Video: 2024 Chevrolet Traverse Review: Smooth Sailing, On-Road or Off

And we've come here to Atlanta, Georgia to drive the new third generation Traverse. But first let me take you through the changes they've made to the way it looks. You've got four trim levels to start with. The new 24 Traverse. This one is the top of the line RS, but it starts with the LS, then the LT, and there's also the Z71 off-road package. But if you want your fully loaded Traverse currently that's this one, this is the RS. And it's got a more sporty bit to it as well. You could tell because it's got all the blacked out trim, like the blacked out chrome grill in the front. And something else to note about these Chevrolets these days these are not your headlights. These are just LED running lights. The headlights are actually lower down here. Now being the RS and being a more sporty attitude kind of trim level, you've also got massive wheels. This one for the first time ever has 22 inch black chrome wheels instead of the 20 inches that we saw on the previous RS. The other notable version is the Z71 off-Road trim. Now this one is special, it's new for the Traverse lineup. There hasn't been an off-road version, but everyone apparently needs an off-road version of a family three row SUV in their lineup these days. So Chevy has created this. But it's more than just a styling package. You've got things like a higher bumper in the front with an actual skid plate, so it helps you approach obstacles more easily. It actually sits higher. It's got an inch lift, it's got 18 inch wheels instead of these 20 twos on the RS and it's got taller sidewall Goodyear Wrangler territory AT off-road tire, so it actually can go out into the muck. It's also got some other special equipment inside as well, like a dual clutch all-wheel drive system, which is different than the all-wheel drive system on the rest of the Traverse lineup. So it certainly looks more SUV ish more trucky than it did before but how does it drive? Does it drive like a Trucky SUV or is it an improvement upon the last generation? Let's go for a ride. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about driving the new Chevy Traverse is the ride quality quite frankly. Regardless of which version you are in, this is the RS, this is the top of the line currently sportiest model, it has a sport suspension, it's got a sport tune to the steering. The shock absorbers themselves have been tuned a little bit more aggressively. It still rides really, really well, over just about any kind of terrain. Now there's another version of the Traverse that we tried a little bit earlier, and that's the new Z71. They've actually retuned the shock absorbers to give it a much more compliant ride off road and it absolutely is fantastic either on road or off road. It's got much taller sidewalls and so it's gonna feel a little bit more supple, a little bit more squishy for lack of a better word. But it rides absolutely beautifully, but so does this one, the RS does as well. The engine is no longer a V6, it's a turbocharge 2.5 liter four cylinder, and it's making 328 horsepower and 326 pounds feet of torque. Although I have to say, it really doesn't feel like it's making that much. I mean, when you really put your foot down in this thing, it goes, but it's accompanied by frankly a lot of noise that doesn't sound terribly fantastic. And it moves, but there's not any kind of serious thrust. It tends to run outta steam, especially at higher speeds and higher RPMs. Around town, it's perfectly fine. Most people aren't gonna have any problem with this engine whatsoever. And if there is one thing that General Motors has proven to us, it's that most of their buyers really don't seem to care what's under the hood, as long as it makes adequate power, gets decent fuel economy and is reliable. It could be anything from a Turbocharged three cylinder to this turbo four, to just about anything these days. So in terms of comfort, the Traverse actually does really well. There's plenty of room up front, there's plenty of room in the second row, there's even tons of room in the third row. This thing is one of the bigger quote unquote mid-sized three row crossover SUVs. Although at what point does it stop becoming mid-size and just call it a large crossover SUV? It's huge, it almost feels as big as a Tahoe. But again, because this is technically a front wheel drive platform, they're still calling this mid-size. My only real issue with how this drives is the steering feel In this version, the RS in particular, it's more noticeable than it is in the Z71 that has the taller sidewall tires and it's the un-center feel. It always feels like the wheel is doing something. Even though I have lane centering turned off, it always feels like there's corrections being made for me, and so the wheel doesn't feel like it's solid and planted and doing exactly what I want it to do. Especially in straightaways or in in light applies, you just have your hand on it. It doesn't have that feeling of solidity that I really would expect from a vehicle this big, that handles as well as this actually does. There's a vagueness to the un-center feel that makes it feel a little bit over boosted and not very confidence inspiring. That's really the only foil I think in terms of how the new Traverse drives. The braking feel is excellent. The brake pedal feels firm, hauls you down really quickly. It's quiet, there's not a lot of road noise, there's not a lot of wind noise in here. You only really get engine noise when you put your foot in it and then you're like, oh yeah, it's a four cylinder. Overall in terms of the driving experience, it's really pleasant, it's really quite nice. I'd put this thing up against any of the latest crop of big crossovers without hesitation. You do have a lot of screens in here and that does take a little bit of getting used to because they have moved a number of controls into the touchscreen systems. You have this digital gauge cluster which is in front of you, but it's nice and bright and it's easy to read, not too busy, but it's not as reconfigurable as it used to be and in other Chevrolet vehicles that I've tried and other GM vehicles in general. You can switch between some screens to get different content on the screen, but it doesn't seem to allow you to have the same level of customizability that it used to have. And that's all right, it's not really missing anything. It's got everything you need on here. The central touchscreen is now 17.7 inches, it's huge and it runs the new Google operating system, which we've had mixed results in the past, but it seems to be working just fine. This is very highly reconfigurable, you can basically change it to whatever you want it to look like. You can put different cards on here that have different bits of content that are easy to see at a glance or at a touch. They have put more content into the touch screen, instead of having hard buttons. You still have some hard buttons, like there's still some climate control knobs along the bottom, which is great, but it's also duplicated in the actual touchscreen itself in the climate setting. So you've got a little bit of duplication, but you've also got the retention of some hard buttons and knobs, which is important when you're trying to do something quickly and you don't wanna go hunting through all kinds of menus. There are some interesting signs of cost cutting, like they've taken out the controls for the headlights. There's no hard control for the headlight outside the touchscreen anymore. It's all right in the touchscreen. You have to push this little button that's a light and that's your headlight control, which is a bit weird, but on one hand I get it. And that there are so many people who have daytime running lights and who accidentally are intentionally switch off their headlight knob. And so they're driving around at night without their headlights on, but their daytime running lights on thinking that you know their lights are on, but they're not. You're never gonna have that problem in the Traverse because you actually have to go into significant menus in order to shut off your headlights, your automatic headlights. So in that regard, that's probably a better safety function. You're never gonna be in the dark without your headlights on because that's what the car is natural state programmed to do. What you do have down by your left knee, in terms of where the headlight control used to be, there are a couple of different buttons. One is to shut off the automatic start/stop. The other is to activate or deactivate the all-wheel drive. You can leave all-wheel drive on all the time, or you can actually specifically shut it off and leave the car in two wheel drive like it is now. It's basically selectable all-wheel drive. If you don't need all-wheel drive like conditions like this, it's not necessary. Just put it in two wheel drive and save yourself a little bit of fuel economy. Or you can leave it in an all wheel drive, just set it and forget it and it's not a big deal. Changing different drive modes will activate all-wheel drive if it thinks it needs to like putting it in sport mode. Or if you're in the Z71, putting it in one of the off-road modes or the terrain modes will actually automatically activate all-wheel drive. But for this, just leave it in two wheel drive, there's really no need to have it. But right next to that is the mode selector, which will help you select different drive modes. And right next to that is the parking brake switch, but it's all down there below your line of sight. You actually have to specifically look at it in order to activate it. Otherwise, you're gonna go to try to change the drive modes and you're gonna hit the parking brake. It won't necessarily activate if you're already driving at a rapid speed, but that just seems kind of a strange thing. Yeah, the parking brake is shiny chrome, whereas the drive mode selector is just flat black. But if you're just feeling around there with your finger and you're not looking really carefully, it's easy to do one instead of the other. This RS model has Super Cruise. They're starting to see Super Cruise proliferate across a number of different General Motors vehicles. That's their semi-autonomous hands-free driving system, which you can activate on a highway or from what GM tells us, you can activate on like a two-lane rural freeway like this, which quite frankly, I'm not at all comfortable doing because there's a lot of people coming in and out of this rural two-lane highway. So setting my cruise control and taking my hands off the wheel in a situation like this, maybe I'm just old school, I'm not ready for that kind of full self-driving situation. But I'm gonna keep my hands on the wheel and just relegate the super cruise, which is actually a very useful feature to things like interstates and highways where you've got everybody traveling in the same direction and a lot more control over who's coming in and who's leaving your path. So we have to talk about the Z71 off-road trim. It's the first time they've ever done one for the Traverse. You've got one of these off-road packages for just about every automakers three row family SUV these days. You've got the Explorer Timberline or you've got like the Nissan Pathfinder Rock Creek. They've all got some level of off-road ability, some more than others. Like the Rock Creek doesn't have any, it just has tires. The Z71 version of the Traverse however, actually does have some off-road ability. Yeah, it's got a little bit of a lift and it's got those more aggressive off-road tires, but it's also got a different all-wheel drive system. It's got a twin clutch all-wheel drive system, so it actually does work pretty well in the rough. Now we drove one in a very light off-road situation, which quite frankly is all that its owners are really ever going to ask of it. It's not going way deep into the wilderness, but it might take you to a more rural campsite or it might take you up into some trails to a mountain cabin or it just might get you through some really terrible weather wherever you may happen to be living. If you're getting a lot of snow or you're getting a lot of rain and you just want extra traction. Or you live somewhere where you've got muddy roads all the time, this thing actually will work very well off road. But again, I think the most shocking aspect of it is that you can actually drive it fairly quickly on washboard dirt roads and the shock absorber tuning is such that it doesn't disturb anyone in the cabin whatsoever. It's really comfortable off road, it's really comfortable on road. The suspension tune for the Z71 in particular, really quite good. Shockingly good I might say. How does the new Traverse compare with a lot of the competition that we've already driven recently? It feels bigger for one thing. There's a lot more space in here than in some of its competitors. The visibility is excellent. You have no problem getting comfortable. I am a little bit concerned about this powered steering wheel in terms of its rake and its reach. It doesn't really go up as far as the manually adjustable one does. So I'm actually missing a good portion of the top of my gauge cluster things like temperature. Yeah, I can't see it, even though this thing is raised all the way up and I'm seated fairly low in the vehicle. But in terms of comfort and ease of accessibility into the second and third row, this is one of the better ones. It's easily as as nice as the Volkswagen Atlas, which is one of the larger ones as well, or the Hyundai Palisade. There's plenty of room in here for adults and that's a useful feature in a three row SUV. It's impressive, Chevy's 24 Traverse has style, it's got space, it's got utility, it's even got some off-road chops if you want to go camping out in the wilderness, just not too far out into the wilderness. It starts however, just shy of 40 grand and they can stretch all the way up to the high $50,000 mark for a loaded RS like this one. Now, if you want a new Traverse, they are on sale now, so you have to go down to your Chevy dealer to find one. If you'd like to learn more about the new 2024 Chevrolet Traverse, you can look everything up@cars.com.