First Drive: 2025 Chevrolet Equinox Brings Improved Handling and More Standard Active Safety Features

This is an important SUV for Chevrolet. It’s the automaker’s offering in the crowded and highly competitive compact SUV class and its second bestselling vehicle after the Silverado pickup truck. Even if some of the Equinox’s sales are to fleets, there are still plenty of existing customers they want to retain along with bringing new ones to the brand.

So far, the consensus from everyone at CR who drove the RS version we rented from Chevrolet is that the Equinox is an improvement over the old version, and it certainly distinguishes itself from the Chevrolet Trailblazer, the brand’s subcompact SUV. It has sporty and responsive handling, a relatively compliant ride, and a roomy and quiet interior that—in RS trim, at least—is attractive and comfortable for the price. The engine is responsive and the transmission usually executes smooth gear changes.

Outward visibility remains a challenge in the Equinox because of the thick roof pillars and the way Chevrolet styles the small third window aft of the back doors. In addition, while the powertrain is fairly refined at low speeds and when cruising, it feels strained and gets loud under hard acceleration, with a tractor-like sound quality. Many of the controls and displays are awkward to use, and the logic of the infotainment system seems illogical.

Stop/start system: The Equinox has one of the better stop/start systems. It quickly and smoothly reengages the engine without any of the shuddering found in some competitors. It operates so unobtrusively that drivers will be more likely to leave it on at all times.

Handling and steering: There’s nothing particularly special about how the Equinox handles, but that’s not a knock. The SUV is easy to drive, whether zipping around town, merging into traffic, or loafing along on the highway. The steering is appropriately weighted, striking a good balance between being overly light or a burden when making parking lot maneuvers, and it gives a modicum of feedback to the driver. 

Body roll is nicely controlled during regular driving, and the chassis responds well to changes in throttle. But the Equinox seemed to get out of shape pretty easily if there was a significant dip or crest in the road while taking a turn. 

Under hard acceleration in 2WD mode, there’s a bit of torque steer (more on that below), so drivers used to steering with one hand should pay attention—or use two hands.

Brake-pedal feel and response: Brake modulation feels great, just like in many recent GM vehicles. There are times when the transmission will downshift and also slow the Equinox, which forces the driver to adjust the pressure on the pedal to stay smooth. But the pedal has a firm feel and the action is linear, with appropriate stopping force as you press down harder on the pedal.

Interior storage: There’s a good amount of useful storage space in the Equinox. The front door pockets are quite long, deep, and fairly wide, with bottle holders that can hold most narrow plastic and metal containers. They’re big enough to hold a tall 24-ounce metal water bottle and keep it from tipping over, but not so tight that it’s a challenge to get it out. The center console design is unique, with different areas for your keys, phone charging, and larger objects like a sunglass case or wallet. Beneath the center console is an open area for a small bag or other items that can be hidden from view. The under-armrest center storage is deep, although not particularly wide.

We also like the handy under-floor storage compartment at the rear of the cargo area (shown below). It has plenty of space to hide items away and store the optional cargo cover while still allowing for a space-saver spare tire.

Compromised visibility: While the windshield and door glass are large, providing good views out over the hood and to the sides, we still found visibility compromised in the Equinox. The windshield pillars are thick, particularly at the bottom where they meet the side mirrors. This makes for a challenge at intersections, where it can be difficult to see pedestrians, cyclists, or vehicles coming from your left. 

Blind spot warning (BSW) is standard; the over-the-shoulder view to both the right and left is very challenging. The wide C-pillar (just past the rear door) and D-pillar (the rearmost roof pillar) are very thick and chunky, blocking a lot of the view out. While the rear window glass is generously sized, the blocky rear head restraints obstruct the lower part of the window.

Controls: There’s nothing surprising about the controls; they’re pretty much the standard GM fare. A number of buttons and toggles are used, such as for the climate system and turning some functions on and off. GM has moved away from using either buttons or monostable levers mounted on the center console for the gear selector. We really appreciate that the seat heating and ventilation are controlled by physical buttons and not buried in the touchscreen, as in other new GM models. The volume and station/track advance buttons behind the steering wheel are a helpful way of cleaning up the front of it. There’s also a manual volume/power knob mounted up above the infotainment screen on the left side. While it’s small, the driver can easily reach it from the steering wheel. But if you choose to dim the dashboard display brightness at night, the “power” icon still has full brightness.

Many of the problems we found in other GM vehicles appear here as well. For example, the emergency flasher button is hidden high up on the overhead console by the SOS and OnStar buttons, which could make it too easy to hit the wrong one in an emergency unless drivers take their eyes off the road.

The physical climate controls are low down on the dash, which makes them hard to see during the day. It’s even more challenging to use them in the evening because of the dim blue backlighting of the small text and icons. The steering wheel also blocked views of the driver’s side temperature knob for many testers.

Another common GM application is to have drivers engage the paddle shifters behind the steering wheel by first pressing a button on the steering wheel labeled “L.” While this may be to prevent drivers from hitting the paddle instead of the volume or track/station buttons on the back of the wheel, the more conventional solution would be to allow the paddles to activate manual shifting when squeezed, and place the paddle shifters a bit farther away from the media controls.

The windshield and rear-window washer controls are secondary functions on the left-hand turn-signal stalk. They’re unlit, which makes them difficult to operate at night because they don’t have any icons or indicators pop up in the driver information cluster behind the steering wheel. Some drivers noted that they always end up spraying the rear window when turning the wiper off because the controls are super-sensitive, requiring them to wipe the window again. Not major, but not a great design either.

One oddity that’s unique to the Equinox is the Drive mode dial mounted on the center console. It’s so large that it takes up a ton of space and has only three modes to choose from—two of which (Off-Road and Snow/Ice) you won’t use much. The Activ trim doesn’t get any additional modes, making it an even stranger decision on GM’s part. Plus, the knob detents are very weak, so you end up turning it past whatever mode you wanted to use. 

Overzealous blind spot warning: We’ve seen that the BSW in a few of GM’s recent models has been very overactive, and the Equinox is no different. When stopped at a traffic light, the indicator will blink and the seat will vibrate when cars pass by. The system also will flash and light up the dashboard when you walk up to the car from the rear in a parking lot. We haven’t observed this in other non-GM vehicles in our fleet.

Noise: We will actually be keeping an ear on this one, especially since our rented Equinox has elicited a variety of opinions from testers. The general consensus is that the engine is mostly quiet, with the only really offensive noises noticeable after hard acceleration, such as at three-quarters to full throttle. At that point, all of us agreed that the engine and exhaust had a wheezing quality.

The bigger differences of opinion are in road and wind noise, with some people saying the noise levels are low and others finding them somewhat elevated, particularly road noise. This is why Consumer Reports buys the vehicles we test and rate because a week or two isn’t enough time for a true evaluation. 

Powertrain: The engine and transmission are probably just what most people will want for their everyday, around-town driving. At those speeds, it’s pretty refined, quiet, and relaxed. There isn’t any hesitation off the line from a full stop or a rolling stop, and turbo lag isn’t noticeable at all. Both up- and downshifts are executed quickly and smoothly.

But some unpleasant behavior is unleashed when you require snappier acceleration and get deeper into the throttle. For example, one driver noted some transmission and power delay when trying to accelerate while driving along at 45 mph. He and others found that at higher speeds, the gear changes were sloppier, taking more time to move up or down the gear ratios. 

In addition, a few drivers remarked on the vibration that could be felt during acceleration in both the steering wheel and accelerator pedal when in 2WD mode and that the steering weight changed and there was a tugging sensation as well. Changing over to 4WD mode helps ever so slightly.

Ride comfort: So far, some drivers have found the ride a bit firmer than most people would expect, while others thought it was comfortable and composed. Drivers agreed that it absorbed most bumps without transmitting them into the cabin, but on rougher roads, the Equinox tended to bounce around and pitch passengers side to side. We’ll have more to say on the ride comfort when we buy our own Equinox LT trim, which may have a slightly different suspension tuning than the RS we sampled.

The 2025 Chevrolet Equinox comes with the Chevy Safety Assist suite of active safety and driver assistance features, which includes automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, and automatic high beams. 

Other standard features include adaptive cruise control, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning with reverse automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection, and sign recognition. Some safety warnings are communicated via vibrations to the driver’s seat. 

Our rented RS had the optional Safety and Technology Package, which includes a surround-view camera system, rear pedestrian alert, traffic sign recognition, a rear camera mirror, and a washer for the rear camera.