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‘There are two engine options, both new and both featuring direct fuel injection to save fuel. The base models get a 182-hp four-cylinder that’s good for 21/30 mpg city/highway with front-wheel drive and 20/27 mpg with all-wheel drive. The V-6 packs 255 hp and returns 18/25 mpg with front-wheel drive and 17/24 with all-wheel drive.”
Oh look, a slightly longer, slightly better-trimmed Saturn Vue.
You know what’s sickening? The sycophancy over at Autoblog about this car. I mean, it’s good, but so was the Vue. So was the Malibu, versus the Aura. And that’s the problem.
Fortunately, Chevy’s getting the better end of all these badge engineering exercises (Traverse, Malibu, now the Equinox)… ya know what would make them really special?
Kill the other brands.
jgh nailed it. The Equinox would be exceptionally successful if GM would simply kill the siblings and put all their eggs in the basket of one great product.
The 30 highway number is a great achievement for the General. Although I hate modern day SUV’s, CUV’s, and all their portly ilk, I do have to give kudos to GM making a better one of the breed.
Nice looking design.
Meh, it doesn’t really do much for me. Plus, that 30 highway number comes on the 4-cylinder. Now I may be going out on a (very short) limb in saying this, but I guarantee every review of that 4 is going to talk about how woefully underpowered it is.
@BlueEr03:
Yeah. The 4-cylinder Vue isn’t enough anymore. Too bad.
This Equinox has GM’s new direct injection 4-cylinder. I doubt it will have enough grunt for this big car though.
I do not believe in putting a diesel in every car on the road. But I think a vehicle like this would be a perfect application for a diesel. Especially GM’s 1.9 liter CDTi with 150 hp and 200+ lb-ft of torque.
182hp from a direct injected 4 cylinder being “woefully underpowered”? Maybe everything is woefully overpowered. It’s been a while since I’ve driven a modern 4 and rented a 4 cyl CVT Altima a few weeks ago. I was shocked the power it had and the only complaint I could come up with was vibration at low RPM. I had an IS350 and now a 5.7L Tundra. The power they have is just insane and practically unusable on the street. I suspect if you’re not in a battle of my number is bigger than your number, the 4 cyl equinox has a good chance of being a nice DD.
And how many soccer moms care about speed?
They drive so freakin’ slow anyway…
@Justin
It has exactly the same HP as the current Equinox, but with better fuel economy.
I’ll also have you take note of the current specs for the Equinox and Vue; the base ‘Nox with the heavy 3.4 liter weighs almost 3,700 pounds, which is almost exactly the same as the 4-cylinder Vue.
The new base Equinox will have the more powerful 4-cylinder coupled with a 6-speed automatic. That, coupled with some of the changes related to the Equinox’s (and SRX’s) variant of Theta should have it maintain similar performance as the current one. (which isn’t great, but isn’t that bad either)
And for the record, the Toyota Rav-4 has similar performance and curb weight and I don’t hear you guys (or others) complaining about its lack of performance.
jgh:
The new Traverse is horrible – easily the worst of the Lambda’s. It’s boring on the outside, filled with cheap plastic on the inside and overpriced.
I drove a Saturn Outlook as a rental last week. Found it to be well built and very smooth. Didn’t like the transmission that couldn’t find a gear going up hill, but nicely downshifted for engine braking while going downhill. Fit and finish was great. And you could probably steal one right now..
The new Equinox continues GM’s MO of designing a new chassis and releasing it on one model, then improving it with each subsequent variant. Remember, the Malibu is built on the same chassis as the horrible Pontiac G6, just several years later and probably hundreds of tweaks later. Why can’t GM design it right the 1st time?
@dwford
So all cars should be perfect when released, and never updated?
Why can’t GM design it right the 1st time?
My thoughts exactly. I read a quote from some GM bigwig calling the new Malibu version 3.0 of the platform used on the G6 and Aura, and the Malibu is where it finally came together.
Great, so even GM admits it took them three tries to get it right. That is GM in a nutshell. Keep production numbers up and maintain business as usual, even if it means selling an admittedly inferior product.
@dwford
In this case, the Equinox isn’t exactly the same chassis as its Vue counterpart. It and the SRX are one step ahead of the Vue since they’re based on the lighter (and hopefully more competent overall) Theta-Epsilon variant, which blends Theta (Vue) with parts of the Epsilon II (Opel Insignia) platform.
And the Vue isn’t bad. In fact, its probably the best SUV GM has ever released. Its biggest sin was that it was too heavy since it was overengineered.
Droid800 :
It has exactly the same HP as the current Equinox, but with better fuel economy.
This is good news, because I actually think the 3.4 is the worst engine in GM’s entire lineup. That’s significant displacement to only put out 185 hp.
Here’s the thing though. Zero to sixty times (not the be all and end all, but I don’t have access to uniform 30-60 times) vary wildly.
Saturn Vue 2.4 – 10.3 sec
Chevy Equinox 3.4 – 8.5 sec
Toyota RAV4 2.4 – 8.8 sec
And Toyota has a 2.5 with 179 hp for 2009. Not tested yet – I’d guess 0-60 in 8.7 or something.
Will the new 2.4 with direct injection match 8.6 for the Equinox? I hope so. I really like the Ecotec 2.4 in the cars I’ve driven (Malibu, etc)
And for the record, the Toyota Rav-4 has similar performance and curb weight and I don’t hear you guys (or others) complaining about its lack of performance.
The RAV4 is 1.5 seconds faster from 0-60 than the Vue 2.4. That’s why I’d complain. I consider any 0-60 run under 9 seconds to be pretty quick. Ten-ish seconds is I guess okay for an SUV. But I prefer to have more torque than most of these 4-cylinder engines stump up if I’m going to be carrying people and/or crap.
I gave the Saturn Vue a really nice review with the 3.6 liter engine. I think it’s the best car in its segment.The 3.5 is fine too, but as others have always said, I found it a little more rough than you’d expect from a modern V6. Not smooth like the 3.6 or old 3.8.
@ Justin
The thing is, though, the Equinox is running on a new version of Theta that we haven’t seen yet. Since it is sharing more components with Epsilon II (e.g. more aluminum), and because GM knows the Vue is grossly overweight, the Equinox will likely lose weight compared to the Vue.
That, and the 2.4, though a good engine, is rather gutless in anything except sedan applications. The new engine should be better, thanks to both the increased horsepower, and more importantly, torque. It’ll also have the benefit of a 6-speed auto, whereas the Vue makes due with an antiquated GM 4-speed.
My only concern, for the Equinox specifically, is that the new 2.4 is going to be down a not insignificant 40 lb ft. of torque. While the 6-speed should help some, the car isn’t going to be able to match the 0-60 performance of the 3.4 without some engineering wizadry that GM frankly can’t muster at this point. I’d bet on a 0-60 time between 9 and 10 seconds.
i really like the looks of this, i think it’s the best looking GM SUV/CUV thing and the interior looked nice in the pictures too.
much better than the Traverse with that awful rear end and tiny rear window
i mean really, i can only imagine how bad the rear vision must be out of this thing
http://www.sport-cars.org/site_img/large/2009-Chevrolet-Traverse-2.jpg
Another one? I sense a fart coming.
Looks like a winner.
Finally that Chinese made 3.4 mill is going to the cemetary!! Slava Bogu!!
Any word on towing capacity?
redrum–
An editor at Car and Driver called the Malibu G6 3.0. The Aura was G6 2.0, and the G6 was, obviously, G6 1.0. A GM executive didn’t say that.
I have driven all the cars and the Aura and G6 drive very similar.
The Malibu is much quieter, has a nicer interior, and has some weight to the steering.
Attention has been drawn to GM’s practice of improving the breed as they release models on the same platform. Given that the first example is a reasonable vehicle this is a good thing.
OTOH, GM got where it is today largely by introducing cars like the Corvair, the Vega, the Fiero before they were really ready for release and by using the buyers as beta testers. The last-model-year versions of all three were pretty good cars. Unfortunately the public remembers the early ones.
Thanks for the link.
Also, remember there will be no future Pontiac Torrent, and possibly no more Saturn period. The big question is if they rebadge it for GMC as a baby Acadia.