Equinox LT - New Ride

[jake75]

My son's 2001Honda Odyssey seems to have serious transmission issues at about 185,000 miles so I am passing on to him my 2007 SWB T&C. We are keeping the 2009 Vibe with 48,000 miles, but to replace the T&C wanted something mid-size for comfort/safety on longer trips. Plenty of choices but if you look at more than 3 your mind goes blurry. We checked out Honda CRV, Toyota Rav 4 and Chevy Equinox. The latter because the dealer is close, I had $2,300 in GM Card money, plus GM had a multitude of incentives including $1,000 car show rebate, $1,500 customer cash, and $1,000 finance assistance. (I financed $6,000 of the $25,000 to get that $1,000 down payment assistance and will pay it off within 6 months.) To my surprise we ended up choosing a 2017 Equinox over the Rav4 and CRV. We missed out on a white Equinox 2WD Premier that would have also cost a little less than $25,000 out the door by a day as the Columbus dealer just committed to trade it to a Cincinnati dealer. While I was not really wanting an AWD we don't drive a lot of miles so I convinced myself that the mpg is not a big concern. I didn't get the front collision braking avoidance feature that I wanted but saved almost $5,000 compared to the CRV or Rav4. This LT does have the cross traffic alert and the blind spot alert features. Life is full of trade offs. At our age the $5,000 wasn't the main issue (though I am a bit frugal). We thought the CRV was sitting us lower than the Equinox, and the CRV ride seemed rougher. My wife did not think the CRV back seats were very comfortable. She also thought both the front and back seats of the Rav4 were not as comfortable as the Equinox. Of course GM paid us a lot of money to convince us to buy that Equinox. I don't think I would have bought it anywhere near the $33,115 MSRP. Before sales tax, title fees etc. it was about $22,500. If the prices were more comparable I think I would have followed the herd and bought a CRV or Rav4. The 2018 Equinox is now out. It is a little smaller vehicle and of course there are few incentives on the 2018. $1,500 of our GM Card money was due to spending at least $750 on that card in early 2017 but it was not redeemable on a 2018. Nevertheless turned out to be A good return on that move. I did that in 20i6 but my son's Honda kept on ticking at that time.

[jake75]

Ordered Weathertech floor protectors, front and back, today. $179.90 plus $18 shipping. For another $109.95 didn't get the one for the cargo area. So far I have been happy with the Equinox, and learning new things about it every day. Ohio law requires you to have lights on when ever you are using the wipers. The Equinox activates the lights when you turn on the wipers. One eye opener - no CD player! I guess I will need to learn how to download music to my iphone. Have not got an update on my car insurance. Seems that they never lower your rates as your car ages, but get a new on and bam, higher premium. I also read that insurance companies are charging more (not less) for some safety features as they can get damaged in an accident increasing the repair cost. But the safety features should result in fewer car crashes. As noted earlier, still have our 2009 Vibe with only 48,000 miles so plan to keep that for a long while. The Vibe will probably get more than half our mileage use for the foreseeable future. But with the new Equinox might chose to drive vs. fly for some trips.

[jake75]

Just an update - for what it's worth. Nine weeks and 1,100 miles in and I am happy to report that I am very happy with my new 2017 AWD Equinox. Of course this was not a Vibe replacement, but a downsize from our T&C. The 2009 Vibe 1.8L AT remains as part of our 2 car fleet and with less than 50,000 miles on it I plan to keep it for awhile for local use. Any overnight trips will be in the Equinox. GM corporate and the Dealer have both been relentless in keeping in touch to make sure that all is well and that I have no problems/concerns.

[trb]

Great to hear you are enjoying your new Equinox. We've had ours for 4-1/2 yrs and 45K trouble fee miles and it is still a nice vehicle for my wife. The only thing I dislike is the lack of power over 60 for passing and merging since we have the 4 cyl, but the gas mileage is pretty decent. I run 26-28 mpg on my commute, and have gotten as high as 37 mpg over 25 miles according to the computer. It is a good highway cruiser, but the mileage goes way down over 70. Hope yours is as trouble free as ours has been. The Equinox form is pretty good too, lots of helpful people on there. http://www.equinoxforum.net/portal.php