![]() Headroom is good and the floor is almost flat – no big intrusive tunnel, so that’s nice. The outboard seats are very comfortable and have the ability to recline. You’ll find three seats back there – along with 3 seatbelts and 2 headrests. You can cover the cargo space with a soft, retractable tonneau cover, there’s a handy cargo net that spans the width of the space, and you’ll find a 12V plug for your convenience. The rear seats fold (not quite flat) in a 60/40 split to make it much, much bigger – 1803 Liters/63.7 cubic feet. The cargo space is large (889 Liters/31.4 cubic feet), but the rear wheel wells do intrude into it. The door bins include a bottle holder, and a long, shallow (read: useless) tray and the glove compartment is smallish, but useable. There’s some nice driver assistance tech here – lane departure warning and forward collision alert systems. Under its lid, you’ll find a narrow and very deep bin as well as the auxiliary and USB plugs. The center console houses a nice deep rubberized open storage bin at the front, the gear selector and dual cupholders, as well as an upholstered armrest. The liftgate is powered – there’s a button overhead, one inside and one outside of the trunk lid and one on your key FOB. Headlights are automatic, and of course you get GM’s OnStar system as well as a HomeLink garage door opener. Of course, everything is powered – door locks, mirrors, windows (although strangely, not auto-up) and the sunroof overhead. There’s a sea of buttons below the screen, handling media, nav and phone functions, and then even more of them for the automatic dual-zone climate control system. Hey, if you’re one of those people complaining that there aren’t enough hard buttons in modern cars, you’ll be ecstatic in the Equinox. The Pioneer sound system sounds very good and feeds off of a myriad of sources. The center stack starts with a mid-sized touchscreen, which handles media, navigation, phone, vehicle settings and the back-up camera. Behind it sits a set of large gauges, separated by GM’s horrible-to-look-at but very useful driver information screen, which offers good data on fuel consumption, trip meters, etc. It has controls for cruise, media, driver assistance stuff and phone/handsfree goodies. The manually-adjustable steering wheel has a really thick rim, and seems as though it has a large diameter. ![]() ![]() The interior is spacious, and headroom in the front is stellar. With that said, I do like the styling of the dash. There are no soft-touch plastic surfaces anywhere on the dash or the console. The materials in the Equinox are nice to look at, but definitely behind the curve in terms of quality and feeling. There’s a minor step up into the cabin, and into the comfortable, heated leather (with perforated inserts) seats. If you’re into towing, you won’t do a lot of it – the Equinox has a 3500 pound maximum, enough for small trailers. My mileage, after a week of driving in fresh snow, sometimes economically, occasionally with a heavy foot? A sobering 15.3 L/100 km – that’s the magic crossover point, because it’s also 15.3 mpg. It’s rated at 13.2 L/100 km (18 mpg) in the city and 8.4 L/100 km (28 mpg) on the highway. It’s not rocket science – a vehicle that weighs over 4000 pounds and all that power? Yeah, it doesn’t come cheaply. All this power makes its way to all four corners through a 6-speed automatic transmission. It cranks out a mighty 301 HP at 6300 RPM and a stout 272 lb.ft of torque at 4800 RPM. Chevy did a good job with the meaty dual exhaust pipes – it adds a touch of menace, and it has the balls and the sound to back those up. I like that the vehicle, while not compact, keeps a smaller profile and never looks like a big truck. I enjoyed how the fenders have been flared out to give it some character, and how most of the lines have remained smooth and inoffensive. There’s plenty of chrome here – most of it is nice, but I thought the super high-polish 18″ chrome wheels – which are an expensive option and shiny enough that you can use them as shaving mirrors – were almost too blingy. I like Chevy’s new face – it’s simple and strong. I’m not the biggest fan of the slightly hunchbacked look from some angles, but overall the styling really appealed to me. Though recognizable as an Equinox, the latest one takes things upscale and looks more mature and refined than ever before. You can get into an Equinox for CDN $26,935, but this was an upper trim level (not the top though) – an all-wheel drive LT with the biggest motor available, and it priced out at a slightly shocking CDN $42,595. ![]() Chevrolet’s Equinox shares its bones with a number of corporate cousins, but has managed to eke out a loyal following of its own over the years.
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