And the new ride is...

[2QuickZ's]

A 2021 GMC Canyon Denali - White with Cocoa/Dark Atmosphere interior.  Big change from the CTS but not the first truck I have had.  It's been a number of years now but I have had two S10's and two Rangers through the years.  So why a Canyon you ask?  Well, I decided I wanted a truck for towing the camper and full size, while very nice, just didn't suit our needs.  It doesn't fit in the garage and would be hard to get around when parked in the driveway.  I did really want the 3.0L Duramax, though, so I gave it some serious thought.  I was either going to get a truck or buy the Cadillac.  Eventually decided on either a Colorado or Canyon but the initial stop at a Chevy and GMC dealer did not result in encouraging leasing rates for either.  I had decided to order a 2022 Canyon Elevation pretty well loaded up and just extend the Cadillac lease until it came in if necessary.  I prefer the no chrome look and bright blue of the Elevation and was going to go that route.  Then I received a mailer from another local GMC dealership offering an attractive lease price on a Canyon Denali so I went and talked to them.  The out the door deal wound up reasonable enough that I decided to pull the trigger.

I generally prefer brighter exterior colors but after having several cars in a row with black interiors I decided to prioritize the interior color over the exterior color.  Since inventories are tight, I had to go with what the dealership had so white it is!  While not my first choice (I would have preferred Hunter Metallic as you can't get the Denali in blue), I actually do think it looks pretty good in white.

I have only put a couple hundred miles on it so far so too early to offer in depth driving impressions.  I am a bit disappointed with some missing features on this "loaded" truck that I hope GM addresses on the next iteration.  Call me spoiled but I haven't had a car that required me to get my keys out of my pocket for close to 10 years.  They have all been proximity keyless entry and push button start.  Now I have to lock/unlock with a FOB and use a key to start it.  First world, problems, I know!  There is no garage door opener, no blind spot monitoring and no memory seating.  All of those are features I would expect on a top trim vehicle these days.  I don't particularly love the old school, dim incandescent interior lighting either.

I'll be towing my camper a 100 miles or so this weekend so I'll circle back in a week or two and give my driving/towing impressions.  My initial impressions is that it is a bit bouncy like you would expect an unloaded truck to be but overall it rides and drives pretty nicely.

 

[Robert Hall]

35 minutes ago, 2QuickZ's said:

   I am a bit disappointed with some missing features on this "loaded" truck that I hope GM addresses on the next iteration.  Call me spoiled but I haven't had a car that required me to get my keys out of my pocket for close to 10 years.  They have all been proximity keyless entry and push button start.  Now I have to lock/unlock with a FOB and use a key to start it.  First world, problems, I know!  There is no garage door opener, no blind spot monitoring and no memory seating.  All of those are features I would expect on a top trim vehicle these days.  I don't particularly love the old school, dim incandescent interior lighting either.

Sharp...sounds pretty stripped down for a Denali trim, though.    

[balthazar]

I felt my Sierra was a lil bouncy (esp after years in a 2500HD), but I do believe the suspension/springs ‘settle’ with some use, and now the Sierra feels very good/better than whem brand new (2200 miles now).

What engine ?

[2QuickZ's]

1 hour ago, balthazar said:

I felt my Sierra was a lil bouncy (esp after years in a 2500HD), but I do believe the suspension/springs ‘settle’ with some use, and now the Sierra feels very good/better than whem brand new (2200 miles now).

What engine ?

It's the 3.6 V6

[David]

Congratulations, sharp looking truck. I am sure while not all that you wanted will serve you well.

[regfootball]

looks great!  I do love the big boxy new grilles on the GMC's these days.  Looks great here.

[2QuickZ's]

We have almost 800 miles on the truck already!  Was trying hard to get it through the 500 mile break-in period before leaving for our trip but fell a bit short.  Here are my initial driving impressions after our couple hundred mile round trip camping adventure last weekend:

As expected, it pulled our 2100 lb popup camper like a champ.  It even got decent gas mileage doing it.  It came in at around 17 mpg with 75% to 25% split between 2 lane 55 mph highway and 70 mph Interstate on the way out due to being diverted by construction traffic combined with 95% interstate driving on the way back.  It is also averaging around 17.5 mpg around town since we got back.  I expect the mileage to get even better as I get even more miles on it.  I'm not sure if these had stop/start prior to the chip shortage and it got removed or if they never had it but after our last two new vehicles having it, it seems almost odd and wasteful to not have it.  I didn't necessarily like the feature at first but once I got used to it, it didn't bother me.

While my complaints of missing features mentioned in the first post are still valid, I like the interior more than I initially thought I would.  I am very happy with my choice of cocoa/dark atmosphere over black.  I think it looks quite nice.  The seats were also more comfortable than I initially thought they were going to be.  So far all the features I have used have been pretty intuitive and have worked as expected with the exception of the trailer brake and I am pretty sure that is due to them being out of adjustment on the camper, not due to a problem with the truck.  I've never used them before and I doubt the first owner of the camper did either since they were towing it with an Escape.

One more minor annoyance that I noticed on the trip: the HVAC blower makes more noise than I would expect at just a medium fan speed.  And it isn't a wind noise but more of a weird, almost whistle sound.  Not sure if that is something specific to my truck or common on all of these.

Overall, the build quality seems pretty good.  The dealership had to fix the front fascia that was not installed correctly (they did this before I took delivery) but everything else seems fine.  These trucks were initially built with missing parts due to the chip shortage so I wonder if they had to remove the fascia to install something prior to shipment and didn't get it reinstalled correctly.

Lastly, I did buy some GM accessories so I guess I can comment on those.  I bought the front and rear floor liners.  The quality seems good and the fronts fit very well but the rears don't fit quite as well.  The fronts definitely fit better than the WeatherTech liners my Dad bought for his Terrain.  I also bought the tri-fold tonneau cover.  It seems to fit quite well and everything stayed dry in a serious downpour the other day.  It was easy to install and is easy to unclamp and fold.  No complaints.

Let me know if you guys have any questions about the truck I can answer!

[2QuickZ's]

Update on the Canyon.  Still going strong.  No real issues to speak of.  I thought I had an annoying rattle on the rear sliding window pop up but it turned out the gaskets on the tri-fold tonneau cover compressed enough over time to allow it to shift slightly and one of the plastic clips was tapping on the back window.  That was a 5 minute fix to loosen it up, reposition it and re-tighten.

Fuel economy was pretty abysmal over the winter.  To the point where I wonder if a V8 full size would have done any worse.  A lot of it had to do with the fact that I am still working from home so with no commute, most of my trips are short and the engine barely had time to get warm.  Still, I think I had one tank come in at 14.9 mpg.  That was a bit of an outlier and most were in the high 15's or low 16's.  Now that it is warm, it is generally averaging low to mid 17's and any longer trips I have taken with it have been more in the 21-22 mpg range.

It still annoys the crap out of me that a Denali does not have a Homelink garage door opener built in.  I also continued to be annoyed by actually having to get the keys out of my pocket to unlock the doors and start it.  I know that may sound ridiculous but once you have a number of cars in a row that have passive entry and push button start, its annoying to live with out.  Call me spoiled. haha

I do wonder if I would have been better off with a full size truck.  What appealed to me most about the Canyon (its size) is also my biggest problem with it.  The front seats are fine but my long legged son is not too comfortable in the back seat.  We also have a dog we take with us on our camping trips and it doesn't work very well for her.  She's a bit of a nervous traveler so the floor is the best spot for her but there is no room there in the truck so she has to sit on someone's lap.  That said, while those areas would be better in a full size, I know my wife would hate parking one.  I also know since it stays parked in the driveway, I would have had to make my driveway a little wider to make it easier to get the other vehicles in and out of the garage and while I would have liked the interior room in the full size much better, the Canyon overall just fits us better.