Following is a transcript of the video.
Matt DeBord: Today I'm testing out the full-sized pickup truck that claims to make loading and unloading a whole lot easier with its completely redesigned tailgate, the GMC Sierra Denali.
I'm Matt DeBord. I get behind the wheel of the hottest cars and test them in real-world scenarios. Today I'm testing the MultiPro Tailgate in the GMC Sierra, and giving my full review along the way. This is "Real Reviews" from Cars Insider.
The GMC Sierra Denali aims to up the game for premium, full-sized pickups. Its cabin is full of luxurious materials, and it has a lot of high technology and driver-assistance features. But it's what's in the back that makes the biggest difference. GMC calls it the MultiPro Tailgate, and it has six different configurations. I'm gonna take it to Belleville Lumber Supply today, pick up some home-improvement stuff, and test out all the different setups. But first I'm gonna take the Sierra for a test drive.
The Sierra Denali has always been one of my favorite pickups. It's a notch up from the Chevy Silverado, so if the Chevy Silverado's not really luxurious enough for you, you go to GMC. The Denali trim is GMC's sort of extra-special, double-cool, you know, premium-materials kind of thing. The driving performance of the truck, it's great, it's very smooth, it's very powerful with the 420-horsepower motor, it's got gobs of torque, it's terrifically powerful, it's gonna be able to tow 9,600 pounds, it can carry 2,000 pounds in the bed. It doesn't drive like a luxury sedan or a luxury SUV, but it's about as, you know, smooth and easy a ride as you should expect from a full-size pickup truck without compromising any of the versatility and functionality you need with one of these things.
OK, here I am at Belleville Lumber Supply, and I'm gonna see what this fancy tailgate can do. GMC's multi tailgate pro is the first of its kind. It offers users better functionality by adding five additional configurations to the primary tailgate function. I'm gonna test out all of these features, except for the standard tailgate, to see if they make a difference. And I'm gonna start with the full-width step.
The full-width step should make it easier for me to step into the truck bed while loading material, such as these bags of mortar here. God, these are heavy! So far it's making this job an enormously easier one, 'cause these things are not light, and to get up in the bed when it's just in a standard configuration with no step would be extremely challenging. There's absolutely no way I would've been able to do that job in, what, about two, three minutes there? Without the step.
Now let's check out the easy-access feature, which should allow me better access to the bed to unload materials. The way you do the easy-access feature is you fold this up. Look at that, easier access to the back of the truck. Easy access worked as advertised, but I can't reach the back of the bed to get those sacks out, so I would have to move them a little bit closer to the end of the bed here if I wanted to use the feature.
The load stop can be used when you're loading materials that are longer than the bed and the tailgate has to remain open. We've got some lumber here that we're gonna put in, 8 feet long, and slide it in like that. Ah, look at that. It's too long, it's going past the load stop, so what I'm gonna have to do is put it in at an angle. That should be fine. This lumber, this is working great. This is an incredibly useful feature, because you'd be in a position of having to secure this wood in the bed if you had it open like this, and you'd have to tie a piece of red flag to it or something to let everybody know it's a bit of a hazard, but right like this it's good.
The inner gate load stop further expands the truck bed at the top. So, you gotta kinda fold the whole thing back up, drop the top, and throw up the inner gate load stop. Now I'm gonna put the lumber in just like I did before. With these 8-foot pieces of lumber, we really are at the limits of this bed's capabilities. I'm not even sure this is gonna work. I don't think it's gonna be secure. OK, this is not working out so great. I don't feel comfortable driving around with this load the way it is, and we were given the short bed of the Sierra Denali to test out. If you had the longer bed, you'd be able to get this wood into this configuration a little bit more comfortably. Now let's move on to the work-surface test, and for this one I've got a slightly different idea.
And finally, the work surface turns the truck into a mobile workstation. This is kind of a rolling desk that's on the back of the bed here, and it's extremely useful for doing work, but I don't have any work to do, so I'm going to eat lunch. If I had work to do, on the other hand, it would be absolutely fantastic. It's a little thing, this feature, but it's really, really useful. You could set up any of a number of things. You could go over plans for a job, you could set up a laptop here. This truck has 4G LTE WiFi, which will support numerous devices. You also have power back here in the bed of the truck. You could run your laptop off of that, you could run any of a number of devices off of it, you could also have power tools that you're charging up. So, it's extremely useful; it's one of my favorite features of the MultiPro Tailgate. So, those are the five additional features of the MultiPro Tailgate.
Now let's hop inside and talk about the interior. The Sierra Denali's interior is about as close to luxurious as you can get in a pickup truck. That's the whole idea behind the upscale Denali trim level. It's plush, roomy, and user-friendly. The infotainment system is a freshened-up version of what GM uses across its lineup of vehicles, and it's one of the top systems in the auto industry. It's a piece of cake to operate, using the touch-screen interface. You also have OnStar as a backup and fast 4G LTE WiFi connectivity.
The GMC Sierra Denali as we have it configured here is a $70,000 pickup, so it's not really cheap, but it's so crammed full of technology, premium amenities, and versatility that I think it's almost a bargain. The MultiPro Tailgate really adds a lot to this truck, as we found out today when we checked it out at Belleville Lumber and found out that in all the different positions it works great, even the inner position with the gate up and the load stop deployed where we couldn't quite get the lumber in. That wasn't the truck's fault. If we had a bigger bed it would've been fine. The 6.2-liter V8 pulls like a freight train and is gonna fill you with confidence if you're towing a trailer or if you've got a 2,000-pound load in the back. If you're in the market for a premium pickup, the GMC Sierra Denali is really a great choice.
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