Looking at the 2nd hand 4WD market for a good off-roader? This should be added to your test drive list.

The Holden Colorado has become a popular choice for 4WD’ers and a car we’re seeing much more of out in the bush. Recently we had the opportunity to take a couple of 2018 Z71 models off road for a bit of a drive, and whilst it wasn’t extreme, it certainly gave them a good test.

We chose the Turon River up past Lithgow as the destination as it has nice views, picnic areas for lunch, and a wide variety of terrain and conditions.
The two Colorado’s ate up the easy stuff and driving on typical dirt roads was comfortable and the ride wasn’t as hard as we expected. The suspension is double wish bone coil sprung in the front and as you’d expect for a ute, leaf springs and a standard shock absorber setup in the back.

I need to disclose that we weren’t actually out doing a review of the Colorado, we were taking some customers for a day out, but we got plenty of footage so figured we’d share our thoughts.

Climbing up hills was a breeze with the limited slip diff and traction control helping in some of the more difficult spots. There wasn’t once where we felt we needed a rear diff lock. The Colorado has 2WD and both high and low range 4WD and can be easily selected using the dial in the centre console. We decided to make life easier and ran most of the day in 4-Low.

Like most of the 4WD’s in this category, it has automatic hill descent, which we tried out. It works great, but for the serious four wheel driver, you’ll probably just control your decent by yourself with just as much success.

The 2.8 litre Duramax 4 Cylinder Turbo Diesel has plenty of power and torque and it’s quite obvious that it’s a well powered car when you’re off road. The specifications say it has 147kw of power and 500nm of torque at 2000 rpm. It performed well all day.

There’s plenty of gadgets in the Colorado with Touchscreen display, apple play, a nice sounding stereo and all the other things you’d expect.
We took the two Colorado’s over some quite difficult terrain and we were quite surprised at how easily it handled the conditions. It was not extreme by any means, but we had one section down a hill which was a series of wombat holes, and, apart from lifting a few wheels and engaging the traction control, it was a cinch.

At one stage we caught up to a few other four wheel drivers and they were in pretty serious rigs. We went down the same piece of track as they did and both vehicles scraped the mudflaps a few times and on one occasion we did bump the bottom of the side steps. But other than that, the ground clearance and approach angles were very good.

The most difficult part of the journey was a section of river that we needed to drive through and then turn sharply out of the river and up a steep incline on the river bank. The other 4WD’s we caught were struggling to exit the river, but both Colorado’s drove straight up without a problem. We, and the other four wheel drivers, were very impressed.

Overall, the two cars handled well. And both were running the standard Bridgestone Dueller HT tyres, so not exactly ideal for serious off road adventures.

Our overall verdict? A great car, with very good off-road capabilities. It’s comfortable and fully featured. Lots of cool gadgets, and felt great on the open tarmac roads. If you were after a 4WD Ute, then I’d certainly recommend putting the Holden Colorado Z71 on your list and taking it for a test drive.