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2020 Chevy HD

160K views 625 replies 117 participants last post by  FROGMAN524 
#1 ·
GM just dropped a teaser picture of the 2020 HD.

Some more info here. Apparently Ford and Ram are also going to have some upgrades to theirs too:

 

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#288 ·
The thing I am not a fan of is that if something in the whole headlight ever needs to be replaced, the whole headlight must be replaced...

I'm not sure if the new trucks are like this or not, but on my wife's 2013 Taurus, I inquired about a replacement tail light when her's wasn't working. Luckily the connector had just come loose, but anyways, the dealer wanted around $700 for one assembly. I checked other aftermarket sources, and they were pretty much the same price. To me, I'll stick with bulbs as long as I can before I pay those ridiculous prices for LEDs.
 
#289 ·
LEDs can be made in a form factor that matches existing bulbs, though. But I agree that OEMs making the entire housing and its bulb (LED or otherwise) a single "wear item" is terrible.

This kind of thing is insidious because you would never notice it when you're test-driving a vehicle, and honestly, I'd never have thought to ask if the entire taillight assembly was a single unit (until now, I guess). But it's a huge revenue generator for the OEMs because once you've bought the car you're pretty much on the hook for these insane proprietary parts when things break.
 
#290 ·
Oh if the LED replacement bulbs are decent, I'm fine with going to those!

And I never knew that the whole assembly had to be replaced either... Now maybe on the newer vehicles it is not that way, but I am not sure. I just know thats how it is on my wife's 2013 Taurus. And I agree, that's real crappy to have something like that be so much money, even on the aftermarket scale. I mean, if my wife was single, she could not afford to pay $700 for her headlight with the job she has. Heck, that was more than her car payment was years ago!

And what gets me is that while it could be a freak occurrence, it could happen. You hit a deer, a big stone gets tossed at your headlight, etc. That's a pretty big repair bill...
 
#291 ·
For a motivated owner out of warranty I expect that the individual LED or LED array could be replaced rather than face the expense of the entire assembly. Replacing modules and assemblies rather than components has been the norm for consumer (and most industrial) electronics products for years and if you rely upon the dealer or a garage that is what will happen with your light assembly. If a relay fails on the controller for your home furnace the service tech is going to replace the entire controller board even though the failed part is extremely inexpensive. This is one of the major reasons I am not real excited about our supposed fixation on green and sustainability because the entire carbon savings of a house full of "energy star" appliances is undone when you consider the carbon chain that goes into manufacturing that one replacement appliance and landfilling the old one rather than repairing. In many cases you can buy a new ink jet printer every year cheaper than buying a replacement set of ink cartridges; of course the frugal approach is to refill but manufacturers continue to try to block that approach.

To encourage rapid growth after WWII the Japanese business and tax codes were modified to encourage replacement rather than repair of consumer products and that helped feed the U.S. transition to the concept of replacing boards and then entire devices rather than repair as our remaining consumer electronics first tried to copy and later were overwhelmed by international competition. Any serious green effort would be targeted at the consumer demand side of the market making repair far cheaper than replacement; it would do much to lessen environmental impact of consumer goods growth and should be supported by the progressive branch because forcing expensive replacement rather than cheap repair of an existing item is about as regressive as you can get on many who can least afford to buy a new product.

Rant mode temporarily off while I fire up the other diesel (a Deere 955 compact utility tractor) to move the results from a snowstorm accompanied by 40 MPH gusts yesterday. My 2018 GMC will go through a lot but right now there is a wide 4 foot tall drift between its garage door and the rest of the driveway. It is one of those gray areas where there are some big drifts but not that much overall snow so I will probably just dig out with the loader and push with the rear blade rather than taking time to detach the blade and hook up the snow thrower. I am starting to miss Mississippi :)
 
#293 ·
I don't know what you guys are complaining about. I have full LED headlights in my BMW and they are better than HID and I've never once got high beams flashed at my for blinding someone. The people in front of me at stop lights don't cover their mirrors with their hands either like they do in my truck
 
#295 ·
I don't know what you guys are complaining about. I have full LED headlights in my BMW and they are better than HID and I've never once got high beams flashed at my for blinding someone.
BMW engineering probably has it down with the right lens and focus to match LEDs. And you'll probably find that out ($$$) one day if you hit something and have to replace the fixture. marx
 
#294 ·
The red/blue focus thing Horns explained is called chromatic abrasion. Lenses bend light according to it's wave length. Different lens materials do this in different ways so if you combine 2 different materials into one lens or use 2 lenses with different properties you can correct for this phenomenon. It is why the good optical tools like rifle scopes, microscopes and telescopes are so expensive. It takes more lenses and more precise manufacture to get rid of the abrasion. There is no denying though that the expensive lenses make a better image.

Our own eyes have relatively simple lenses. We compensate by being able to refocus quickly to match the color, at least when we are young. Maybe some day there will be an implantable lens that does a better job than oem but not yet.

There can be no denying that LEDs are the light source of the future. They are better in every way. They are different though. You can't just take an LED and put it where and incandescent used to be and have it work decently. With a nod toward one of our site sponsors, it is possible to make an LED setup that works rightly (not misspelled) but it takes some engineering. The better solution is to have lights designed around the light source that take advantage of the specifics of that source. There are plenty of junk incandescent headlights out there that are just as annoying as bad LEDs. There are also good LEDs that are just as good as or perhaps better than the best HID and incandescent lights.

I like the daylight color of my headlights. Some people don't. I try to aim my headlights so that they don't blind oncoming cars. It's unsafe for both of us if they can't see. I agree with Horns that it is more a matter of the quality of the lamp that matters, not the source of the light.
 
#298 ·
Ouch
 
#302 ·
They have confirmed moving the DEF tank!

From GMC wbsite:

To assist in clearing rugged terrain, Sierra Heavy Duty models offer at least 10 inches of ground clearance, along with an improved approach angle, and a repositioned diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) tank on diesel models enabling additional clearance.


Although I haven't yet read/heard that the fill location has changed....
 
#307 ·
The new half tons have a large fuel fill door with a blank space next to the gas inlet, looks like a DEF fill spot. The hinge on the new fill doors is a flimsy plastic and completely unimpressive. I foresee floppy and missing fill doors as a common sight on these trucks in the near future.
 
#308 ·
Also, they are calling the new Duramax transmission a “Allison BRANDED beefed-up GM 10 speed transmission”.

Is this the end of a real Allison in our beloved HDs???

I will not consider owning one until we see 5 years or more on these new trannys. The Allison is the number one reason I keep buying Duramaxes.
 
#313 ·
If Allison designed it or even had their hands in it, that's good enough for me. Allison isn't going to allow their name to be slapped on to something with subpar equipment.
 
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#314 ·
While I completely understand wanting to stay optimistic, a couple facts here.

1. Allison 1000 trannys are built by Allison. Made either in Baltimore or Indianapolis. Period. Originally designed for MDTs it was considered overkill for a pickup back in 2000 when we found out the new HDs would have them. History is obvious, and it’s easy to see the results of that decision.

2. The new transmissions will only have the brand name. They will be manufactured in-house by GM. maybe they’ll be great. Maybe they’ll be crap. I’m not going to invest $70,000 to find out :)

As of today this is becoming a buzz everywhere:

2020 Silverado HD's Allison Transmission Isn't Really An Allison | GM Authority

Maybe something better will come of this, but I’m going to need more than “if it says Allison it’s good enough for me“ to earn my dollars.
 
#323 ·
While I completely understand wanting to stay optimistic, a couple facts here.

1. Allison 1000 trannys are built by Allison. Made either in Baltimore or Indianapolis. Period.
If only it were a fact.
The 'oh no!' drama is funny. It's all tied up in licensing.
The propulsion plant outside of Baltimore is where all of the 1000 have been made from the 2001 model year forward.

GM didn't 'own' Allison, they owned some shares of stock. They acquired the exclusive use of the 1000s and part of the stock sell deal, was them keeping the MD plant. It's a GM made trans, always has been.

But they're closing that plant now with the scale back. Where they'll move the same in-house GM owned mfr facility to, we haven't seen. But wherever it is, that's where the 10-speed will come from. GM built, with an Allison tag, just as it has been for all of these years.
 
#326 ·
I hope you can still get an HD w/o those dumb roof marker lights. Required by law on duallies but as far as I'm concerned just another bulb to burn out and another hole to leak in the rain on an SRW.
 
#325 ·
I have to agree. I’ve worked at a gm dealer since 1999 and I’ve always loved the trucks until now. They look like a Nissan and Toyota coughed up some dodge phlegm that was hit by a meteor. I’m seeing more quality issues these days as well. Just this week in had an oil cooler line blow apart in a 2019 k1500 with 4K miles and I just finished a transmission replacement in a 19 Denali half ton with 1375 miles. The ironic part is that gm recently cut down our pre delivery pay because “their quality is so good that a test drive is not longer necessary “. Yeah right
 
#331 ·
They are putting so many "widgets" and technology on these pickups now days I think they may have lost some focus on some of the critical components. Think about where we've come from 1999. Back then maybe leather or an extended cab were a big option. I bought a decked out 2000 Ex cab half ton for $28K back then!
Compare that to a new Denali! I have said for several years that I wish they could come up with a HD pickup built for guys that use them in farming, ranching, construction, mining, etc. that were a little more robust for going off road. Probably a small market though. I wonder how many HD pickups get sold now that never go off road or pull anything? Not trying to say you can't get what you want but it's really pushed the price of these pickups up the past few years. I keep thinking we've hit the plateau on price but they keep getting higher and they keep selling them! I will say I'll probably never get another pickup that doesn't have leather. It's so much easier to keep clean.
 
#341 ·
Watched several YouTube videos last night for the 2020 GMC.

Here are some new items: Complete keyless entry, DEF filler valve located next to the fuel fill (nothing can go wrong here), overall truck and cab 1" higher, bed entry point 1" lower, heads up display. new style cab lights.

May need to have one of these.
 
#343 ·
It appears that GMC is playing the specification cards close to the vest. Many of the videos that I watched contained questions about specs and weight capacities and the GM folks would not answer any of those inquiries.

With the increased weight capacities, I am most curious about the capacity comparison of the 2500 v 3500.
 
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