Some cars are popular because they’re great. Others are popular because they’re affordable, they look fine sitting in the driveway, and everybody’s cousin already has one. The Chevy Equinox lands hard in that second group. It’s one of the best-selling vehicles Chevy makes right now. It’s also, according to the people who track this stuff for a living, one of the worst new cars you can hand your money over for.
I get the appeal. It’s a regular-looking small SUV at a regular-looking price. But the second you look past the big screen and the heated steering wheel, the story turns ugly fast. Let me walk you through why so many owners are already regretting it.
A Best Seller With A Report Card Nobody Wants
The Equinox sold almost 275,000 units in 2025, putting it near the top of Chevy’s lineup. Then Consumer Reports dropped its December 2025 reliability report and gave the redesigned gas Equinox a score of 17 out of 100. That’s not a typo. Seventeen. Out of a hundred. That puts it among the least reliable models in the entire study, which pulled data from around 380,000 vehicles.
Consumer Reports also yanked its “recommended” rating from the thing, pointing straight at transmission and electrical problems that showed up in owner surveys. When the folks who buy cars just to test them tell you to keep walking, that’s worth a pause. A car this common failing this badly is rare, and that’s exactly what makes it a trap for shoppers who assume popular equals safe.
New Owners Are Reporting Problems In The First Two Weeks
This is the part that stopped me cold. We’re not talking about worn-out cars with 120,000 miles on them. These are brand-new vehicles breaking almost immediately.
One owner said their transmission dropped into limp mode at just 187 miles on the odometer. They had owned the car for two weeks. The dealer had to replace the solenoid and the valve body. Another owner watched transmission fluid pool on the ground, and the dealer found bolts that were never tightened enough at the factory. They had to pull the entire transmission out of the car to fix it properly.
It gets worse. One person’s Equinox spent 16 days at the dealer in one stretch, then another 14 days right after they got it back. That owner started demanding a buyout. Someone else felt the torque converter slipping during turns at 16,000 miles and just traded it in at a loss to be done with it. Oh, and the built-in noise cancellation system? Owners said it made loud, constant noises at certain engine speeds that they couldn’t shut off, and it got worse with luggage in the back or on hot days. Imagine paying for a feature that’s supposed to make the ride quieter, only for it to become the loudest thing in the car.
The Redesign Actually Made It Worse
Here’s the twist nobody sees coming. The old Equinox was fine. Better than fine, honestly.
The third-generation Equinox, built from 2018 to 2024, climbed near the top of the reliability rankings and trailed only the Toyota RAV4. That’s genuinely good company. Chevy had a solid, boring, dependable little SUV that people could trust.
Then they redesigned it for 2025, and it all fell apart. Consumer Reports has a rule they repeat over and over: the more extensive the redesign, the higher the risk of problems. They said flat out, “If you want to avoid reliability issues, don’t buy an all-new or redesigned model,” and they were staring right at the Equinox when they said it. The 2025 and 2026 versions basically hit the reset button on years of steady progress.
The 2026 Model Didn’t Fix A Thing
You’d think Chevy would scramble to patch this up for 2026. Nope. The updates for 2026 are almost funny: a new white paint color and a drive-mode dial that’s now standard across the trims. That’s it. That’s the list.
The complaints kept rolling in anyway. Federal data for the 2026 Equinox already shows a reliability signal labeled “Severe Issues.” The most-reported trouble spot is the forward collision system. One owner said their SUV tries to slam to a complete stop for no reason, mostly when it’s rainy and dark out. Another bought their 2026 in August, and four weeks later the front end started leaking oil. The dealer went in four separate times, even swapped out the whole engine, and it still leaked.
So it’s no shock that Kelley Blue Book’s owner reviews show only 55% of people recommending the 2026 Equinox, with reliability named as its weakest feature. Barely more than half. Would you buy anything else if you knew half the buyers regretted it?
Even If It Worked, It’s Not A Good Deal
Let’s pretend for a second that every one of these cars ran perfectly. It still wouldn’t be a smart buy.
A reviewer who test-drove every new 2025 model called the Equinox one of the worst new cars out there, saying “it feels like GM didn’t put much effort into it.” The engine is a 1.5-liter turbo four-cylinder making 175 horsepower. It’s noisy, underpowered, and doesn’t even return great gas mileage. There’s no hybrid and no bigger engine to pick from. What you get is what you get.
And it isn’t cheap. The 2026 Equinox starts at $30,795 for the base LT, and the loaded all-wheel-drive versions climb to $37,595. Competitors give you more for that money. Then there’s resale. The Equinox doesn’t hold its value well at all. Used prices rose just 0.6% year over year while the rest of the used market went up about 3%. On top of that, RepairPal ranks it 23rd out of 26 compact SUVs and flags higher-than-average repair bills. Weak engine, weak resale, high repair costs. Pick a lane, Chevy.
What Chevy Actually Gets Right
I’m not here to bury the whole brand. Chevy has some genuinely dependable rides. The little Chevy Trax scored a 69 and the Corvette landed at 68 in the same reliability report where the Equinox got its embarrassing 17. That’s a giant gap inside one company. So the real problem isn’t “Chevy bad.” The problem is buying a freshly redesigned model before the bugs get worked out.
It’s not just the Equinox, either. Its near-twin, the GMC Terrain, shares the same parts and the same headaches. The two of them ranked dead last out of 20 compact SUVs that got analyzed. The 2025 Equinox alone racked up 150 complaints to federal safety regulators, with electrical problems making up about a third of them.
What To Actually Buy Instead
Good news: the small SUV aisle is packed, and you have real options.
Consumer Reports ranked the Ford Escape as the most reliable compact SUV for 2025, with the Kia Sportage also scoring well. And that old workhorse, the Toyota RAV4, is still the SUV everybody else is chasing. If you’re set on the Chevy badge, the Trax and the Trailblazer are far safer bets than the Equinox. If you want a used Equinox, skip the 2009 to 2017 models with the 2.4-liter four-cylinder or the 3.0-liter V6, since those years were the real low point.
There’s a bigger lesson hiding in all of this. Consumer Reports found the five lowest-scoring brands are all American: Chrysler, GMC, Jeep, Ram, and Rivian. Japanese brands grabbed most of the top spots, and Toyota ranked fourth among mass-market brands with a score of 185 problems per 100 vehicles. That doesn’t mean every domestic car is junk, but it does mean you should do your homework before you sign anything.
One last thing worth knowing: a lot of today’s car headaches aren’t engine or transmission problems at all. The industry now averages 204 problems per 100 vehicles, and a big chunk of that comes from glitchy touchscreens and over-the-air software updates gone wrong. All those fancy screens dealers love to brag about? They break constantly.
So Should You Buy One
If you love spending your Saturdays parked at the dealership service desk, sure, go for it. For everyone else, this is one popular car that’s popular for all the wrong reasons. Skip it, wait a few model years for GM to sort out the mess, or just grab something with a real track record. The Equinox looks fine on paper and even better on the lot, but the moment those keys are yours, you may be signing up for a fight you never wanted. Your future self will thank you for walking away.
