Video: 2025 Chevrolet Equinox Activ Review: Off-Road Style, On-Road Issues

It's been redesigned for 2025, and Chevrolet sent us the active trim, which really had a big influence on some of the impressions that was generated during the test. Yeah, it's ostensibly their off-road version of the new Equinox, although, it really doesn't have any off-road equipment other than its tires, but I think those tires definitely helped towards the thing that we liked most about it, which was its ride quality. The thing is absolutely glass smooth and it's quiet and comfortable. This is a trend that I've seen happening with a lot of GMs SUVs recently, is that the ride quality is impeccable. Yeah, it's really good. You pointed out that there's some chassis tuning involved as well, but I do think those all-terrain tires, 17 inch wheels, really, really comfortable ride, but it doesn't really help when things start to get twisty. There's just minimal grip from those all-terrain tires, and I also found it a little bit wandery on highway driving. Yeah, you've got tall sidewalls in these things, and so it does affect the sharpness of the handling. It does affect the body control motions as well. I mean, if ride quality is the supreme concern for you, then great, but if you want a better balance of ride and handling, I've actually driven an RS in the past. I think that might've probably done better in this test. So it was our winner in ride quality. It lost in handling. It also lost in powertrain. It has a turbocharge 1.5 liter four cylinder that makes 175 horsepower, but I think we thought that wasn't enough for this vehicle in this test. Yeah, it sure didn't feel like 175 horsepower, or 200 some odd pound speed of torque. And it wasn't even just like one person versus four people in the vehicle. It just did not have a lot of just get up and go. It did not have a lot of great acceleration. The transmission felt slow to shift, and all of this is a little unusual, given that GM is, frankly, a powertrain champ. We like just about every other GM powertrain we've tested in a bunch of other vehicles. This one feels like they didn't actually benchmark their competition very well, and they send something out that feels pokey, that feels slow, that isn't really all that responsive. And with all that, you'd think, okay, then it's tuned for fuel economy, except it finished last in our fuel economy testing. So there's just not really any benefit from that powertrain. It just feels insufficient. Yeah, usually when you've got a smaller engine like this, it has to work harder in order to actually perform at a same level as a lot of its competitors that might have a larger engine. But when you do that, then you lose fuel economy. So it's really kind of a confusing powertrain here. Yeah. I know you said you thought it could use an extra 50 horsepower, 50 pounds via torque, and in some of the other turbocharge engines in our tests, that's what they were delivering and they performed better. So a little disappointing to see that with this redesigned vehicle to have that kind of lackluster powertrain. What wasn't lacking though was the style- Oh my God. The thing looks fantastic. I mean, inside and out. I am absolutely smitten with the way it looks and the redesign, restyle version of this thing is so night and day different from the last Equinox that it's hard to believe it's got the same name on the thing. But even the interior, which I thought it was a nicer interior than, I think, you did, in terms of material quality, but undeniably it's fantastic to look at and use. Yeah, it's incredibly stylish outside, and in the two-tone roof, the bright blue paint, the, it's called maple sugar, I believe, for the interior, but it's basically black and tan. It looks fantastic. And just to me, the materials felt a little bit lower scale when I got into it, but from a visual perspective, it's stylish, and you get the modern tech from GM, like the touchscreen, the digital gauge cluster. It's a good package. Unfortunately, we don't score styling that much, so... It's a subjective thing for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, and it came in at a pretty good price compared to some of the other ones in this test. It was just under $40,000, so one of the more affordable options that we had here. As we said, the Equinox design and style really stood out in a good way in our test, but we weren't grading these SUVs on their looks. And it's poorer scores in our driver assist features, cargo space, and fuel economy really hurt the Equinox in its overall finishing spot. To read the full results, head to cars.com/news.