I was recently on a business trip in two different cities and the roll of the rental car dice gave me an opportunity to drive two small SUVs: a 2006 Ford Escape and a 2007 Chevy Equinox. Both AWD and V-6 powered.
Summary: the Equinox is an absolute piece of junk.
First some background. I don't always specify what car I want; I usually just request a class (size) of car. My favorite rental car company, Hertz, isn't all Fords these days - you'll find just about everything under the sun, with notable exceptions including Ferraris and Acuras. You know why you won't find a Ferrari at Hertz. And you won't find an Acura because Acura doesn't want to hurt their image and lower the value (both residual and perceived) of their cars. So that leaves Chevys, Toyotas, Fords of course, the occasional Nissan and Infiniti, and Hyundai (which isn't at all as bad as you might assume). I can't remember ever seeing a Chrysler product at Hertz but I have seen Mercedes. My next Hertz rental will be specified as a 2007 G35, and on my prior trip I had a Lincoln Town Car. Hertz customer service is fairly consistent and reliable.
My first visit was to Raleigh, where Hertz gave me a Ford Escape. I've written about these before - they are a little dated but are still competent. Escapes (and their clones from Mercury and Mazda) make a fair amount of wind noise, the steering wheel is in the wrong position relative to the driver, the power steering is overly assisted, and the engine is no longer competitive (the competition having gone to the 3.5 liter range) in the current market. Still, it works and it's reasonably compact and quick enough to get out of its own way. You can also easily see out of the Escape in all directions. Controls are familiar Mazda, and are logically arrayed. Seats are adequate for long durations. The Escape was designed by Mazda and rides on a chassis loosely borrowed from a previous-gen Mazda 626. The engine is Ford's own 200 HP 3 liter DOHC V-6, NVH-tuned by Mazda, and throttle response is immediate.
My next stop was Washington DC and Hertz gave me a Chevy Equinox. I groaned at first but decided to take it - this presented an opportunity to compare and contrast 2 major competitors. And what a contrast: the Equinox is much bigger and taller than the Escape. But these two vehicles do compete in the market - they are each the logical step down in from a Trailblazer and an Explorer respectively. I'll add that an Explorer is probabaly 100 times better than the terrible TrailBlazer - I've driven each dozens of times.
The Equinox makes a really terrible first (and last) impression - this truck has a tremendously ugly grill and headlights. You'll also notice how tall the Equinox is, and you'll confirm that as soon as you get into the drivers seat where you're seated way down deep inside this truck. The view out the front is clipped and the view out the sides and back is poor. The front bucket seats are flat and offer very little support; power adjustment is provided but yields very little up/down travel and strangely warps the thigh support when you use it.
Ergonomic problems abound, and some are so bad that the net safety environment is almost dangerous:
- The A pillars are *enormous*. The view out the front of the truck is one of the worst I've ever seen.
- All the gauges go clockwise, except the temperature gauge. One quick glance at the temp guage makes you think something is very wrong.
- The power window buttons are on the center console (which is half-way up the dash - econobox style). It is confusing to try to reach for them while driving.
- The display on the radio is very reflective, even in moderate light. This makes it useless during the day and too bright at night. The buttons are tiny and are very tough to find while concentrating on traffic. They appear to have been styled rather than logically designed and arranged.
- When you lower the rear side windows, the airflow thru the car becomes painful to your ears and sounds like a helicopter is flying over the truck.
- The rear and side windows are so high off the ground that small cars can easily be lost 45 degrees to the rear. This is a problem in all trucks, but particularly so in this one.
- The dashboard leaves the lower 2 inches of windshield exposed, including the metal edging. The dash looks like it is missing it's padded cover - it consists entirely of hard plastic pieces.
- The side mirrors have clipped corners, cutting off some of the most important view to the sides. Given the poor view out the windows, this is another critical - and dangerous - design flaw.
- The windshield wipers are all but worthless - in light rain there isn't any speed or setting that doesn't result in a dry and loud scrape across the window. The Equinox is equipped with very cheap wiper blades, and does not have infinitely variable wiper speed settings.
Front brakes are disc, but the rear uses drums. Pedal feel is soft and there is a delay in initial braking.
The engine is an oddity - a whopping 3.4 liters but only 185 HP thanks to ancient pushrod "technology". There is a noticeable throttle lag that makes using the power in city traffic very clumsy. By contrast the Escape has no lag so it can easily be driven in cut-and-thrust mode in city driving. Unfortunately I needed to cut across about 10 miles of DC in rush hour traffic, so this cut-ann-thrust ability was important. And, despite the AWD, there is noticeable torque steer.
This lack of cut-and-thrust ability makes the Equinox overall the worst vehicle I've ever driven in DC traffic. It certainly won't lead traffic, nor will it keep up with traffic.
So where was famed product czar Lutz in the design of this hunk of junk? It appears that Lutz was absent, and that GM slid back to its old habits of cheap interiors and terrible ergonomics. All of the right technical bits are standard or optional on this vehicle, but none of them work well together. This is so typical for GM.
The bottom line is a vehicle that competes against several major domestic and import competitors, but doesn't do a single thing well and doesn't have a single factor to recommend it.
