A certain metaphor about deck chairs and a famous sinking ship simply leaps to mind when reading this article.

Small steps are better than none.
Less horsepower would be pointless.
A smaller engine might get another 1 or 2 % and make the non-buyers happy but would not sell.
Less is more; but only when it's the other guys truck.
I assume these engines do not (yet) have Active Fuel Management or variable valve timing?
Again, a 6% reduction in a large fuel bill is good.

In theory yes. But the 4.3 has seen limited development in recent years and the engine family that includes the 5.3 has better brake specific fuel consumption. I think the 4.3 still has cast iron heads. She's an oldie.

For GM trucks, the 4.3 is currently a cost reduction option, not an efficiency option.

What's frustrating is that you always hear, "Auto companies spent x amount of millions to make sure that cars get the best fuel consumption within the current limits of technology."

Well... Looks like at least 5-10% is still ripe for the taking. I think all cars should have the XFE treatment. But I suspect that marketing and competition trump the need for those extra gains. A "deep chin spoiler" probably ads a couple bucks to the cost of a car or truck for a 1-2% highway mileage advantage. In the pre $4dollar/ gallon environment, most companies would take the per vehicle cost reduction instead of the efficiency gains, slap themselves on the back and move on.

Hopefully the new efficiency minded market mentality will stick, and the competition will sway to ad those things back.

When will you guys learn that the EPA does not have, nor does it set, mileage standards. The Window sticker is nothing more than an arbitrary "estimate" of the mileage that a vehicle can obtain. It is no more valid then your eyeball estimate.

The NHTSA tracks the CAFE standard, measures every vehicle for mileage using a standard method that has been unchanged, since the Original CAFE back in the 1970s.

These vehicles are all 15-20% better than the very best mileage vehicle of the 1970s era.

We have actually come that far.

The very best vehicle measured with the same measuring stick back in the 1979s got 16 mpg combined. These all rate by NHTSA measurements, better than 22.7 mpg and have to, by law. Some such vehicles as these, may be as high as the mid 20s by the constant, unchanged, and legal, CAFE measuring method.

Progress happens incrementally, until a wholly new technology is implemented.

Pathetic - Where's the new Ecotec engine with vvt, di, and variable turbo?

Few things here from someone who actually deals with the automotive business.

As far as I know, cylinder de-activation is now standard on the 5.3 V8. I could be wrong, but it would not make sense to make the "economy" version not have this feature.

Keep in mind that very tall axle ratios that bring engine RPM down, may reduce the amount that the cylinder de-activation can be utilized. What's better, 1600 rpm on 8 cylinders, or 1800 rpm on 4 cylinders. (Answer is "it depends".)

The 4.3 V6, as someone else mentioned, is a very old engine design. The 5.3 V8 uses less fuel in this application.

Regarding the power rating, the full size truck still has to do the things that a truck is expected to do. Modern engine and transmission designs can achieve high power ratings (at high engine revs) while still maintaining decent efficiency (at low engine revs). A high-winding 4-cylinder that has to work hard to make the truck move, isn't necessarily going to be any more efficient.

I don't dispute that engines and vehicles are smaller in Europe, that's obvious. North American buyers have the choice, for example, of buying a 4-cylinder Chevrolet Colorado, if that suits their needs.

GM has to make vehicles that will actually sell. Truck buyers (at least until now) have been reluctant to accept small, high-revving engines.

I have been in a truck with the 5.3 V8 with a trailer in tow through the mountains. The endless gear-shifting caused by the transmission wanting to go into economy mode while the cruise control demands more power to get up the hill was NOT very pleasant. And, if you tow a trailer like this with (for example) a Honda Ridgeline, it will not even get into top gear except when coasting. And some of you want GM to put an Ecotec 4-banger into a full size truck?

What this truck really needs is the "baby Duramax". They have it coming soon ... not soon enough, but such is how it goes with introducing new powerplants.

I guess we'll see - between the high-cost two-mode hybrid option (large improvement, large cost increase) and this option (small improvement, small incremental cost)

The buying public will vote with their dollars on which is better.

My question is, what ever happened to the OPTION of a 6-cyl or even, gasp, a 4-cyl engine? Remember the old Iron Duke 4-cyl engine Chevy used to offer in their trucks? I have an old 1-ton Chevy truck with a mildly modded 5.7 liter V8 with a Muncy 4-spd tranny, and I doubt it puts out any more than 200 hp. I am constantly using it to tow and haul extremely heavy (legality in doubt) loads, and I can tell you that that engine accelerates the truck, its load, and anything it is towing to a speed that exceeds a safety level that common sense would dictate. I guarantee the new Ecotec 4-cyl puts out better peak HP and torque than the old normally aspirated 350 in my truck. Just for reference, 270HP is a normal figure for heavy duty tow trucks. The horsepower numbers in new trucks, SUVs, and luxury sedans is nothing more than specsmanship. With modern technology, there is really no longer any real need for V8 engines in LDVs.

Jorge, they made a ton of those engines and put them in many different apps, and the performance varied widely. I just looked up the numbers and for my year (82), it was 160 HP and 260 ft-lbs. I rebuilt my engine a few years ago, and while I was at it made some performance mods on things that needed to be replaced anyway. Although I've never had it dynoed, I'm sure it now puts out substantially more power than stock, although I doubt it puts out more than 200 HP, and my mods probably didn't do all that much for the torque. I've seen specs of 260 HP/ 260 lb-ft for the 2.0 liter turbocharged Ecotec.

I would have no problems pulling a nice big boat to the lake with a full sized Chevy truck with a 2.0 liter Ecotec and a nice manual transmission. In fact my friend and I pulled his 19' Bayliner to the river with his V6 equipped Trailblazer (not even a full-size) which I'm sure does not reach the performance specs of the Ecotec.

Brian P: Who said anything about putting a high revving four cylinder in a big truck? A nice low-revving, high torque six cylinder Diesel would do the trick very nicely. Well, maybe others did, but a six cylinder Diesel would like be more fuel efficient as well as a better puller.

As for towing a trailer through the mountains, why on earth would you ever engage the cruise control to do this? And if you don't like the way the automatic transmission shifts, there is a very simple solution; buy a stick.

When will Americans learn, as Europeans already have, that there is no such thing as a 6000 pound, 500 horsepower, 9 seater SUV with all wheel drive and an 8 speed automatic transmission that gets 50mpg? (and that nobody really needs one anyway). If you need a huge truck to tow your huge boat, buy a smaller boat and then buy a smaller truck too.

V6 gasoline engine on full-size pick-up is a goner. Cylinder deactivation (of one bank of cylinders) does not work well on anything less than 8 cylinders: torsional vibration and such. And V8 with cylinder de-activation is overall more fuel efficient than V6 without.

So, it is gasoline V8 with de-activation or 6-8 cylinder turbodiesel.