Holden Colorado 2020 review: Z71 off-road

The Colorado is a good-looking unit, so it follows that the Z71, the Colorado line-up’s top dog*, should be the best-looking vehicle in the entire range. And it is. Look at the photos yourself and make up your own mind. (The Z71 Xtreme is more expensive, but it’s essentially a Z71 equipped with the Xtreme Pack. 

The Z71’s roof rails, side steps and fold-away tonneau cover add functionality to the flashiness. 

The Colorado is a good-looking unit.

Under its slick exterior, the Z71 sits on a steel ladder-frame chassis.

There may be no mechanical differences between the Z71 and other similarly-powered Colorado utes, but this is not merely a sticker-pack special – this is something at least a bit more substantial than that. Don’t believe me? Read on.

The Z71 has a Colorado carry-over interior, which is nice and simple, and includes some Z71 branding stitched into the front seats.

For starters, there are grab handles for the driver and front passenger – I’m a big fan of grab handles.

The dash is a basic layout – but made family-friendly with expanses of tough plastic and soft-touch leather – and it has everything you need. The centre console houses an 8.0-inch colour touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and standard nav. 

Inside, the 8.0-inch colour touchscreen comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

There is a USB port in the centre-bin, and there’s a 12V socket in the back of that bin which back-seat passengers can access.

The cabin is reasonably comfortable; the front seats – in fact all of the Z71’s seats – err on the side of firm rather than being well-cushioned. But, even in the back seat, when I sat behind my driving position, I had ample head- and leg-room.

There are the usual collection of storage spaces around the cabin – sunglasses, glove box, door pockets, seat-back pockets – but a long centre-bin lid impedes access to the cupholders in between driver and front-seat passenger, and there are no cupholders in the back seat’s fold-down centre arm-rest.

In the back seat I had ample head- and leg-room.

There are shallow storage spots under the rear seats, one of which contains your jack etc.

Overall fit and finish is impressive without being spectacular, but that’s fine with me.

The Z71 is 5361mm long (with a 3096mm wheelbase), 1872mm wide and 1800mm high.

It has a steel ladder-frame chassis, double-wishbone front suspension and leaf-spring live rear axle, so it’s more aligned with heavy-duty work than smooth on-road performance. 

However, the Z71 is quite settled over most surfaces, including highway bitumen and rough back-road backtop, and at most speeds – rather impressive for an unladen ute.

The Z71’s on-road performance and refinement are generally not as polished as segment leaders.

Steering is a bit floaty, with some play in it, and there is noticeable understeer on corners.

The engine is one of the torquiest in the current-day ute mob – only matched by V6 utes such as the VW Amarok or Mercedes X-Class – and it delivers that torque quite evenly and smoothly across the rev range.

The Duramax turbo-diesel can, however, be noisy, and because of that it seems like it’s working hard, though it never feels too stressed, even when towing a caravan that has a caravan with a tare (empty) weight of about 2600kg. 

There’s plenty of life in terms of acceleration with active pedal-feel but, when it comes time to pulling up to a fast stop on front disc and rear drum brakes, the brake pedals are rather spongy.

the Z71 is quite settled over most surfaces, including highway bitumen and rough back-road backtop.

The six-speed auto is generally spot-on for all duties, although it did occasionally down-shift with an extra violence of action when it didn’t really need to.

Ride and handling are pretty good, with its Aussie-tuned suspension (including traditional-ute leaf-springs at the rear) doing a decent job of sorting everything evenly, and it was only ever rattled by very severe bumps, wash-outs, and ruts at lower speeds, i.e. during low-range 4WDing.

The Z71’s on-road performance and refinement are generally not as polished as segment leaders, but that’s nowhere near a deal-breaker.

Fuel consumption is listed as 8.7L/100km (combined). Our dash display read 7.9L/100km, but we recorded actual fuel consumption on test of 9.7L/100km. The Z71 has a 76-litre fuel tank, so expect an approximate driving range of 753km (according to our on-test fuel consumption), factoring in a 30km safety buffer.

Holden offers a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty across the Colorado range, with servicing required every 12 months or 12,000km. Capped price servicing applies over seven years/ 84,000km with the average annual cost over three years working out to be $405.