How GM Is Bringing Heavy-Duty Pickup Steering Into the 21st Century
The Drive ·
Chevy and GMC are ditching recirculating ball steering with hydraulic assist for rack-and-pinion with EPS. The post How GM Is Bringing Heavy-Duty Pickup Steering Into the 21st Century appeared first on The Drive .
If you think new trucks are simple, I have to ask: Where have you been? Heavy-duty pickups can be especially complex with their diesel engines that make insane power while still meeting strict emissions standards. General Motors ‘ new 8.3-liter Duramax is proof of that , but it isn’t the only crucial update to the 2027 Chevy Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD. Those rigs are also getting rack-and-pinion steering with electric power assist, moving away from the hydraulically boosted recirculating ball design that’s been common for decades.
To learn more about the modernized steering setup, The Drive spoke with Ken Morris, senior vice president of product integration, safety, and motorsports at GM. He explained in layman’s terms why the manufacturer made this switch:
“I think [rack and pinion] allows you, especially when towing those 38,000-pound trailers, to have the precision of knowing exactly where you are,” Morris said. “It’s a different continuum from a Corvette ZR1 to a heavy-duty truck, but you want the same thing. You want to know exactly where you are.”
Morris added, “The nice thing is when it’s unladen, it really doesn’t change the steering characteristics. Whereas in the past, when you have a lot of tongue weight, or you have a load in the bed, it does change the way the steering feels. So I think that robustness of the experience is what we want. And we want the driver to be in 100% control.”
Rack and pinion steering is different from tried-and-true recirculating ball designs in that they use a direct gear-and-bar setup for precision’s sake, rather than a threaded worm gear and ball bearings inside a steering box. It’s been used in smaller vehicles and even sports cars like the Corvette for a long time; it’s certainly nothing new. But it is new to heavy-duty pickups, as recirculating ball steering is typically more resilient when it comes to heavier loads.
But GM believes it has found a way to make it workable in a Silverado or Sierra HD. Remember that these are also the only trucks in their class to run independent front suspension instead of a solid axle. The reason why is effectively the same: Because it feels better.
“What we’ve learned with electric power steering is that there’s a learning curve,” Morris said. “When we first started EPS, you may or may not remember, but they weren’t very good. But they’ve gotten better and better and better. So now, they’re so good that moving across the HD truck is doable.”
GM has emphasized comfort in its trucks for a long time, and they have a reputation for that among the pickup drivers I know. It’s no surprise, then, to see them take this step before Ford or Ram. I only hope that the components are tough enough to handle the enormous weight of a loaded dually—and Morris insists they are.
“People absolutely underestimate [loads] where the tie rod goes into the knuckle, and the tie rod loads can be super high,” Morris said. “Then you have gradients of that load, depending on what you’re doing when you’re going down the road, or your lateral force, or whatever. And you can manage that so much better with EPS. You can tune it [during development]. You can do it all on a laptop, you know. You don’t have to grind profiles into the gear, which takes lots of time and slows the iterative process. You can just type it in and get what you want [with EPS].”
Speaking of testing the new GM HD pickup twins, Morris closed in saying, “I spent my entire career in integration, just trying to dial in perfect steering feel, perfect brake feel, perfect driving dynamics. … Historically, heavy duties are really stiff-legged because they’re highly sprung and built to haul. This truck, when you drive it unladen, it’s a super comfortable truck to drive that you wouldn’t guess is a heavy-duty if you were blindfolded. Then you load it, and it’s absolutely capable. Rock solid. The thing that immediately jumps out is just how the steering feels. It’s a big change.”
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The post How GM Is Bringing Heavy-Duty Pickup Steering Into the 21st Century appeared first on The Drive .