The Chevy Equinox is a comfy and spacious SUV that won't break the bank (GM)

chevy equinox review

People are clamoring for compact SUVS, and with so much competition, General Motors is changing its focus.

The Equinox has boasted reasonable sales, but has conventionally fallen behind frontrunners like the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4.

This year, Chevrolet decided to give the Equinox a better shot at cornering the market with a revamped model that's both smaller and lighter — allowing it to more closely align with the compact space.

Those efforts are already paying off; GM recently reported its best crossover sales ever.

We took an all-new Chevy Equinox LT out for a long road trip to see whether the upgrades give it a perceptible edge. Scroll down for our verdict:

We took the all-new Chevy Equinox on a nice road trip from New York City to Long Beach Island, New Jersey. The trip gave us a great feel for how the SUV performed on highways and in crowded beach neighborhoods.

We tested the 1.5-liter, four-cylinder turbo engine with a six-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. It's supposed to get a combined 26 miles per gallon, which competes with the Nissan Rogue and Toyota RAV4, but still falls behind the best-selling Honda CR-V.

The LT starts at $28,500, but add-ons increased the final price tag to $33,730. I consider the extra features necessary, so I would be prepared to spend over $30,000.

For those looking to cut costs even more, the base trim (the L) starts $24,525. The Premier, the most luxurious option, starts at $31,735.

GM offers two separate packages for the LT that are priced just under $2,000: the Confidence and Convenience Package and Sun and Infotainment Package. Both packages offer an array of driver-assistance features, like rear-cross traffic alert, that are standard on the Premier.

We had both packages, and the Sun and Infotainment package is definitely worth splurging on for the added features, but more on that later.

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