Toyota Tundra TRD Pro vs. Chevrolet Silverado 1500 ZR2: The Other Off-Road Trucks

It's easy to view today's choice between high-performance full-size pickup trucks as a binary one: Ford F-150 Raptor RorRam 1500 TRX. The two suck up attention like their superchargers inhale and compress the atmosphere, enough so you might not remember other factory off-road-prepped rigs even exist. They might not have or even offer anywhere close to 700-ish horsepower, but they're upgraded for dirt duty nonetheless, and they're also a hell of a lot cheaper. Meet the other trucks: the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 ZR2 and theToyota Tundra TRD Pro.

These are the most rugged trucks in their respective lineups, with lifted and modified suspensions, gnarly tires, and various locking differentials. Neither cracks the 500-hp mark, and the Toyota doesn't even have a V-8 underhood. Their base prices are right around 70 grand, a large check to cut but still less than the $86,250 TRX or $109,245 Raptor R. And the "entry-level" F-150 Raptor, with its 450-hp 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6, still rings in at $78,670 to start.

Just Off-Roaders, No High Speeds 'n' Things

Just as their prices are more modest than the burlier trucks', so are their off-road chops—to a point. The Silverado 1500 ZR2 is a straight-up rock crawler packing front and rear locking differentials, ZR2 suspension (more ground clearance plus Multimatic's DSSV frequency-selective dampers), a full allotment of skidplates, and 33-inch Goodyear mud-terrain tires. Also included is the Silverado lineup's most powerful engine, a 420-hp 6.2-liter V-8 otherwise restricted to the fancy-pants High Country.

In fact, a ZR2 is essentially that glitzy truck with the off-road bits bolted on. That means it also has a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster—a new addition with the Silverado's highly effective refresh for 2022—a 13.4-inch central touchscreen with Google Built-In integration, a seven-speaker Bose audio system, leather seats, heated outboard seats (ventilated in front, too), a heated steering wheel, dual-zone automatic climate control, a wireless phone charger, full LED exterior lighting, a spray-in bedliner, and more. At $73,740 to start for a 2023 model and $79,595 as tested, the Chevy's pricing is hardly out of bounds for what it includes.

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The Toyota starts at a slightly lower but similar $71,215—but sure doesn't feel like it. Where the Chevy exudes a quiet solidity, the Tundra feels flinty and hollow. That isn't hyperbole—slamming the TRD Pro's various doors elicited different tinny sounds, with our truck's driver's side rear door sounding the least substantial. It doesn't help that the cabin is fairly plain looking, especially in our test truck's all-black scheme, with notably poorer build quality than the Silverado and hard plastics everywhere you look.

Also less precise is the TRD Pro's off-road skillset. Where the Chevy is clearly configured for boulder-humping, the Toyota is more general purpose. The solitary locking differential sits in the rear axle pumpkin. There is a special Multi-Terrain traction-control setup with various surface-specific settings that Toyota limits to the TRD Off-Road trim as well as the TRD Pro, plus a full array of underbody skidplates and a set of 18-inch forged-aluminum BBS wheels and Falken Wildpeak all-terrain tires.

Beneath its black plastic fender flares hide a TRD front anti-roll bar and 2.5-inch-diameter internal-bypass Fox shocks, remote-reservoir Fox units in back, and TRD-specific springs that scooch the ride height up by 1.1 inches in front. Curiously, this lends the TRD Pro 9.0 inches of ground clearance—0.3 inchlessthan a plain ol' four-wheel-drive Tundra SR5 trim, per Toyota's internal specs. Approach and departure angles improve, however, from 21.0 and 24.0 degrees to 26.2 and 24.2. The Silverado 1500 ZR2 absolutely blows those figures out of the water with 11.2 inches of clearance and a 31.8-degree approach angle, though its 23.3-degree departure angle trails that of the Toyota.

Both trucks are so-called "narrow-body" rigs, with ordinary full-size pickup widths. That means the Toyota's trio of amber marker lamps atop its grille is for show, not because such lights are legally required as on the widened Raptor and TRX. It also means the Silverado and Tundra are fairly wieldy, as parkable as any other large pickup, and able to fit on trails that might reshape the fenders of a TRX or Raptor.

On the Topic of Off-Roading

The Silverado ZR2 will slog through, up, and over things you might not expect something so large to handle. It is distinctly weird piloting what feels like a house over rocks, steep inclines, and the like, but the ZR2 just muscles its way through with very little drama. We tested both pickups at Stellantis' Arizona Proving Grounds off-road course, a tricky playground designed to challenge Jeep Wranglers and other capable dirt-mongers, and the Silverado calmly walked away from the Tundra all over the place.

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Steep rock pile? No problem. A literal staircase? Not an issue. Massive, chassis-twisting alternating whoops that can catch out vehicles without enough clearance, bashing their rocker panels in punishment? A breeze. Credit the Silverado's significant ground clearance and front and rear lockers, which keep the truck plowing forward even when one or two wheels are off the ground. More impressive is how nonplussed the Chevy is, even when its tires are smacking into terra firma; those Multimatic DSSV spool-valve dampers also have position-sensitive valving that passively changes the damping as the suspension nears full compression, rounding the edges off huge impacts.

We managed to get the Tundra through the same course, and at no point did it get stuck—but neither did it make the exercises seem easy. We needed to keep up the TRD Pro's momentum over the alternating whoops, as the open front differential killed that axle's utility any time one of the front tires left the ground, leaving the locked rear axle to send power at times to, effectively, a single tire. If that tire maintained traction, great; if not, the Tundra, perched on opposite front and rear tires, would judder to a halt—that is, unless you kept up a higher-than-comfortable pace and risked belly-flopping the rocker panel into one of the humps. And whenever the frame was stressed, the Toyota emitted a loud creaking noise, which we traced to squidgy mounting of the front TRD-branded skidplate.

Several drivers complained that the process to engage the TRD's rear axle locker wasn't straightforward, either—and at times it wasn't clear whether it had engaged at all, the dashboard light for the axle flashing indefinitely. Plus, it required selecting the truck's four-wheel-drive low-range gearing, severely limiting the usefulness of the locking rear in situations outside of walking-pace off-road crawling. That is, if you could engage low range at all; like the differential locker, low range at times required old-school rocking fore and aft, moving from drive to reverse and back, in order for the gears to mesh. (Toyota also scatters various off-road-related controls to the wind, locating them in multiple locations on the dashboard, whereas they're more tightly grouped in the ZR2.) In the Chevy, you can press a button to engage the rear differential regardless of which-wheel-drive you're in; for the locking front, you'll need to first place the transfer case in four low and lock the rear axle.

Neither pickup here is specifically designed to mimic a Raptor or TRX's off-pavement capabilities at higher speeds, but we'll note again that, with no locking rear diff in rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive-high settings, the TRD Pro will be badly outgunned in loose shale or sand. We also detected lots of wheel hop over washboard surfaces at speed, and the entire truck just feels less solid than the Chevy. The Silverado earns some points for its firmly damped but well-managed ride and sense of beefiness, but if it's jumps and high-speed thumps you're after, you really oughta look at a Ford or Ram dealership. (At least until the rumored ZR2 "Meteor" comes to fruition.)

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Hitting Pavement

You're likely detecting this comparison is clambering toward a less-than-positive conclusion for the TRD Pro. And that is correct. On-pavement exercises failed to reveal any surprise high points for the Toyota other than a generally soft ride quality that quickly gives way to jiggly, not well managed motions following sharper impacts or wavy surfaces and satisfying grunt from the hybridized twin-turbo V-6. Every primary control operates with a loose floppiness, too, from the soft brake pedal to the slow-feeling steering.

The Toyota, despite weighing a significant 383 pounds more, is quicker. In our instrumented testing, it reached 60 mph in 5.7 seconds—0.4 second ahead of the ZR2. Such is the basic muscularity of the Tundra's hybrid V-6, which outguns the Chevy's V-8 by 17 hp and 123 lb-ft of torque. With its electric motor integrated into the transmission cleaning up any lag from the 3.4-liter's twin turbochargers, take-off response is crisp and uninterrupted. It's too bad this engine is in a Tundra that feels only partially baked, including the 10-speed automatic transmission, which is slow to downshift and often selects too high a gear for a given situation.

Though not as quick as the burly Tundra, the Silverado 1500 ZR2's 6.2-liter V-8 should please most truck buyers. Its V-8 sounds are real—unlike the fake though well executed noises Toyota pipes into the TRD Pro's cabin via the speakers—and throttle response is precise and sharp. You'll barely notice the 10-speed automatic behind that V-8, because it's always doing exactly what you want it to, sliding from perfectly selected gear to perfectly selected gear quickly and smoothly. If the Tundra's engine stands out for its meatiness, this ZR2's stands out for its manners.

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The same goes for the rest of the Chevy's moves. You might not realize the ZR2 is designed for off-roading by the way it traverses city streets and freeways. Those Multimatic dampers keep the body control tight, delivering a firm but very refined ride quality and pleasantly little body roll or dive or squat, unlike the unruly, squishy TRD Pro. The steering is likewise tight, and the brake pedal—long a GM pickup strong suit—is well sprung underfoot and offers reassuring response. None of this shows up in our test data, in which the ZR2 trails the TRD Pro in lateral grip (0.68 g to 0.70 g), our figure-eight lap times (29.2 seconds to 28.8), and braking distance (132 feet from 60 mph versus 125 feet), but in the real world, the Chevrolet is a far friendlier partner when turning and stopping.

When all is said and done, although it looks and—somewhat uneasily—plays the off-road part, the Toyota isn't as comprehensively upgraded for the dirt as the ZR2. It also simply isn't a very good truck no matter what you plan on doing with it. Toyota waited more than 14 years to deliver an all-new Tundra for 2022, and besides its engine, this one feels like it's already a few years old. We disliked its overly basic but not particularly easy-to-use touchscreen; its low-rent cabin; and its noodly behavior when hauling and towing, in which its tail, which oscillates even when unladen, wags like it was happy to see us.

With its upmarket interior, gorgeous new central touchscreen, and incredibly useful Google Built-In search and assistant functionality, the Silverado ZR2 is very well rounded for such a capable off-road implement. Even loaded with a trailer or a load in the bed, the Chevy drives securely and quietly. You can't detect the aggressive 33-inch tires' treads humming along at speed from inside the cab. Our only major complaint centers around the ultimately pointless hood bulge, a tacky styling "upgrade" that makes spotting things immediately in front of the Silverado a pain. At least there is a forward-facing camera to help see obstacles. Otherwise, this is the best light-duty, full-size off-road pickup you can buy outside of the bigger, badder bashers from Ford and Ram.

2nd Place: Toyota Tundra TRD Pro

Verdict:A brand-new, old-feeling off-road pickup.

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1st Place: Chevrolet Silverado 1500 ZR2

Verdict:The best off-road half-ton pickup outside of the desert-runners.