2018 Chevrolet Equinox 1.5T AWD LS

previous 2018 Equinox comments here

DRIVEN:  2018 Chevrolet Equinox 1.5T AWD LS

HIGHS:

(previous) Rear row seats are very supportive, placed at a good height, and are nicely comfortable.

And they fold flat now (WHOA!).

Nothing else.

LOWS (LS trim considered):

See link for previous 2018 Equinox comments above.

Tight, compromised, unacceptable front row space.  Useless for space or comfort.

No real gratification from steering, handling or anything vehicle dynamics wise.  None at all.

LS model gauges and center display look ridiculously cheap and third world.  Suzukis had better gauges.

Weak styling.  The old styling was popular.  On some trims it is decked out enough to be interesting.  Here it is downright wussy cheap yuk.

Unacceptable powertrain.  Coarse, slow, it's got nothing going for it in this application.  Jack on the gas and you think it will blow itself up, yet it still doesn't wanna go anywhere.  I will throw out here that it was apparently AWD.  So maybe the 1.5 is not cut out for AWD.  That alone can really handicap a powertrain.

GM really has feminized this product.  I am repeating this because it is the case.

Trax / Encore may actually be better choices.

Upper trims ridiculously overpriced, all things considered.

I don't see how this would appeal in any ways to classic GM buyer bases.

SUMMARY:

Like the last time, I don't want to waste much time on this one.  I had came out to test a diesel that magically disappeared when i got to the dealer.  Disclosure: at least Chevy paid me 50 bucks gift card to test drive this.  And the dealer had a gift card offer too.  As an aside the sales guy was very awesome.

Later in the day I drove a Hyundai Santa Fe sport in a somewhat comparable price.  That's much more enjoyable, I'd be surprised if the Tucson wasn't as well.  I love the Escape and I absolutely recommend the Escape way before this.  The Compass and Cherokee have great interiors and I recommend people look into those.  CX-5, new Tiguan, anything but this.  Mitsubishi Outlander and Sport are better choices here even.

I'll go back and try a diesel and try a 2.0 again but my impressions of the new Equinox so far makes me wonder what is going on at GM to make these botches with a core product here.  Of course CAFE is always a factor.  I think downsizing the wheelbase was a bad idea.  Feminizing the trucky styling is wrong here.  Sure, some others may like this, but i don't get it.  WTF GM

Edited December 31, 20178 yr by regfootball