Gooseneck Towing with the Chevy Silverado 2500HD

Some of the most common questions or concerns that people have when shopping for a truck are about the degree of towing power the different models can provide. When you look at different trucks available at your Atlanta Chevy dealer, you’re going to find widely differing amounts of towing capacity on them. In general, there are three major models of pickup from Chevy to check out if you have high towing needs: the Silverado, the Silverado 2500HD, and the Silverado 3500HD.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500HD, primarily, and consider the kind of towing power it can provide for you. In particular, we’re going to have a good look at the sort of gooseneck towing you can do with the Silverado 2500HD, compared to conventional towing. To get to the heart of it, we’ll even look at different configurations and engines that are available on the 2500HD and see if or how they impact the towing you can do with this truck. And we’ll compare it to the other two full-size options to see how the 2500HD stacks up and if it’s the right truck for you.

What is Gooseneck Towing?

Before we get into all the details and specs below, let’s take a moment to talk about gooseneck towing and make sure we’re all on the same page here. When a lot of people think about or discuss “towing,” they frequently refer to conventional towing, where you connect a trailer or camper to the back of a pickup truck using a ball hitch. This hitch is connected to the frame of the vehicle and sticks out from the back of the pickup, pulling the trailer along behind you directly from your truck’s rear end.

The kind of towing we’re looking at today, however, is gooseneck towing. With gooseneck towing, a hitch is located in the bed of the truck, connected to the pickup’s frame just above or slightly in front of the rear axle. The trailer then connects to the hitch with a long arm that comes down into the bed of the truck to attach for towing. This kind of towing can give you more stability and, perhaps more importantly, it can potentially give you greater capacities than conventional or bumper towing.

Gooseneck Towing with the Silverado 2500HD

Whenever you’re looking to do any towing, or you’re checking out trucks at your Chevy dealer, it’s important to remember that many different factors can impact the towing capacity of your pickup. You can’t just look at maximum available towing for a particular model and assume each one out there can handle that. With something like the 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500HD, there are two different engines, four bed lengths, three cab sizes, and different wheel sizes all available – and each of these things affects how much you can tow. On top of that, for each of these configurations, you might get different towing capacities for conventional towing compared to gooseneck towing.

So, let’s keep things simple and just look at ideal configurations for these setups. First off, we’ll see how the 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500HD does with gooseneck towing with different available configurations.

• Crew cab and standard engine: Up to 16,900 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Double cab and standard engine: Up to 17,100 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Regular cab and standard engine: Up to 17,400 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Crew cab and diesel engine: Up to 18,500 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Double cab and diesel engine: Up to 18,200 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Regular cab and diesel engine: Up to 18,500 lbs of gooseneck towing

So, you can see that you can get a significantly higher towing capacity when gooseneck towing if you choose a 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500HD with a diesel engine – in some cases, as much as 1,600 lbs of increased towing potential. Overall, however, your choice of cab size does not make as significant a difference for maximum gooseneck towing with the diesel engine, though the bed length and wheel size you choose still have an impact.

Conventional Towing with the Silverado 2500HD

Now let’s take a look at conventional towing with the 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500HD. Even though gooseneck towing might be your primary concern, you should still consider that you might utilize bumper towing at times and have that in mind when looking at your options. While the maximum gooseneck towing capacities can vary quite a lot depending on your configuration, the specs on conventional towing are rather impressive.

• Crew cab and standard engine: Up to 14,500 lbs of conventional towing
• Double cab and standard engine: Up to 14,500 lbs of conventional towing
• Regular cab and standard engine: Up to 14,500 lbs of conventional towing
• Crew cab and diesel engine: Up to 18,500 lbs of conventional towing
• Double cab and diesel engine: Up to 14,500 lbs of conventional towing
• Regular cab and diesel engine: Up to 14,500 lbs of conventional towing

Yes, you’re reading that right – when it comes to conventional towing, nearly every configuration of the 2020 Chevy Silverado 2500HD has a maximum trailer rating of 14,500 lbs. The only possible setup that goes beyond that is a crew cab with the turbo-diesel engine and either 18 or 20-inch wheels, which gives you 18,500 lbs of maximum towing. You might also notice that’s the same maximum towing as the gooseneck potential of the 2500HD. While you may still prefer gooseneck towing for the stability it offers, you won’t necessarily get greater towing with the 2500HD by choosing it.

The Silverado 2500HD vs Other Chevy Trucks

But what about the other trucks you’ll find at your Atlanta Chevy dealer? How do they stack up compared to the Silverado 2500HD? That’s pretty simple to answer, all we have to do is take a look at their towing capacities and compare them. To keep things simple, we’ll look at the two other full-size options: the Silverado 1500 and Silverado 3500HD.

The standard Silverado is a light-duty option that offers up to 13,400 lbs of towing capacity when properly equipped. That’s with the Max Trailering Package and the right configuration – so, as you might expect, it falls short of what the 2500HD can offer.

When we look at the 2020 Chevy Silverado 3500HD, the 2500HD’s big sibling, we see a different picture. For conventional towing, the Silverado 3500HD has a maximum trailering of up to 20,000 lbs when properly configured. With gooseneck towing, however, we see this:

• Regular cab and standard engine: Up to 17,200 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Regular cab and diesel engine: Up to 21,500 lbs of gooseneck towing
• Regular cab, diesel engine, dual rear-wheels: Up to 35,500 lbs of gooseneck towing

Here you can see the full potential of the 2020 Chevy Silverado 3500HD when compared to the 2500HD. If you choose the right configuration, including dual rear-wheels, then the 3500HD can offer up to 17,000 lbs greater gooseneck towing than the 2500HD. So if you need the highest gooseneck towing possible, then the 3500HD is the one to choose.

All of Your Truck Questions Answered

Still not sure which Chevy pickup is right for you? We have you covered. Contact us at Rick Hendrick Chevrolet of Buford today, and we’ll work hard to help you find the perfect truck for your needs.