Chevy Colorado & GMC Canyon

Bought a 2003 S10, like it a lot.

I never ever will buy the first year of any pickup. They could be great or plagued with problems, you never know.

James

"B. Meyers" wrote

I'll be interested to see the 5 cylinder engine design. I had an Audi a few years ago and the

5 cylinder inline engine was a very nice powerplant.

Ian

Supercharge that straight 5 and watch it fly. If chevy were to ever design an SS truck, it needs to be a colorado SS with AWD. Can you say Syclone II ?

Copy and paste if needed:

Why did Chevy abandon the old powertrain and the main selling point of the S10 series, namely the 4.3 V-6 and 4L60E combo in favor of a new design??

Hi!

Lord no! Uuuuuuugly! I got a 2003 S-10, because it doesn't look totally ridiculous in traffic.

I don't like the fact that GM is seemingly no longer offering a V6 motor with these trucks. The 4 cylinder is too small any really hard work and I think a 5 cylinder engine is just plain strange. I'm skeptical that one extra cylinder and a little more displacement can have much noticeable effect... Reliability of at least the 5 cylinder hasn't been proven AFAIK...while the Vortec 4300 V6 will just run and run and run some more.

William

Why? The 4.3L has been around since 88 in these trucks (if you go back to the TBI days). The transmission stays the same AFAIK. The engine's getting old, I suppose the same question could have been asked when GM moved from the 5.0/5.7 in the 88-98 full-size to the

4.8/5.3 in the 99-current full-size.

Hi!

The S-10 was the last remaining Chevy truck that wasn't ugly. :-D

Seriously, might be because the model was about 20 years old. Guess they decided it was time for a freshening up with a new model. I think that providing some of the features that are provided on full size trucks (or, more opinionated/personally, providing a window lockout switch on all cab models!) would have been a nice touch for the S-10 though...

William

In a nutshell, the 4.3L V-6 is not set up for variable valve timing. The time and expense of modifying the 4.3 for this, along with a host of other needed modifications plus retooling most likely would meet the cost of an entirely new motor. When you also figure in the fact that an inline powerplant also has fewer moving parts, less internal friction (read more efficient), and is cheaper to produce than a comparable V motor then you can see why I believe the 4.3 was doomed. This is why I believe that Jeep's

4.0L I-6 hung around for so long.

Way back when, I learned on large diesel engines with odd numbers of cylinders (3 and 5). This was because prime movers with an odd number of cylinders couldn't hit a harmonic vibration and tear themselves apart. On marine powerplants that run 2-3 stories tall, this is an important consideration.

Cheers - Jonathan

I will certainly agree that the 4.3 is a nice motor. I have one that just hit 111,000. Considering it's a 5.7 that's missing a cylinder in each bank, this isn't a big surprise. I just think that, like the

5.7, the design is aging and is reaching the point of not getting any more performance and keeping the economy that it currently has without spending almost as much re-designing it as they would have if they just designed a new engine, as another poster pointed out. I enjoy my engine, it's still got PLENTY of power (195 HP brand-new, don't think it's lost much) and the transmission still shifts smoothly, but it's just getting out-dated.

: In a nutshell, the 4.3L V-6 is not : set up for variable valve timing.

Many people, including myself, are going to be disappointed to see the bulletproof 4.3L leave the line-up. It is, and was, an excellent V6.

Glad to have my 4.3,

Scott Moseman snipped-for-privacy@highflow.net