2019 Chevrolet Traverse Review

2019 Chevrolet Traverse Review Chevrolet makes precisely two unassailable products. A single is definitely the Corvette, and also the other is the Suburban. Even though we may well want more new motor vehicles to implement the former as a template, we will begrudgingly accept the latter like a North Star to the entirely redesigned Traverse. And what a redesign this is, taking last year’s outdated minivan surrogate from back-of-the-pack anonymity to best-in-class contention in many just about every place.

2019 Chevrolet Traverse Review


The makeover starts with a literal makeover. General Motors’ designers plainly took inspiration from your company’s body-on-frame SUVs while in the style on the Traverse. From its lengthy wheelbase to its thick C-pillar, the brand new three-row mid-size ute resembles a downsized Suburban. It is actually an unabashedly masculine, truckish appear, developed to deal with what GM marketers say was the outdated Traverse’s most significant turnoff to buyers, its soft styling.

Like its larger-than-life brother, the new Traverse outdimensions its competitors. Its wheelbase stretches a staggering 120.9 inches, approximately eight inches longer than its platform-mate, the GMC Acadia, and also the class stalwart Ford Explorer. At 204.three inches in total length, the Traverse has 10.7 inches about the Acadia, and it even exceeds by five.0 inches the beefy Volkswagen Atlas, the significant boy that finished because the runner-up in our most recent three-row comparison test. With much of that length devoted to its cargo hold, the Traverse boasts 23 cubic feet of storage behind its third row and 58 cubic feet behind the second row together with the third row stowed. That is two cubes additional than the VW in both measures, giving the Chevy best-in-class cargo capacity.

You may feel that such a titanic crossover would also drive like a Suburban. But you would be incorrect, since Chevy’s engineers have carried out a masterful task in suspension and steering tuning. The previous Traverse didn’t come to feel like the two-and-a-half-ton elephant it had been, plus the new a single drives even superior. An electrically assisted power-steering technique, equivalent to the a single employed within the Camaro (rack mounted, that has a belt drive), demands only a light touch but rewards the driver with constant and proper feedback. The new Traverse makes use of struts within the front in addition to a multilink suspension from the rear, a blend that absorbs harsh impacts with out jostling occupants and delivers a plush trip.

Driving dynamics are aided by what Chevy is touting being a 350-pound weight loss that brings the base Traverse down to about 4400 lbs. We expect, when we get a higher-optioned model on our scales-like the top-of-the-line Large Nation trim that we drove for this story-we’ll see a quantity much more like 4750 pounds. Even so, that has a 3.6-liter V-6 generating 310 horsepower, the Traverse will have on the list of better power-to-weight ratios amongst three-row crossovers. When the Traverse V-6 shares a displacement in addition to a horsepower rating with the V-6 from the GMC Acadia, this variant will not have cylinder deactivation and helps make 266 lb-ft of torque, five significantly less than inside the GMC.

Greater than a measly 5 lb-ft of torque, on the other hand, is the Chevy has three more gears. The Traverse employs a nine-speed automated transmission, which gives its powertrain a degree of refinement befitting Cadillac, never mind GMC. Shifts are nearly imperceptible, while aggressive driving can occasionally induce a bit of jerkiness on multigear downshifts. The brand new transmission helps the V-6 Traverse choose up three mpg in its EPA mixed ratings, which climb to 21 to the front-drive model and twenty with all-wheel drive.

Come to Substantial Country

Within the Traverse, comparisons having a Cadillac also are appropriate-especially for those who climb the pricing ladder the many strategy to the Substantial Nation model, and that is arguably GM Design’s most totally recognized interior. Its metallic trim pieces are classy, along with the leather includes a high-quality seem. Although the general Traverse interior adheres to your layered design that pervades GM products, the restraint with which this occasionally hectic strategy has become executed right here is evident. Less expensive Traverses are fitted with all the expected cloth and vinyl upholstery and more plastic trim, nonetheless even people commodity-grade resources are nicely deployed.

Seating in all 3 rows is at ease, if not plush, as well as the seats fold right into a really flat load floor. Rear-seat accessibility is superb, especially getting into in the passenger side, which incorporates a middle-row seat that slides and guidelines forward. Legroom is plentiful, as well as third row can even be adult-friendly should the second row is moved forward, but passengers from the wayback have an uncomfortable lack of a side view because of the thick C-pillar. Chevy in all probability figures that individuals plugged into their electronics is not going to even recognize, so it aids and abets the screen-time generation having a conventional pair of USB ports in just about every row.

Conspicuously absent from this family-oriented hauler is any rear-seat entertainment process, a tacit admission that the days of auto makers generating big income on electronics are in excess of. From the identical vein, Chevy’s infotainment system has barely evolved during the past handful of many years, except to the only way that issues: It supports Apple CarPlay and Android Car, now accessible for that initially time inside the Traverse.

2019 Chevrolet Traverse Review - Features:
The Traverse might be had with seating for 7 or eight, with a single caveat. The second-row bench seat is accessible only with cloth upholstery-if you want leather, you are getting captain’s chairs-which means that if you want eight seats, you are restricted to lower trim ranges. All-wheel drive is optional, but not over the $30,875 base model, which comes only with front-wheel drive. The least highly-priced AWD model could be the LS at $34,995. And if you need to get advantage in the Traverse’s 5000-pound tow rating, you will should stage as much as the LT trim, which starts at $35,495 for a front-driver, not which include $650 for the trailering bundle.

Costs escalate sharply from there, with leather-equipped designs topping $40K, and that is also the place superior security products gets obtainable. A well-optioned Premier starts at $45,395 plus the all-in Large Nation trim rings the bell at $52,995, which would have produced the top-spec Traverse the most high-priced car in our most recent three-row-crossover comparison test.

Chevy will even be throwing a curveball into its Traverse lineup later this fall when it introduces the RS, a purportedly sporty model powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four along with the identical nine-speed automatic but without a distinctive suspension tune. Accessible only as a front-driver and priced somewhere north of the LT, the RS seems such as the outcome of another person at GM calling an audible late in item improvement.