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Comments
one problem tho--the baby's bottle already leaked on the back seat! i tried some bissel upholstery cleaner that didn't seem to work too well. any suggestions? also, while my window sticker didn't list an optional stereo, my nox seems to have the 6 disc changer, according to the little stereo supplement anyways. in those pics, the standard cd player and the optional 6 disc are shown. the 6 disc shows a button on the top left that says 1-6. does this indicate that i have the 6 disc? if so, how do i load it? i tried but i could only load 1 disc. maybe chevrolet changed something on the stereo but didn't change the little stereo brochure?
i like how the headlights turn on when you press unlock on the keyless fob. gas mileage was decent on my trip and i can only hope that it improves even more.
Good luck on cleaning the upholstery. No tips for that one. I know the manual has a good chapter on care and cleaning. Perhaps they might have a tip there.
Just got it yesterday and really enjoying all the things it does..LOVE the satellite radio, although I really didnt think I needed it, however, it is well worth having! We got the Salsa red with gray leather..almost settled for cloth seats but carrying 2 kids around in the back seat, leather made more sense, plus the leather is more comfortable.
This car exceeds my expectations, I was delighted to find a perfect place for my purse while driving..right on the floor in the center console thingy (a pet peeve in prior vehicles)
We ordered the Teflon/Simonize package cause we live on a dirt road and the dust is awful.
Hope it is worth the cost..anyone have any comments on this protection??
Browse around Store Bought Waxes Part II (No Zaino Posts) for more (try a search in there for Teflon, for example).
Congrats on the new 'Nox!
Steve, Host
Keeping in mind that I only had the vehicle for one day (an AWD-version LT), I'll give you some impressions (in no particular order, please forgive the stream-of-consciousness posting!):
-Decent room front and rear. This is obviously on the small side as SUV's go, but it had basically equivalent space front-to-rear as a "regular" wagon. It measured up a few inches longer, similarly wide, and a few inches taller inside as my mother's Subaru Legacy GT wagon.
-Seats are unexpectedly (for GM) firm and supportive. Not much side bolstering, but I don't much expect this thing will see much autocrossing. I'm used to GM seats that are too cushy and make my back hurt, but a 700mi trip left me feeling refreshed and back pain-free.
-Visibility out the rear is marginal, seats up OR down. Seats up, the backrests in the back block a large part of the window. Seats down, and it still feels like you're looking through a mail slot. The HUGE rear pillars are to blame here... And for someone who is tall of torso, the inside rearview mirror actually blocks a lot of the view FORWARD (and yes, I did adjust it). Weird.
-Body lean in turns, ride comfort, steering feel, brakes, power, and all that were very good. The greatest compliment I can give it (to me, at least) is to call it very "car-like". I liked the fact that something actually "happened" when I hit the gas...
-Excellent HVAC and cruise control, but why oh why do the window switches all have to be arrayed across the center console where you can't easily (or uneasily) lower the two front windows at the same time? Why not place them like they are on most other vehicles, with the switches all clumped together on the driver's door?
-Interior fitments were of surprisingly good quality, certainly unlike what I've seen on other recent GM vehicles (I rent about six vehicles per year, usually GM, and usually from Avis). The styling of the cockpit and the "soft touch" material on the vertical portion of the dash was particularly noteworthy, though the horizontal portion of the dash, in what appeared to be a single piece of flat-black plastic (if memory serves), was less so. This was basically of equivalent quality to the Mitsubishi vehicle I rented two months ago (also a small SUV, can't remember the name, but it was definitely forgettable if that tells you anything... Highlander, maybe?), and yes that's meant to be a compliment.
-Mileage on all-highway tanks was just under 25mpg, on undulating roads with about 750lbs of cargo in the back. (it also wasn't fully broken-in, with under 5000mi on the odo when I picked it up)
-Radio was very good, though the vehicle I rented appeared to have two CD's jammed in the player... Which would neither play nor eject.
-Huge center console was great for keeping all my junk squared away.
-This is highly subjective, but I thought it was a VERY good-looking vehicle. Not at all "girly" as small SUV's (aka- "cute utes") tend to be, and it was definitely better-looking than the absolutely hideous Mitsubishi I previously mentioned. The only thing I'd change is the regrettable choice of the silver taillamp cluster, which makes it look (to me) like it's aftermarket. Solid-red/amber taillights would make it look better, and not like it's done by some kid who wants his truck to look like a hopped-up Civic. Of course this is probably intentional, as the price range is probably more within reach of younger buyers than the larger vehicles on the market... And they are the ones who buy those Japanese-market-looking taillamps for their import tuner cars.
Well, that's all I can think of. Overall, a very nice-looking tall wagon that I can recommend to anyone in the market for such a vehicle. I applaud all of you who've purchased one of these.
-SHOV6
2003 Mazda 6S 5spd
One notable point about the black plastic dash...GM made it speckled low-gloss plastic specifically to reduce/eliminate the reflection in the windshield. So while it make not be the highest quality, it served a practical purpose.
Also interesting is that the designers made a conscious choice to make the upper parts of the dash/doors black and all the lower parts very light gray/beige. This is supposed to resemble night and day coming together...an anaology for a real equinox.
FWD LT 1SD in galaxy silver metallic with leather seats and 17" wheels. I got just what I wanted for $21,295 after the $1,000 truck fest money.
I like:
-I had a TrailBlazer and there is actually more room in the Equinox.
It is more family oriented, and with a new baby, easier to get her in and out of
the vehicle.
-There is more power than most would expect. I can still get around as
I need to and enter the freeway in Houston without worrying I will be run over
in the process. I am not worried about the towing capacity, since I didn't
even tow with my TrailBlazer.
-The leather interior with the new interior is absolutely spectacular.
I have to continue to tell the relatives that this vehicle is a lot less
expensive than it looks...and my car note is $50 less a month that before.
-My first tank of gas I got 23mpg, mostly highway driving. It was $10
cheaper to fill the tank. The smaller vehicle is already paying dividends.
Don't Like:
-That the back headrests block the view, although the passenger mirror makes
up for some of the problems.
-The autoEQ feature on the radio. Every time that I switch FM channels,
the EQ changes off the Custom choice. Is there a way to stop this?
It is freaking annoying!
-The location of the window buttons is annoying.
I washed and waxed the other day with Meguiar's Cleaner Wax. I may try
the tech wax later. I recommend, once a year, the Mcguiar's Clay bar
kit. It gets rid of all residue and oxidation or contaminates and make the
vehicle super shiny.
Nothing more right now.
JD
Steve, Host
Thanks! It worked like a charm.
JD
Best.
Gas mileage for those who are disappointed often takes many tank fulls to get up to par. I think I had about 3000 kms on my Grand Prix before I finally got over 30 mpgs.
Drove to Ottawa this week and back, saw about 4 Equinoxes along the way, I'm guessing they are selling well up here also.
i bought the first nox in wyoming. i've only seen one other so far.
likes:
styling, size, interior space, stereo, power (even though i agree the 3500 would have been a better engine), versatility, comfort...
two dislikes:
those darn window buttons on the center console! i constantly find myself trying to find the buttons on the door where they belong! and why doesn't the RAP include the windows with the radio??? on my other gm cars both were retained after turning the key off.
My only complaint is the interior cloth. The light gray color can get easily soiled and to clean it can get frustrating.
But all in all, I'm pretty happy with my purchase.
The cloth seats are the main reason I almost did not buy the Nox. I love the leather. The vehicle looks so much more expensive than it is. I also love the ride and the space. I ahd a Trailblazer that had that weird steering too, so I was used to that.
Congratulations on your new "kid!"
JD
I heard a Pontiac version is on the way also. Does anyone know anything about that??
On the other hand, even though the Malibu has plenty of legroom for most people in the rear, I really loved the sliding adjustment on the 'nox, which gave cavernous room.
On the other hand, now that I've owned this Malibu for over a month, the exterior styling is growing on me more. The bu's front end was especially ugly to me when I first started looking, but now it's actually starting to look acceptable, and I trust with time it'll maybe even feel a bit handsome. (It already looks decent compared to most of the similar priced competitors, ^^ ).
Some things on the 'nox interior besides the seats that really turned me off-
* mostly hard plastic surfaces to the dash, vs. the nicer soft touch materials in the bu
* (this one REALLY surprised me) while fooling around with the tilt wheel mechanism, I discovered that the plastic around the steering column is extremely flimsy. It basically felt like it would fall off in no time.
* tiny storage area inside the center console. Now before anyone complains, I do realize that there's a large area underneath, and women especially probably love that when they're driving, to put their purses into. But my wife at least, likes to have her purse totally hidden when she leaves it in the car, and I personally like having anything I leave in the car out of sight. I think a larger enclosed center console would have been better.
* low single cupholder for driver / front-seat passenger. (yes, I realize there's a flip-out second cupholder in that tiny center console, but to me that's there for the occasions when there are 2 people in front with drinks, which is why it is a flip-out design in the first place. Even so, the flip out isn't all that hot for some sizes of cups.)
* Centrally located power window switches for front seats. This reaks of cost-cutting, imo. GM locates them in this area on cheaper vehicles to save a few bucks on an extra control on the passenger side. Might not be so bad, but the location doesn't fall naturally to hand when I'm driving and want to roll a window up or down.
As I've said, there are some notable highpoints for the 'nox, but they weren't enough to overcome the bu's, imo. The first was exterior styling- the Equinox is a sharply styled vehicle, especially with the painted bumpers and foglights. Another would be rear passenger space. And while I agree with a few others here that the rear shock tower plastic treatment seems to intrude a bit into the hauling area, the addition of the multi-position tray seems to offset that a bit, and the overall storage area is fairly sizable anyway. Lastly, I wasn't expecting the 3400 engine to have such a pleasant exhaust note as it does- Chevy did a good job of keeping the relatively old engine from seeming that old in this new vehicle, and it definitely has plenty of git-up-n-go. Despite that the 3500 as used in the Bu' has MUCH more impressive power and refinement, and probably would have been even better in the nox than the 3400, the 3400 is more than capable of getting the job done.
I checked out the Malibu Maxx, and it's a great looking car all the way around. I like the Nox because it's more like and SUV, looks bigger and heavier, and is a bit higher off the ground.
Congratulations on your Maxx. I don't think you can go wrong either way.
By the way, I agree that the power window buttons are in a horrible place. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.
likes-v6 power, leather seats, exterior styling, stereo system
dislikes-interior material quality(especially the dashboard) and overly firm seats.
overall i am happy with my purchase.
Anybody notice that there is no redline indicator on the tachometer? And where is the door ajar indicator ?
This is not the answer you're looking for, but the Auto Volume feature on the radio automatically turns the radio up to compensate for road/wind noise.
As for the wind noise, this is the first I've seen of anyone mentioning the issue with an Equinox, but the Trailblazer has a fairly large base of owners reporting similar problems. Mostly, it seems due to either misalignment of doors, or just simple weatherstripping issues (those can usually be fixed btw, once you isolate the exact area where air is coming in and making the noise- search the "Chevy Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Oldsmobile Bravada" forum for "wind noise" and you should find at least one reference to a fix that works in this sort of case. (It involves padding the weatherstripping in the area where the leak is).
Mecedes Benz has always placed the power window controls in the center. Saturn does as well, and the Nox/Vue link is probably why they are on the center in the Nox.
Companies like Mercedes sell more cars with manuals than automatic. If you drive a manual, you prefer controls in the center because your right hand is working the shifter in the center anyway. I am not sure why Saturn chose to mount the controls in the center, but it is not necessarily to save money.
JD
Nox's do stand out in the crowd though. No one seems to be advertising them in Atlanta this week. They must be rare on the lots.