Weekend roundup, nephew's 21st and a 900km round trip over 24 hours to do daughter's netball, drive, party, sleep, drive, and get back in time for daughter's dance recital practice.
Great on the highway, and wants to sit at 120km/h, not the mandated 100 or 110 depending on place...the pundits claim that the Colorado is harsher in engine noise than it's peers, and this is where it is actually quite noticeable. 1650ish RPM at cruise, the first response to lightly increased throttle is a grumble from the engine...wouldn't say a harsh grumble, just a grumble. Soon as it realises that you are calling to Scotty in the engine room, it unlocks and drops a gear no probs. 25MPG US all my daily commute and the trip out.
Trip back, decided to that the more direct route, through some windy, hilly roads...it's shorter, doesn't save you time or fuel in any of my previous vehicles.
The 6 speed auto programming is glorious...changes down a few gears when you start rolling away down hills...apply the brakes, and it changes down also to assist.
On the uphill parts, it held an always appropriate gear and revved out like a gasser (note...I've just stepped out of my 1993 3.0 TDi...and I've not driven the 7,000RPM v-6s that I see in the Colorado vids from the US)...the auto and turbo mean that I don't lose boost on the upshifts (my wife drove a turbodiesel auto captiva the other day and made the un prompted comment that "it didn't need to wind up after changing gears).
Looks like the trip home was 23MPG (US of course), which means that the hilly windy stuff is not as impacting on this ute as my previous vehicles.
Couple of funny things with the Colorado.
Coolant temperature is always low (it's controlled), but is 76/77C (
There's one hairpin that is a steep LHS (remember we drive on the LHS) low gear affair which usually has rain spread sand and road debris on the inside, that the Nissan with it's solid clutch pack LSD would start to spin scrabble the inside rear, then snap the rear out as the boost built...the helical LSD did start a scrabbbling feel, but no step out at all.
Haveing a great first few months of ownership.
Kids way more happy in the back of this one than the old blue Nissan.
(and I think wife wants to take the money that we gor for the Nissan, and buy HER first car, a 2008 Captiva diesel to replace the 1997 Caprice)