2017 Holden Colorado Z71 (4×4) review
I looked around at a new car to replace my Nissan Patrol ST 2010 model, which I have owned since brand new. I looked at the Holden Colorado, Ford Ranger and the Nissan Patrol.
- Comfort and space
- Handling – traction control is incredible
- Power and performance
- Look of the vehicle, amazing how many people of come to check the vehicle out
- Safety features
- Lane departure warning
- Collision alert
- Automatic lights and wipers
- Price of accessories
- Sat nav software is two years out of date – I have lived in my suburb for two years and my street is not listed
- The sat nav maps look cheap and wish I had the sat nav from my wife's Holden Cruise in it
- Side mirrors can be folded in manually – should be as soon as the car locks they fold in automatically
- No room for a second battery system
I took all three cars for a test drive. At the end of the day I was so impressed with the Holden Colorado Z71. The car has so much power for being a 2.8-litre. It has 147kW and 440Nm with a six-speed manual transmission. And a great 3.5-tonne braked towing capacity.
The interior has so much room in it. The handling is great, the 18-inch wheels just grip to the road.
So far I have done 1068km and have now just filled the 75-litre tank for the first time. That has mainly been city driving with one road trip to Canberra. I love the auto headlights and the safety features the car has built into it. Lane departure warning, hill assist, collision alert and head-up display.
You can actually program the lights for how long to stay on for once you exit the vehicle so you can see at night time.
The car will NOT let you lock the remote in it. You need to unlock the car with the remote and still use the key to start the vehicle.
Once you start driving all the doors automatically lock, but if for some reason you may have an accident the system unlocks the doors automatically. And there's lots of handy information built into the dash control system, like tyre pressure, oil and coolant temperature and speed alert warning.
I had the hard tonneau cover added, and I am so impressed with it. The cover is fully lockable and during our trip to Canberra earlier this month with all that extreme wet weather, not a drop of water got into the back. Impressive.
I had fun ticking the accessories boxes. With the stroke of a pen, I added: black steel bull bar, hard tonneau cover, HID spotlights, LED light bar, snorkel kit, head lamp protectors, underbody protection system (steel bash plates), smoked bonnet protector, tow pack, weather shields – slimline – front and rear, cupholders, and front and rear all-weather floor mats.
The sat nav (which is out of date by two years – Holden is behind in its software updates), radio etc are very user friendly. And the Z71's infotainment system is compatible with both Android and Apple once you download the apps.
I thought I would miss my Patrol but I really don’t after getting the Colorado. Shop around though for the best price, and DEFINITELY shop around for accessories.
I found that accessories varied in price from dealership to dealership. Even Holden's website asks for your postcode to get a price and then when you enter another postcode and get a different dealership the price changes, so just be mindful on pricing.
Note: stock image used for illustration purposes