2025 Chevrolet Equinox First Drive: Better the Fourth Time Around?

When it comes to the outgoing Chevrolet Equinox, our opinions were... mixed. A perfectly fine compact SUV, it was nevertheless generally bland and featured a turbocharged powertrain with lag akin to turbo cars of a bygone era, only without the power to match. Well, now there is a new gas-fired Equinox for 2025 (there's also a fancy electric one). It’s not exactly all-new given the carryover mechanicals, but it does have a fresh new bod and interior and it seems the bow-tie folks at GM took everyone’s complaints to heart. 

For our First Drive of the new Equinox, Chevrolet invited us to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a location that it says is one of its compact SUV’s top markets. On hand were front-wheel-drive LT and all-wheel-drive RS versions of the 2025 Equinox, which we sampled over a mixture of city streets and open highway. Right off the bat, we found ourselves wondering about that turbo engine; it’s the same turbocharged 1.5-liter I-4 used on last year’s Equinox, but it just couldn’t be the same engine as before, could it? 

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A Much Better Driving Experience

The 2025 Equinox, despite sharing its engine with the old model, just doesn’t feel as hesitant or lazy as before. Credit its two new transmissions. The front-wheel-drive models use a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT) no matter the trim level, from the entry-level LT all the way to the Activ. This CVT doesn’t behave like you’d expect a transmission of this type to; it helps the Equinox accelerate with a sense of urgency, rather than ropey laziness like some CVTs can, only really buzzing the engine to redline when you ask for maximum speed. Otherwise, it and the turbo engine deliver a smooth and effortless feeling off the line—a far cry from how the 2024 Equinox’s traditional torque-converter six-speed automatic felt.

So what if you opt for the Equinox’s all-wheel drive option? That nets you an also-new eight-speed automatic transmission. (All-wheel drive is optional on every 2025 Equinox, even the active-looking Activ.) Again, this eight-speed represents a night and day difference from the six-speed it replaces, helping keep the engine feeling like it was in the boost and generating enough power. We even managed to bark the front tires with little effort in the Chevy’s two-wheel-drive mode; as before, you can select between 2WD and AWD with a pushbutton on the left side of the dash and within easy reach for the driver.

An AWD-exclusive off-road driving mode is included on all AWD Equinoxes—including the sporty looking RS with its optional 20-inch wheels and 235/50R20 Michelin Primacy All Season tires—but that mode only relaxes the traction and engine controls to allow for more tail wagging on dirt and wheelspin when powering out of slick but shallow mud or loose gravel. Front-drive Equinoxes have only Normal and Snow/Ice modes.

Getting Dirty with the Activ

Among the fresh items for 2025 is the aforementioned Equinox Activ, which is billed as the outdoorsy lifestyle member of the family. It gets a more muscular-looking exterior thanks to its unique front and rear fascias while an available white roof gives a bit of an old-school Blazer flair to this modern SUV. Chevrolet set up our drive to include a decent amount of time in the 2025 Activ. Unfortunately, with short stretches of dirt driving, we didn’t truly experience the improved off-road driving dynamics Chevrolet says it blended into the Equinox Activ. We could just feel that the rear axle was allowed to slip a little more than normal, but we weren’t able to feel what that exact limit was.

Intriguingly, Activs get General Grabber A/T tires are true all-terrains in size 235/65R17. Their aggressive tread and all-terrain designation is cool, if somewhat perplexing for a vehicle like the Equinox, a car-based light-duty SUV. Neither we nor Chevrolet expect to see 2025 Equinox Activ drivers trying to cross the Rubicon or tackling serious off-road trails, but pretenders can at least enjoy the tires’ beefy looks and lack of on-road compromise. For such an aggro tire choice, the Grabbers don’t make themselves heard much; they’re barely noticeable while driving with a talkative companion or with music playing. It’s only when you have a completely silent interior do you notice the slight roar of the Grabber A/Ts.

Tire selection aside, there are also no noticeable differences in how different Equinoxes drive, meaning the LT, RS, and Activ all behave roughly the same. Their suspensions have been tuned to deliver much the same driving dynamics and steering response on paved roads, even with their varied wheel and tire choices.

On Sale Soon

The 2025 Chevrolet Equinox should be available soon from your local Chevrolet dealer, but no exact date has been set as of this publication. The LT FWD will start at $29,995 while both the RS FWD and the Activ FWD will take $34,395 out of your wallet. If you want to drive the rear wheels, you’ll need to add another $2,000 to the FWD prices—or $31,995 for the LT AWD and $36,395 for the RS and Activ AWD.