Should You Buy a 4-Cylinder Chevy Silverado? We Tried One to Find Out

The pickup’s 2.7-liter ‘high output’ engine is new-and-improved … and still kind of weird.

2023 chevrolet silverado custom trail boss turbomax four cylinder

Published August 21, 2023

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Back in 2022, Chevrolet gave the current generation of its country-music-and-football-ad staple, the Silverado, a mid-life refresh. As usual, it came with a variety of updates inside and out — faster-and-flashier infotainment systems, revised front-end styling, a new F-150 Raptor-righting ZR2 off-road trim. Arguably, though, one of the most significant changes was to what Chevy dubbed the “2.7-Liter High Output” motor at launch and rebranded to “TurboMax” for 2023: the Silverado’s turbocharged four-cylinder powerplant.

The mid-life refresh saw Chevy dial up the engine’s torque by nearly 20 percent, to an impressive 430 lb-ft — 47 lb-ft more than the 5.3-liter V8 that occupies the next rung in the powertrain ladder — as well as make tweaks to the eight-speed automatic for more intuitive shifting. Do the changes make this oft-maligned engine worth choosing? To find out, we took two separate four-cylinder Silverados out for two different drives: first, a brief spin on the roads through Palm Springs, California; second, a two-week, 1,000-mile sojourn around New York and New England.

2023 Chevrolet Silverado TurboMax: What We Think

The Silverado’s four-cylinder engine lacks the character of Chevy’s V8 engines, and its gearbox a less-willing partner than the newer transmissions found in the eight-cylinder models. The 5.3-liter V8 is a relatively affordable step up (at least by the standards of the increasingly pricey full-size truck market), and it brings added horsepower and significantly greater refinement while offering similar fuel economy.

Still, buyers looking to maximize their value by keeping their pickup as affordable as possible won’t be disappointed in this base engine, as it’s more than potent enough for most real-world truck tasks thanks to its ample supply of torque.

4-cylinder trucks are becoming more common, but they’re still kind of … weird

Full-size pickup trucks generally don’t see four-cylinder engines under their hoods. Four-pots are growing more common in the smaller truck categories, sure; Ford’s Maverick and Ranger, Toyota’s new 2024 Tacoma, and GM’s latest Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon all exclusively come equipped with four-cylinder engines, each of which is equipped with a turbocharged, hybrid system or both for improved power and efficiency. But the bigger trucks historically known as half-ton pickups have eschewed dropping down below six cylinders.

The ultimate sign of how weird it is to have an inline-four engine in a modern full-size truck? You won’t find any General Motors PR info about it containing the words “four-cylinder.” In fact, even the “2.7-Liter High Output” branding was apparently too specific for the marketing team — hence, much like how Homer Simpson sought to avoid embarrassment by changing his name to Max Power, Chevy tweaked the four-cylinder’s name to TurboMax.

The Silverado’s 2.7-liter is capable, but it’s no V8

Fun fact: the TurboMax is not the only 2.7-liter turbocharged engine found in a full-size pickup truck. Ford also has one for the F-150; it just has double the turbos and two more cylinders.

The four-pot is serviceable enough for actual driving. There’s a bit of lag, but once the turbo kicks in, the torque comes on strong; there’s more than enough oomph in the midrange to merge onto the highway and pass others once you’re there. It’s not the top-dog Silverado for hauling trailers, but with more than 9,000 pounds of towing capacity, odds are good it’s plenty for what many folks need to yank behind — camping trailers, snowmobiles, small boats, U-Hauls. And having forced induction means the TurboMax will likely do better at altitude than the naturally aspirated 5.3-liter V8, making it a good choice for Coloradoans living west of Denver.

Still, at $1,595–$2,415 more depending on trim, the 5.3-liter V8 feels like the preferred choice. (The only trim level where you don’t have the option is the Custom, one step up from the Work Truck.) Performance isn’t the reason; rather, it’s the driving experience. The four-cylinder sounds gravelly, like it’s exerting itself all the time. It sounds like a Civic when you floor it, which probably isn’t what many truck buyers are looking for. (That said, the turbo’s whoosh does give it a diesel-like character at lower rpm.) The power delivery is less linear than with a naturally aspirated V8, too, which led to a lack of needed delicacy during a U-turn on an off-road trail.

The TurboMax’s gearbox isn’t as good as others in the lineup

Perhaps the biggest reason to go with the 5.3, however, isn’t even the engine; it’s the associated gearbox. V8 Silverados use GM’s newer 10-speed automatic, and while the four-cylinder’s eight-speed may have been upgraded, it’s still no match for its relation. The eight speed is slow to kick down and takes its time shifting once it realizes what it needs to do.

At the very least, different drive modes or a good manual shift setup would make it easier to keep the engine in the power band. But the Custom Trail Boss trim level we logged our Proclaimers song worth of mileage in had none of the former — not even a Tow/Haul mode — and a tiny toggle switch on the column-mounted shift lever for the latter, which feels more designed for locking out tall gears when descending hills than using like a Tiptronic.

The 4-cylinder Silverado can’t justify itself on fuel efficiency

In theory, efficiency would be the main reason to opt for a four-cylinder engine in a truck. In practice, however, there’s little difference between the TurboMax and the eight-cylinder smallblocks. The EPA rates the 2.7-liter engine at 18 mpg city, 19 mpg combined and 21 mpg highway, or 17 / 17 /18 with the Trail Boss’s mud-terrain tires; the 5.3-liter V8 is one or two mpg lower on all counts, and the 6.2-liter V8 similar for regular models and one mpg further down for ones on off-road rubber.

Over the course of our 1,000-plus miles behind the wheel, the trip computer proved the EPA pretty accurate. We saw 19.0 mpg during mixed driving with our mud-terrain-tire-equipped tester, and that was in part due to around 60 miles of unexpected efficient steady-state cruising in the 50-mph range while stuck behind a series of slow-moving flatlanders on a Vermont two-lane.

But as a base engine, the TurboMax makes sense

With the demise of the 4.3-liter V6 from the bottom of the lineup back in 2021, the turbo four-cylinder has become the Silverado and GMC Sierra’s new base engine — a place in the lineup where it holds up quite well. Ford and Ram still offer naturally-aspirated V6s at the base of their lineups, neither of which can hold a candle to the TurboMax on torque. Considering four-wheel-drive crew cab pickup trucks — i.e. the spec favored by the majority of American buyers — now start at around $50,000 in basic form, offering an engine with at least one power statistic starting in a four is a nice move for customers.