Wow, talk about damning with faint praise. USA Today reviewer James Healey is practically whispering. “[Badge engineering] derision notwithstanding, let’s be clear: Traverse is basically a good crossover SUV. It hardly could be otherwise as a near-clone of the others, which are quite good.” Quite good or pretty decent? Never mind, because the quality sucks. “But two Traverse testers had flaws not seen in the others. The first tester, a front-wheel-drive LT, had misaligned interior trim and a tailgate-open warning light that stayed on 15-20 seconds after it closed. The second, a high-end LTZ all-wheel-drive, was built after all teething problems were solved, Chevy says. It had properly aligned trim and a proper tailgate warning, but was noisier, less comfortable and shifted worse.” Shouldn’t that be “worserer”? Anyway, Chevy has an explanation! “LTZ’s transmission, the six-speed automatic used in all Traverse and similar crossovers, might have needed more miles to adapt to driver preferences, Chevy says. Let’s hope it’s that simple. Otherwise the transmission’s stumbles and jerks and inconsistencies are a deal-breaker.” Oh and while James Healey’s redefining “pretty decent,” he adds “stiff pricing,” “clumsy seats” and “mediocre mileage.” Summary? Much like a toddler, really. “Teething problems but otherwise good.”
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I can actually believe GM’s line about the LTZ. The same 6-speed automatic is in my GTP (with some different gearing, of course).
The transmission’s computer adjusts its behavior according to how you drive it. If you drive it like a senior citizen, it shifts sooner and slower. If you thrash it, it shifts later and faster. The changes last over some miles, if you drive it hard and then go for a leisurely cruise, you’ll still notice the transmission holding onto the power a few hundred rpm more than it would otherwise. Not unique technology, but fairly clever. The break-in miles are rough, but after that it’s a surprisingly good slushbox. One of the best I’ve driven, at least.
To bad The General doesn’t have time to teethe.
Shouldn’t that be “worserer?”
Shouldn’t that be “Shouldn’t that be ‘worserer’?” Quotation mark goes inside punctuation as the question is posed outside the quote. Then again, I’m not sure how to punctuate my first sentence, as it’s a question quoting a question… My head hurts.
Anyway, the correct word is obviously worserly.
Talk about beating a dead horse. GM’s not selling any of the others so having a Chevy badge makes up for that? Don’t think so.
“The break-in miles are rough, but after that it’s a surprisingly good slushbox.”
If this is true doesn’t anyone inside GM have the common sense to perform this procedure internally before handing the vehicle over to the newspaper with the largest circulation in the entire US?
The problem I see is you can buy this new for 35+k or get a sweet 2yr old low mileage SRX for 20k.
Or now that gas is under $2/gal in Texas (2.19 here in Indiana), may as well get a Tahoe or Burb.
seoultrain:
Point taken. Quote marks moved,
Look, I love TTAC, really I do, but going through non-TTAC reviews with a fine tooth comb is getting old. Who cares? I came here to get TTAC’s take on cars, not their take on a take.
BTW, I read Healey’s review and thought it was surprisingly honest, especially for a mainstream publication. We all know how Car and Driver would have tackled this one. He’s a lot more critical and better informed than many others out there, including some that publish reviews on TTAC.
Still love TTAC as my home page, but I suggest a little less ‘inside baseball’ stories.
My 12-year old car has an adaptive transmission, too. It’s not unique, special, or brag-worthy. It’s simply a computer chip and software loaded with tables of rpm, load, speed, temperature, etc.
“…might have needed more miles to adapt to driver preferences…Otherwise the transmission’s stumbles and jerks and inconsistencies are a deal-breaker.”
How many miles? I would think that the reviewer drove at least a hundred in his evaluation.
My car will re-learn (after a battery swap, for example) in about fifteen miles. But those first fifteen are not clunky, noisy, or hesitant. Let’s hope there’s a TCU software update soon for the Travesty Traverse.
And how can a Chevy version of a vehicle that’s been on the market as long as the Lambda’s have have teething problems? It’s more likely that the Traverse was rushed (sloppily) to market! GM—King of Rebadging—fails epically.
“LTZ’s transmission, the six-speed automatic used in all Traverse and similar crossovers, might have needed more miles to adapt to driver preferences, Chevy says.”
I guess it’s just me, or an “old” thing, but why does an automatic have to adjust to it’s driver? The Turbo 350 was a bullit proof, predictable, even linear transmission. If I was accelerating hard and, before it shifted to third, I let up on the clutch, the trannie would hang on to 2nd and plod into third. That was MY fault. If you accelerated and maintained peddle pressure you could very easily control shift points.
Why would anyone want a computer to drive their car for them?
Does this make any sense to anyone else?
What kind of a car company turns a vehicle over for press test drives without making sure everything is absolutely as good as it can be? You know, a ringer.
And who made this decision?:
“The others are built in Lansing, Mich. Traverse is built at the old Saturn plant at Spring Hill, Tenn. — the only vehicle built there.”
Say what? They retooled Spring Hill to build only the Traverse and left the rest of the platform mates in Lansing? Lucky for GM that they have those well paid bosses on the job.
Dimwit: sales of the others aren’t bad. At least they total up to the largest share in the segment.
I had an Acadia as a rental for the past 2 days (I just wanted a COMPACT while my car was in the body shop, this was all they had.) , an AWD model. Couple quick comments:
I too noticed the horrid transmission, but my sister has an Outlook and hers seems smooth. I drove the Acadia from 99 to 209 miles, so it was brand new, so that could have been it. One thing though, that transmission has problems grabbing in reverse sometimes. This was true on my rental Acadia, as it is also true on my sister’s Outlook.
My sister has the fully loaded Outlook, and my Acadia was obviously a base model, but I was stunned with what the base model did NOT have. It was missing cup-holders, steering-wheel audio controls, and a myrid of other tiny itty bitty things. They could have at least included a few extras!
Perzackly. It’s not that the car is bad. It’s that it’s the wrong price at the wrong time.
The Automakers miss the SUV and pickup sales with the high per-unit margin. Regular cars don’t have that margin.
Enter the crossover or whatever it is. They think they can simply slap a new segment name and retain the same margins they used to have for SUVs and pickups.
They can’t. These things, like GMs ‘nicely equipped’ pickups and SUVs, is priced up to $10k too much. No leases and tighter lending to consumers make this car a non-starter.
The Traverse is nice…better than anything else in the class…but with the introduction of the Traverse…TWO lambda’s should have taken the dirt nap (Outlook and Acadia).
My car has an adaptive transmission.
When I’m lazy I shift slow
When I’m hyper I shift fast
It’s all up to me.
Reason #678 why manuals are better.