My wife reserved a "compact SUV like a Toyota RAV4 or similar" for our familial Christmas to New Year's romp in Southern California and Las Vegas. As is always the case, there were no RAV4's available, not that I was looking to spending a week with a CVT, so we had to choose between a "similar" Hyundai Tucson and Chevrolet's latest iteration of the "now" breed of bread and butter transportation, this oh-so-generic 2019 Chevrolet Equinox. Being allergic to the Hyundai brand, I, of course, made the last second split decision to have all of us dive into this Equinox. Our much anticipated family vacation, which may be our last as a unit given that our boys are now twenty-two and twenty-one years old, included the legendary and breath taking traipse from Long Beach, California to The Sin City; so I really got familiar with this thing.
I'll cut to the chase and elaborate more but I was really surprised at just how bland and mediocre at best this thing was. It looked innocuous and, no surprise really, it was. A bolt was missing from the tailgate and the constant squeaky-squeak-squeaky accentuated my contempt. Much to the delight of my car centric older son, I declared that our Chevrolet Equinox was the embodiment of modern day, automotive sadness.
From it's utterly inoffensive styling to sluggish engine, horrible blind spots to a park bench of a rear seat, I have to say that anyone looking for a vehicle of this ilk purchase anything but a Chevrolet Equinox. Especially one decked out in LT trim with the base 1.5 liter, "Ecotec" engine.
Let's start with this "Ecotec" lump. While it's remarkable that GM is able to squeeze one hundred and seventy horsepower from just 1.5 liters of displacement, that doesn't mean it's adequate enough to haul a vehicle that weighs in on the dark side of two tons. Oh, sure, off the line it's sprightly and feels powerful, but when you need this thing to go "right-now", it simply doesn't. To make matters worse, this little bread box of a motor makes just two hundred twenty pounds of torque. And, sorry, that's "turbo torque" that's not unlike a car with a shot of nitrous - once it's out of breath you need to wait for the turbo to get "spooled up" again.
When you're stuck in the madening melee that is SoCal traffic, you need something with right now! responsiveness you can count on. The Ecotec had me longing for my almost twenty year old Monte Carlo SS - yeah, that's how over taxed the Ecotec 1.5 is in the Equinox. Oh, did I mention that gas mileage in the high mid twenties is not considered "really good" anymore?
It's not all bad. The front seats were comfy and supportive, it handled well enough for something on gigantic balloon tires, the brakes were touchy but powerful and reassuring, it was large enough to swallow all of our luggage and the styling, inside and out, was pleasant enough if a tad ordinary.
However, overall, this thing felt so ordinary it actually felt less than what it was. I can only imagine the feeling of malaise someone would have driving this home after just buying it - and that feeling only gets worse as time goes on. Granted, not everyone brims with pride or dare I say excitement after getting a new vehicle, but those of us who do and have bought a vehicle or two (or three or four) that we were less than enthused about from the get go, we can tell you that you need to do yourself a favor and shop elsewhere. If you must have a GM then at least get an Equinox loaded to the gills or try out the very similar GMC Terrain or Buick Envision. You have choices - make sure you use them!
No comments:
Post a Comment