Tested: 2024 Chevy Silverado 1500 Duramax Is Last Diesel Standing (2024)

Just a few years back, the U.S. truck market enjoyed a brief golden age of diesel-powered half-ton pickups. Ford dropped a 3.0-liter Power Stroke into the F-150, Ram put its 3.0-liter EcoDiesel in the Ram 1500, Jeep borrowed its own version of that engine for the Gladiator, and GM offered its 3.0-liter Duramax in the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado. Oh, the bounties of low-end torque that were reaped, the magnificent highway fuel economy that was observed. With that kind of competition, GM evidently figured it ought to upgrade its compression-ignition inline-six, which it did—just in time for everyone else to abandon small diesels.

For the 2023 model year, the baby Duramax got new fuel injectors and pistons, a retuned turbocharger compressor, and a redesigned combustion bowl. As a result, output increased from 277 hp to 305 hp, with torque improving from 460 lb-ft to 495 lb-ft. The latter figure makes the 3.0-liter Duramax the torque champ of the Silverado 1500 range—on the internal-combustion side, anyway.

All of that power is delivered in stoic silence too. At both idle and wide-open throttle, the diesel Silverado is significantly quieter than its braggadocious 6.2-liter gas counterpart, recording 41 decibels at idle and 71 decibels at wide-open throttle. We drove both a Trail Boss and a ZR2 (our test numbers are for the latter), and in both cases their aggressive all-terrain tires made more noise than the engine. At least, that's what we told the cop who pulled us over for speeding about 10 minutes into our first drive in the Trail Boss.

Speaking of speed, the revised Duramax makes for a noticeably quicker Silverado. When we tested the first-generation engine in a 2020 Silverado LTZ, that truck hit 60 mph in 7.1 seconds and ran the quarter-mile in 15.5 seconds at 88 mph. The 2024 ZR2, despite weighing an extra 145 pounds and wearing Goodyear Wrangler Territory MT tires, dispatched 60 mph in 6.8 seconds and cleared the quarter in 15.3 seconds at 89 mph. The revised engine feels even more responsive than those numbers indicate—witness the huge improvement in 30-to-50-mph top-gear passing, which drops from 4.2 seconds to 3.6.

The junior diesel also flaunts excellent-for-a-truck fuel economy, especially during highway trips, where the engine can settle in a constant rpm and keep the turbo out of the conversation. We didn't retest highway fuel economy for the ZR2, but the LTZ returned 26 mpg at 75 mph, and it's easy to coax 30-plus-mpg results on back roads. Given all the flavors of Silverado 1500, the EPA ratings are all over the place, but the diesel is rated as high as 29 mpg highway for two-wheel-drive models and as low as 22 mpg highway for the drag-happy ZR2. Even in that case, the ZR2's 21-mpg EPA combined rating still beats its 6.2-liter gas sibling by 6 mpg.

So what do you pay for all this goodness? For the ZR2, nothing. The Silverado's flagship off-road trim is available only with the Duramax and the 6.2-liter V-8, and Chevy's product planners see the latter as the natural upgrade. Thus the diesel is the base model, priced $1500 below the V-8. So you'll save money up front and then, barring some wild upset in fuel prices, continue your cost-of-ownership parsimony long after the final payment is made. That's partly because of the diesel's efficiency advantage and partly because the 6.2-liter V-8 requires premium fuel, which, at the time of this writing, costs at least 40 cents more per gallon than diesel nationally.

Engine hierarchy and pricing vary by model, and in other trims the Duramax is the penultimate option. In the Trail Boss, the diesel costs $2590 more than the 2.7-liter four-cylinder gas engine and $795 more than the 5.3-liter V-8. In both cases, we would opine, money well spent.

The full-size pickup market is so saturated that it's difficult for any single truck to stand out as a singular offering with no direct competition. But, thanks to attrition, that's exactly what the Silverado diesel represents. As the stereotypical unctuous car dealer might say, if you can find a better light-duty diesel pickup, buy it.