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PLYMOUTH, MI – The former General Motors Corp. struck a winning strategy a couple years ago for its highest-volume products, exemplified most recently in the new-for-’10 Chevy Equinox.
And if the new General Motors Co. is smart, it will stick with that same game plan.
As with the redesigned ’08 Chevy Malibu midsize passenger car, an unqualified home run for GM, perhaps the Equinox’s most impressive feat is its library-like cabin.
The key, GM engineers say, is taking money that could have been spent elsewhere on the vehicle and sinking it into sound-damping materials. For example, the seats on the Equinox can be found in any number of GM vehicles either new to the market or in the pipeline.
So rather than new seats for the 5-passenger CUV, planners put the money towards items such as acoustic glass and triple door seals.
But the smartest dough was spent on acoustic noise-cancelling technology. Much like the Bose headphones some air travelers use to knock down the whine of jet engines and beat fatigue, the Equinox’s technology emits a frequency to cancel out certain noises.
The technology doesn’t cure everything – there still are the familiar booms of most wagons, CUVs and SUVs – we picked up some low buzzing from the driver’s side seatbelt housing, which GM says has been remedied – but it does help impart to passengers a near-luxury experience in a vehicle with a razor-sharp base price of $23,185.
More important than taming road noise, the technology quiets a superbly performing 2.4L 4-cyl. direct-injection gasoline engine.
