2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD Trail Boss Is A Nifty Appearance Package For People Who Definitely Aren’t Compensating For Anything

The 2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD Trail Boss does a lot of things better than a tall, 20-foot-long, nearly-8,000-pound heavy duty pickup truck ought to, like offering impressive comfort with an empty bed, plenty ways for short people to access the bed and cabin, and an available suite of valuable safety features. Having said that, as a single person who lives in a very congested part of Los Angeles and has nothing to tow or haul, it’s obviously too much vehicle for me.

I’d argue, though, that it’s more vehicle than most people will ever need, including its typical buyer. While the Trail Boss package may add Z71 suspension, all-terrain tires, hill-descent control and skid plates, the Silverado HD ZR2 is the true off-roader of the lineup. The Trail Boss has what’s likely to matter most to HD truck buyers: tough looks. If you’re searching for something to offset your fragile masculinity and you want to impress other self-proclaimed alphas without breaking the bank, then I present to you the Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD Trail Boss.

Full Disclosure: Chevrolet gave me this Silverado HD for a week, and I used it to help my boyfriend move, and to visit my mom and their girlfriend. The loan unfortunately coincided with the eruption of the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, and I was forced to evacuate my home and abandon the Silverado in an evacuation zone. Thankfully firefighters extinguished the blaze that put my home at risk and the Silverado was spared.

My press vehicle was a 2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD Crew Cab LTZ 4WD Trail Boss with the impressive 6.6-liter turbodiesel Duramax V8. Though the base price of an LTZ Crew Cab with the gas V8 is $64,595 including destination, the turbodiesel, the Trail Boss package and a host of other options bumped the price up to $84,425. That absolute behemoth of an engine costs $9,490, and it produces 470 horsepower and 975 pound-feet of torque, versus the standard gasoline-powered 6.6-liter V8 that makes 401 horsepower and only 464 pound-feet of torque, less than two times as much as the diesel. Other numbers aren’t improved by the same margin. The diesel engine adds 700 pounds to this hefty hauler’s curb weight, with the truck weighing in at 7,719 pounds according to Chevy.

With the Duramax engine this configuration of truck has a payload capacity of 3,387 pounds, which is the exact same as with the standard gas engine. The diesel does allow it to tow 4,000 pounds more than with the gas V8, bumping conventional trailer towing capacity up to 20,000 pounds and gooseneck capacity up to 21,600 pounds, which are 4,000 and 3,300 pounds more than the gas V8 can handle, respectively. The Duramax’s maximum numbers are impressive, but they’re not as significant of a gain over the gas engine as I expected, given the diesel’s more-than-double torque specs.

Over the course of my week with the Silverado I drove around 300 miles total, with most of those being on the interstate. The diesel V8 should return better fuel economy than the gas V8, but I averaged a pretty dismal 12.9 miles per gallon, so I shudder to think what the gas truck achieves. Heavy duty pickups are exempt from EPA emissions ratings, and Chevy doesn’t have any fuel-economy estimates of its own, but crew cab 2500 HD trucks have a giant 36-gallon fuel tank.

As previously mentioned, nothing about my life requires a heavy duty pickup truck with nearly 1,000 pound-feet of torque, but I did use the Trail Boss for some truck stuff, including to help my boyfriend move. Driving it through LA’s congested, narrow streets elevated my cortisol levels, but the blind spot monitors helped mitigate the stress. When loading up this truck, you’ll likely notice that the bed is approximately one story tall. I’m 6-foot-8 and I could barely reach over the sides of the bed, but Chevy included steps to make up for this. One step is right behind the cab at the front of the bed, one step is in the corner of the rear bumper, and of course, GM’s Multiflex tailgate has an integrated step-up mode that I frustratingly fumbled with every time I tried converting it. I don’t think step-up mode is the official name for the position, but it’s what works. The tailgate is effectively split in the middle, which allows for a few different configurations: fully closed, half-open, half-open with a flap, fully open, fully open with a flap, open with a split, and open with a fold-out step. If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is. I’m sure once you have used it a couple hundred times it becomes more natural, but I couldn’t find the right combination of buttons to push and flaps to pull at the right times. There is a fold-out grab handle to help you anchor as you hoist yourself into the bed that helps, but it’s all a bit confusing, and trying to shut the tailgate when you’ve folded the step down is really awkward.

Once you get into the bed it’s a fine place to put things. My press truck had LED bed lights that frustratingly get covered as soon as you start loading up the bed, a couple tie-down hooks and a standard 110-volt outlet, which is nice. Otherwise it’s just a bed with a nice spray-on bedliner that’s included in the Trail Boss package. Naturally, nothing I put in the Trail Boss’ bed even remotely affected the performance of the torque monster Duramax.

I was able to do some light off-roading when I took the Trail Boss to visit my mom, and unsurprisingly its size caused stress here too. Switchbacks require multi-point turns, and at one point I had to pass a 4Runner and was certain we were either going to scrape each other, I was going to fall off the side of the mountain, or both. The surround-view cameras and electronically folding wing mirrors came in handy here and on the road, but overall it was still quite a stressful experience. Ultimately nothing I threw at the Trail Boss really pushed its true limits, but it wouldn’t have pushed a standard Silverado’s limits, either.

The $2,565 Trail Boss package requires the $325 Z71 pack you can add to any Silverado, which gets you Rancho off-road suspension with twin-tube shocks, skid plates and hill-descent control — aside from all-terrain tires and red tow hooks, the Trail Boss only adds cosmetic items. To its credit, it handled washboard dirt, light rock crawling, and deeply and unevenly rutted trails with aplomb. The diesel’s engine braking came in handy as I scaled back down the mountain road, minimizing the number of times I had to ride the brakes to slow this hefty, top-heavy pickup truck for the winding curves.

Before getting into the Trail Boss I warned my sweet 5-foot-5 mom that this truck is really high off the ground. At 6-foot-8, it’s the perfect height for me to slide my butt right onto the driver’s seat without strain or requiring any tippy-toe action, but when my mom attempted to hoist themself into the passenger seat, they ended up swinging from the A-pillar-mounted grab handle, unable to reach the seat. My mom, who regularly takes yoga classes and runs more than I do, needed a boost to safely get in, and my 6-foot-2 boyfriend had to hoist himself up into the cab. If you’re shorter than me, and you probably are, I’d recommend getting running boards, or a gymnastics springboard if you aren’t willing to sacrifice any of the Trail Boss’ 10.1 inches of ground clearance. Hopping out can be just as treacherous, so those with a fear of heights or weak ankles should proceed with caution.

The infotainment is Chevy’s same system that’s been around for a while. It’s pretty easy to use and is supplemented by lots of physical buttons and controls. I was annoyed by the Apple CarPlay interface, though, since it isn’t able to take up the whole screen. Chevrolet always has the right side of the screen reserved for other functions, so when I had my Google Maps displayed through CarPlay, it would show me the native Google Map on the right side, right next to my CarPlay nav. It’s not the end of the world, but like, who thought that was a good idea?

Once you’re inside the cab you feel like you’re on top of the world, sitting eye-level with bus drivers and delivery drivers. Peering over the hood is intimidating, and the headlights will blind anyone who’s in a lesser truck, let alone a Miata or Mini. My press truck had the front bucket seats and center console, though that console isn’t as space efficient as I hoped. The arm rest hides a giant chasm, but that’s about it. There’s a big flat spot where anything you put there just slides and rattles around, and the optional wireless charger is awkwardly tucked under the center armrest handle. It doesn’t feel very well thought-out. Beyond that, the cab is massive, approximately the same square footage as my studio apartment.

Okay, that’s hyperbole, but its slab sides mean the interior feels positively cavernous. I had plenty of room up front, and I could comfortably sit in the back seat behind my preferred driving position, which is no mean feat. The back seats are very upright, though, so they’re not perfect. For any HD truck owners who dread touching elbows with your passenger, you’ll have enough room for both of your elbows and enough left over to accommodate your fragile masculinity. If you drop something in the passenger footwell, however, don’t bother trying to retrieve it from the driver’s seat. It’s in another zip code down there.

For an unladen heavy duty pickup, I was impressed by the Trail Boss’ low noise levels and highway ride composure. Sure the structure jiggles over rough surfaces, but it doesn’t jiggle out your fillings. The truck’s size is always apparent even on big wide interstate highways. While it has adaptive cruise control that works well, it doesn’t have lane centering, just lane departure warning, so it’s easy to accidentally drift out of your lane when you’re trying to check your mirrors or use the infotainment display. The steering is super light, but if you’re steering from lock-to-lock to make a frantic three-point turn while blocking traffic, the power assist runs out of ideas and forces you to turn slower.

My issue with the Silverado 2500 HD Trail Boss is that it’s primarily an appearance package with a misleading name. The standard Silverado 2500 HD 4WD does everything the Trail Boss does, and it can be fitted with the Z71 stuff if that’s a priority. The Trail Boss package makes the bumpers, grille bar, Chevy bowtie, mirror caps, skid plate and badging all black, also adding 20-inch gloss black wheels with off-road tires, the red recovery hooks and a spray-on bedliner. Going for the Trail Boss package on an LTZ also forces you into $4,110 of other convenience and tech packages, so it’s not like you can get away with only adding the Z71 bits and Trail Boss look to a truck.

It’s no secret that HD pickup trucks aren’t the best off-roaders to begin with due to their heft, weight distribution, and overall size. The best part about the Trail Boss package, aside from the nifty name, is the way it looks. Trail Boss? If you view a boss as someone who looks imposing then I guess it’s apt, but if you need a truck that’s qualified to handle serious off-road duties, skip the Trail Boss and go for the Silverado HD ZR2.