Chevy Equinox?? The good, the bad & the ugly?

[DisneyBeagle]

I'm thinking about purchasing a new car and right now am leaning towards a Chevy Equinox. Do any of you own an Equinox and if so, what do you like or dislike about it?

 

[JennyKS]

I bought a 2006 brand new. It now has 116,000 miles on. I have nothing bad to say. Everyone that gets in it says the back seat is very roomy. It always surprises them. Have had no issues with it. I will be trading it for a new one this winter. First time I will have ever bought another of the same car, thats how much I love mine. Mine is an AWD. I really do love it.

 

[Fire14]

love to drive them on Vacation, I own a Saturn VUE and love that too.

 

[momof1princess]

i have a 2004 buick rainier, which i bought used, and i LOOOOOVE this car! it is the same size as the equinox (and likely has the same framework, as GM tends to use the same chassis for several different vehicles across its various brands), and it is such a wonderful car. i really don't think you could go wrong with it's cousin, the equinox.

pic of my car (okay, not MY car, but same make, model, color and all):

http://trialx.com/curetalk/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2011/06/cars/2004_Buick_Rainier-2.jpg

pic of equinox:

http://outsidethecar.com/2011/04/2011-chevrolet-equinox/

 

[Coconut36]

I have a 2007 Equinox. I am torn between saying I love it but warning you we had issues. We just recently had to have the entire transmission replaced (on GM's dime not ours..they covered it 100% under the Power Train warranty)..we were at about 69,000ish miles when it happened. They were unclear as to what was even wrong just that it was bad and needed to be replaced. We also had to have a sensor replaced related to the fuel system..that was about $600ish worth of work NOT covered by the warranty (although we have an extended via GEICO that covered all but $250 of it). No explanation why a vehicle that was barely 4 years old would have these issues but they were fixed/fixable and GM didn't hesitate to cover the transmission under warranty.

Overall we are happy with it, love the roominess of it, it handles nicely but it isn't the most fuel efficient vehicle out there however it isn't any worse that any other crossover/compact SUV so as long as you are aware of that up front that shouldn't be a big concern (we admittedly did not think of fuel efficiency when we bought it so it was a bit of a disappointment..but our fault not theirs). So I would give it a cautious thumbs up (cautious because of our transmission issue and the fear it gave me something else big could go wrong when it is out of warranty).

 

[leight]

we test drove one a few years back because it looked so good and I loved the interior of it-very roomy front and back seats and it handled very well. I'm not sure if they have changed this but the storage area in the back was actually very small because it seemed like the rear tire covers that were built into the back were huge- we expected more usuable space. It did have some kind of removeable piece that made a nice table in that area but again it didn't seem as thought it would be useful on my dh's treks to lowes and Home depot. We decided against it because of the rear storage.

 

[tvguy]

A former co-worker has/had one. He had no issues with the vehicle. He did have issues with the resale value, at least what it was worth here in California. He lived in New York when he bought it. Paid over $30k for it. Exact same one here in California new was over $5,000 less because dealers were much more willing to discount them here. That meant when he thought about selling it here, the suggested private party price was less than what he owed on the loan.
But if you plan to drive the wheels off it, that would not be a factor.

 

[mickeym96]

my parents have had two. I'm not sure what years they were/are. They leased one and when the lease was up on that one they leased the newest one and just this year, when that lease was up they bought it. I've driven it MANY times and I really like it. Nice ride (front & back seats), roomy interior, good size "trunk" area with back seat folding down for more room. Been considering getting one myself.

 

[Coconut36]

A former co-worker has/had one. He had no issues with the vehicle. He did have issues with the resale value, at least what it was worth here in California. He lived in New York when he bought it. Paid over $30k for it. Exact same one here in California new was over $5,000 less because dealers were much more willing to discount them here. That meant when he thought about selling it here, the suggested private party price was less than what he owed on the loan.
But if you plan to drive the wheels off it, that would not be a factor.

Wow that is a high price..ours was about $18,000ish out the door and it had all the good stuff in it so it wasn't a low end model. I wonder if it was just the difference in COL/price from one state to another.

 

[fairestoneofall]

we have a 2010 that we purchased last year. we've had it over a year, and i have no complaints. it actually gets great gas mileage (ours is newer than Coconut36's). one of the reason's we researched it was because of the gas mileage. DH wanted me to get a sedan, but i didn't want one. so, he started checking into fuel-efficient SUVs. we have three kids in the back seat. we have the basic model with the added reverse camera. love that.

the only thing i don't like is that there isn't a lot of space in the "trunk." however, i previously drove a Ford Explorer with a third row, so the back area was huge when the seat was down. if you aren't coming from a huge vehicle, it won't seem small. lol!

 

[Coconut36]

we have a 2010 that we purchased last year. we've had it over a year, and i have no complaints. it actually gets great gas mileage (ours is newer than Coconut36's). one of the reason's we researched it was because of the gas mileage. DH wanted me to get a sedan, but i didn't want one. so, he started checking into fuel-efficient SUVs. we have three kids in the back seat. we have the basic model with the added reverse camera. love that.

the only thing i don't like is that there isn't a lot of space in the "trunk." however, i previously drove a Ford Explorer with a third row, so the back area was huge when the seat was down. if you aren't coming from a huge vehicle, it won't seem small. lol!

Since they keep calling me asking if we want to "trade up" I am curious what kind of mileage you get in the newer model. We average about 16mpg city (and city is basically the majority of our driving..the rare times we do some significant highway travel we get around 25mpg but it is so rare I don't really count it).

 

[fairestoneofall]

Since they keep calling me asking if we want to "trade up" I am curious what kind of mileage you get in the newer model. We average about 16mpg city (and city is basically the majority of our driving..the rare times we do some significant highway travel we get around 25mpg but it is so rare I don't really count it).

most of my driving is city (picking up DS from school, going to the store). i may drive on the highway a few times, but it wouldn't be for more than 20 minutes at a time. that being said, my usual gas mileage is 23-25. the more highway driving i do, the higher that goes. when i drove to WDW last year, i got 37-40 mpg.

 

[Coconut36]

Wow that is a significant difference from what I get. I may have to give some thought to their offer to upgrade!

 

[tvguy]

Wow that is a high price..ours was about $18,000ish out the door and it had all the good stuff in it so it wasn't a low end model. I wonder if it was just the difference in COL/price from one state to another.

By the way, I'm not talking sticker price, I'm talking actually selling price. I guess in Syracuse the Chevy dealers just were not discounting much if at all off sticker price.
I ran into that, in reverse, when I bought my Suburban. I'm in California, and I was visiting my FIL in Texas, and prices there were $5,000 lower on ad in the paper. My FIL is a big Chevy fan and checked with the dealership he deals with, and they said over half the Suburbans sold are sold in Texas (hence the nickname "Texas Cadillac"), and that Chevy offered special incentives to dealers in Texas to sell Suburbans than in other states.

 

[jenrose66]

I'm thinking about purchasing a new car and right now am leaning towards a Chevy Equinox. Do any of you own an Equinox and if so, what do you like or dislike about it?

I bought a 2005 Chevy Equinox brand new. It was my first SUV. I loved that car! I loved the handling, the interior, the look....Alas, I had a bunch of kids and only a minivan will do...I still think about that car.

 

[Coconut36]

By the way, I'm not talking sticker price, I'm talking actually selling price. I guess in Syracuse the Chevy dealers just were not discounting much if at all off sticker price.
I ran into that, in reverse, when I bought my Suburban. I'm in California, and I was visiting my FIL in Texas, and prices there were $5,000 lower on ad in the paper. My FIL is a big Chevy fan and checked with the dealership he deals with, and they said over half the Suburbans sold are sold in Texas (hence the nickname "Texas Cadillac"), and that Chevy offered special incentives to dealers in Texas to sell Suburbans than in other states.

Aaah..yeah our sticker price was in the upper 20s..want to say 25ish but they were not actually selling for sticker price and we "negotiated" down the original price (you know how that can be..hang on and let me talk to my manager stuff) to get to the $18,000 (with all the tax/licensing and all that in that amount).

 

[DenMig]

I bought a 2010 equinox that I've had for 14 months. I really love it. I get about 23 mpg with city driving and over 32 miles highway. (at least that is what the dashboard readout tells me). One odd quirk is that there are more blind spots than I had previously been used to. One issue I have to be careful with is at a 4 way stop if there is a car on my right a few have been in a blind spot, but no accidents to date, lol. Overall I am very happy with it and would gladly purchase another one.

 

[DisneyBeagle]

I bought a 2006 brand new. It now has 116,000 miles on. I have nothing bad to say. Everyone that gets in it says the back seat is very roomy. It always surprises them. Have had no issues with it. I will be trading it for a new one this winter. First time I will have ever bought another of the same car, thats how much I love mine. Mine is an AWD. I really do love it.

That says a lot about a vehicle if you are planning on buying another one.

 

[MartyM]

One odd quirk is that there are more blind spots than I had previously been used to. One issue I have to be careful with is at a 4 way stop if there is a car on my right a few have been in a blind spot, but no accidents to date, lol. Overall I am very happy with it and would gladly purchase another one.

That's the only bad thing that I have to say after renting one for a week. The Blind spot is HUGE.

 

[Iri920]

I bought a 2005 Chevy Equinox brand new. It was my first SUV. I loved that car! I loved the handling, the interior, the look....Alas, I had a bunch of kids and only a minivan will do...I still think about that car.

This is me also! I was so sad when I traded it in. I kept trying to convince my husband to keep it for himself and trade in his car but he didn't want to have two car payments. The only problem I had with it was that my sunroof started leaking but it was covered under the warranty.