six-speed automatic transmission, which did everything one could hope for out of an automatic transmission: shift smoothly.

The confusing part about the stripped-down nature of this truck’s interior is that it lacks a USB port but has a Bluetooth-enabled head unit. I would have much preferred a normal USB port over having to fight with the Bluetooth to play music. Also, as Graham mentioned, the lack of a multifunction steering wheel made for an interesting return to actually touching the radio again. Of course, one could option a multifunction steering wheel into the package, and I strongly suggest that you at least consider it.

I would’ve liked a chance to haul a boat or maybe a motorcycle or two around in this truck. I think that would be an area where a two-wheel-drive full-size pickup like this Sierra would actually make sense. It should really be four-wheel drive, though. I suppose if you want a truck you’ll only drive nine months out of the year in the northern states, then you’re welcome to it — but it just doesn’t suit my needs.

Options: Elevation Edition, including 20-inch black painted alloy wheels, auto-locking rear differential, halogen projector headlamps with LED signature, front fog lamps, power heated outside mirrors, body color mirror cap, body color accessory grille surround, front bumper body color, rear bumper body color, door handles body color, front black recovery hooks, bodyside moldings body color, deep-tinted glass, cargo box LED lighting, 4.2-inch diagonal color display audio system with Intellilink, six months of OnStar directions and connections with automatic crash response and turn-by-turn navigation plus five-year OnStar basic plan, remote keyless entry, 110-volt AC power outlet and color-keyed carpet ($ 3,855); 5.3-liter V8 Ecotec3 engine ($ 1,095); spray-on bed liner ($ 475); Elevation Edition discount (minus $ 750)

By Autoweek Editors