1999 Chevrolet Silverado LT K1500

1999 Chevrolet Silverado LT K1500 1999 Chevrolet Silverado LT K1500
Long-Term Road Test

Of all the vehicles we've put through our long-term school of hard knocks, this Chevy pickup probably underwent the severest curriculum. Two of us here at Hogback Road spent the summer of '99 racing cars at road circuits around the Midwest and South, and the Silverado got stuck towing our cars--a pair of 2200-pound Honda CRXs--and a 2000-pound trailer. In fact, about a fourth of this truck's 40,000 miles was spent tugging that trailer and those cars to faraway racetracks in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Georgia.

Our Silverado performed this work with relative ease and never left us stranded. Two things kept us from calling the Silverado a perfect tow vehicle: It was not bulletproof during its stay, and the brake pedal felt mushy, not firm the way you'd like it when towing a heavy load.

New for 1999, the Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups hit the streets in mid-'98. We liked them immediately, and a GMC version won its first comparison test with a Ford F-150 and a Dodge Ram ("Cash Cows," C/D, October 1998). We took delivery in February 1999 of a half-ton, four-wheel-drive Silverado with an extended cab.

The pickup was generously equipped, and its as-tested price came to $32,314. Maybe that's the going price these days for a "luxury" pickup, which seems to be an oxymoron of the first rank, but it still seemed like a lot of money for a truck. It came with a 270-hp, 5.3-liter V-8 engine and four-speed automatic transmission, leather upholstery, power and heated front seats, a CD/cassette player, and a towing package that included a hitch, trailer wiring, and a transmission-oil cooler.
We instantly liked the Silverado's smooth, strong powertrain, roomy rear seat, and comfortable--for a pickup--ride. A third passenger-side, rear-hinged door gave access to the rear seat, but we missed that fourth door that both Ford and Dodge offer on their trucks.

Servicing the Silverado is not the no-brainer it ought to be. The manual calls for a service every 7500 miles. It consists of a chassis lubrication, a tire rotation, and a half-dozen inspections. Every 15,000 miles, the interior air filter needs replacing. The spark plugs are good for 100,000 miles, ditto the fluid for the automatic transmission, unless you do a lot of towing, in which case you must seek service at intervals of 50,000 miles. And speaking of long-term, a change of the coolant should take place at 150,000 miles.

According to the manual, the oil and its filter should be replaced when the engine computer flashes an order to do so via a dashboard warning light, or every 7500 miles, whichever comes first. The only problem is that the two events--the oil change and the tire rotation and so forth--can come at different times. You might have to drop off your pickup for an oil change at 6000 miles and return for the other maintenance at the 7500-mile mark, so in effect your visits to the dealer might be doubled over traditional servicing schedules.

Lucky for us, the light ordering an oil change came on close enough to the service interval that we simply combined scheduled services--and it's a practice we anticipate most owners will follow. The total bill for our five scheduled stops was an inexpensive $310, the lowest service cost we've recorded for any long-term pickup in the past four years.
Something irritating happened early on. After just six weeks, the latch on the tailgate wouldn't close, and the power driver's seat only worked on a sometime basis. Of course, when the truck dictated an oil change at 6903 miles, which turned into the initial 7500-mile stop, the power mechanism worked fine. A new tailgate latch was installed under the Silverado's three-year/36,000-mile warranty, and the total for the service was $42. As soon as we got the truck home, the power seat went on the blink, natch.

Five hundred miles later, that power seat quit for good. Back at the dealer, the service crew discovered that the wiring in the seat had frayed after rubbing against the power-seat mechanism. Repairing and repositioning the wires fixed the problem. Again, we weren't charged, and the repair took just one day.