2005 Chevy Silverado 1500 Work Truck - Back 2 Basics

It's hard to say if it was the mediocre reception of the factory receiver, its equally ho-hum sound quality, or the built-in door chime that made us chuck the OE stereo. Yeah, who are we kidding? It was the damn chime that made us pick up the Crutchfield catalog again and order up a $130 Alpine CDE-9842. Crutchfield, as usual, included a free mounting kit and good installation instructions, but also insisted we get a $70 digital interface, which serves two purposes. One is to retain the feature that keeps the radio on until the driver's door is opened. Fine. Its second function "allows use of the factory chime system." Oh, great.

It's all thanks to lawyers, no doubt, but now we must pay extra to know we've opened a door or that the key is in the ignition. What's next? A light to tell us the wipers are on? According to Crutchfield's instructions, "Failure [to install the interface] may result in serious injury or death." Really?

There is a way to minimize the volume in the interface described in the instructions, and/or you could sound-insulate it-or simply cut the speaker wires inside. Leaving the interface out completely may not be doable, we found, after looking over the wiring schematics.

Rather than risking stereo and/or vehicle meltdown, we called Crutchfield's customer service-at 5 p.m. Pacific time on the July 4th weekend-for some expert advice. The friendly rep understandably wasn't about to encourage bypassing the interface. We wired up the Alpine without, and combined the ignition and positive leads so the radio would work without the ignition key. A great improvement in sound quality resulted. It was perfection, with two notable exceptions. Now the clock was always on, and the pickup got mad when we put the key in the ignition. Oh well, at least we tried.

One good thing that came from our experimenting and poking around on Crutchfield's Web site was finding that by buying from its "Scratch and Dent Store," you could get the next model up (Alpine CDE-9846) for a few bucks less than the CDE-9842.

You have 30 days to change your mind, so we put the '42 back in its box and ordered a 9846 instead, for two reasons. With the '46, you get a real twist knob for the volume, and the lights can be made to dim. A win-win, we thought, until getting the CDE-9846 and finding it had blue, not green, lighting in its buttons. Also, the '46 can play MP3s-whatever those are.

Don't tell anybody, but we removed the speaker in the digital interface and now enjoy superior sound quality over the factory radio's, and without that irritating chime. We're really impressed by Crutchfield's customer service that'll answer the phone until midnight (EST), seven days a week, and allow us to change our mind.

A sumptuous pearl paint scheme, 22-inch wheels, a "billet" grille, some overhead lights, and a DVD screen for the rear-seat passengers, and we're done. Oh, that's right ... there is no rear seat. Alright, then our final addition to this Chevy will be a pair of custom-fit $60 floor mats from Global Accessories. But why cover up the perfectly good factory rubber floor mat? Because we're tired of scooping up debris off the floor when it's so much easier to shake it off the individual floor mats-which are almost too nice for the low-buck W/T cab.

This Chevy can go more places with its Truetrac rear diff, it rides and handles much better, it's more practical (for us, anyway), and it's much safer. That could certainly be considered a success. It has gained some weight, of course, but still squirts through traffic and up hills very, very well. So far, mileage has been a high of 19.76 to a low of 15.21 mpg, with an overall average of 17.56. Not too shabby for a 293ci V-8 and automatic that has to play "garden pickup" around the homestead, pull the occasional trailer, and has to climb several miles of 8 percent grade whenever it gets to go to town. To significantly improve on this mileage, merely obey the Interstate speed limits.

Is there more to be done? But of course. We'll try some sound insulation to get rid of the camper-shell-induced wind noise. Also, we're looking for ways to minimize the slant-eyed look of the headlights (buying an '06 model would be a good start, as the hoodline is now straight between the lights). And a flat-glass mirror on the passenger side would be nice. Other things are likely to surface, but as mentioned, it's close enough-and we wouldn't have done anything different if we'd been able to start over again.