Memo to Chevrolet: give the Colorado some serious attention

The first number is “4.” The second “95.”

The 91-point gap between the two is a brutal indictment of a pickup truck and a brand — and it’s really quite inexplicable. You see, Chevrolet’s Colorado midsize pickup earned just four points and finished dead last among all vehicles in the most recent reliability study from Consumer Reports. FOUR POINTS. At the other end of the spectrum, Mazda’s MX-5 Miata roadster earned 95 points.

The cabin is functional but a the design is tired.

I hope there are red faces all around General Motors’ downtown Detroit headquarters. Indeed, GM’s Chevrolet brand ranks 25^th out of 30 brands in the reliability study. Three of the 10 least reliable vehicles in the study come from Chevy.

Now CR’s reliability survey is not the be-all and end-all, but it does attempt to quantify a collection of scores and impressions from both expert testers and the public at large. The final overall score reflects measures of “road-test performance, owner satisfaction survey results, whether a vehicle comes with key safety systems, and results from crash tests, if applicable.”

The least expensive Colorado starts at $27,000. It’s not a cheapo runabout. Loaded up with everything, including GM’s Duramax turbodiesel, you can push the sticker above $45,000. GM should be ashamed to charge that kind of coin for a rig that ranks dead last in a respected reliability study.

To date, GM has been careful in its response to a study that saw its Cadillac brand finish dead last.

“While we take this study seriously, it is only one of several data sources we use to measure customer satisfaction,” a spokesman told The Wall Street Journal.

This design is muscular.

There is some chatter out there about transmission problems with the Colorado. Transport Canada lists seven recalls since 2015, which is not particularly egregious, and you can find owner groups complaining about a variety grievances. Again, what CR’s score reflects is a broad swath of metrics.

Personally, I quite like the Colorado. I’ve spent more than a week with the current model and found it to be a useful pickup with decent ride quality, a solid if uninspired look and strong capabilities (e.g., towing capacity more than 10,000 pounds). Nothing in my experience suggests the Colorado should be kicked to the curb in such humiliating fashion, even with materials that are at best average in look, feel and function.

Yes, the cabin design screams “dated” and the relatively old-school safety and convenience features suggest a re-do is required. No doubt the CR results reflect he lack of lane departure warning and blind spot monitoring and such. And crash test scores from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are not great.

But the infotainment system is a snap to use, and the buttons and dials are a welcome asset and redundancy. The 3.6-litre V-6 in my tester is powerful enough (308 horsepower/275 lb-ft of torque) and it’s mated to a clean-shifting, eight-speed automatic gearbox with a tow-haul feature that keeps engine speeds in the 2,500-3,000 rpm range. The front seats are mid-pack in terms of comfort, but deserving of the kind of scorn that comes with a 4.0 reliability score from CR.

GM launched the Colorado and its GMC sibling, the Canyon, years ago and has since left it to trundle along, essentially unchanged, even as Ford launches the rival Ranger and Toyota boosts the Tacoma, the segment’s best-seller. I suspect that with a little care and attention, GM could lift its CR score out of the basement.

Time for GM to step and a get the job done right, to erase this embarrassing CR score.