2018 equinox diesel

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
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There are just too many to list....
So are all the Volkswagen single and double cabs along with every Volkswagen Transporter. As well as the old GM G-vans, Chrysler B-vans, Aerostars, Sprinters, Transits, Ducato (Promaster). Unibody needn't mean wimpy by any means.
 

turbobrick240

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True. My old Comanche was a tough little truck- other than the ax-5 gearbox. I've yet to see one towing a 5th wheel though. :D
 

tikal

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2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
Almost 42 MPG for an SUV!

Over 20,000 miles on our diesel equinox. Averaging 41.7 mpg over its life according to fuelly. Not a single complaint.:)
An SUV with an automatic transmission averaging almost 42 MPG!! Mostly highway if I may ask?

Do you go to the diesel Equinox forums? And if so what other owners are averaging in terms of FE?
 

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
It is not really an "SUV" in the traditional sense. It is a transverse unibody station wagon with a tall roof line. The B6 Passat wagon's cargo volume is bigger (I know you can not buy these new, but just a point of data that many of these SUV/CUVs are not as large inside as they are made out to be).

But still, as you'd expect, the diesel engine wins the fuel economy game handily over the gasoline engine offerings in the same model. This really should not come as a surprise to anyone here.

The current Equinox is officially classified as a compact crossover CUV from 2018+. Which is smaller than its predecessor that was classified mid-sized. It rides on the Theta platform.

I am happy that GM is offering these. Shocked. But happy. I'd like to see that engine in the Malibu next.
 

tikal

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Always appreciative of the more technical explanation OH. I am also pleasently surprised that GM is offering this compact CUV with the fuel efficient diesel engine. Should we thank CAFE? :) Thankfully GM used their common sense and did not put a gasoline hybrid drivetrain in the Equinox!

Unfortunately for some of us that have been spoiled by the cargo space of the Passat B5.5 wagon, the Equinox cargo space is too small as a family car (around 30 cubic feet vs 40 in the Passat).
 

2013 tdi fan

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tikal, I haven't found a good equinox forum to compare to this one yet.Check fuelly for what other people are getting and yes wife drives a lot of highway miles.
 

GoFaster

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2006 Jetta TDI
GM platform nomenclature is alphabet soup right now because they are trying to consolidate into fewer platforms, but it's not all happening at once, and the new platform naming is not a continuation of what they did before.

Current Equinox is on the D2XX platform (same as Cruze) ... specifically D2UC. I've done my tiny piece of a bunch of the automation for building parts for those!

Theta was the predecessor Equinox. Vehicles on Theta platform were consolidated into other platforms as the previous vehicles on Theta were replaced. They either moved smaller to D2XX (Equinox/Terrain) or up to C1XX (Cadillac XT5, and the GMC Acadia and Chevrolet Traverse which used to have their own Lambda platform which was succeeded by C1XX).

It's confusing as heck.
 

GoFaster

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Always appreciative of the more technical explanation OH. I am also pleasently surprised that GM is offering this compact CUV with the fuel efficient diesel engine. Should we thank CAFE? :) Thankfully GM used their common sense and did not put a gasoline hybrid drivetrain in the Equinox!
Partly CAFE, but partly because Cruze and Equinox are both D2XX vehicles which share the same subframe (and electrical system designs), and both of those also platform share with the Opel Astra which (at the time) needed a diesel powertrain to be competitive in Europe.

Regarding that hybrid powertrain, another D2XX vehicle is ... the Chevrolet Volt! It would be real simple for GM to slot that powertrain right into the Equinox, the only thing missing is someplace to put the battery pack, and I'm sure they can figure out a way to deal with that. A plug in hybrid Equinox would probably sell better than the Volt does ... and better than the diesel Equinox does. I have no insight into GM product planning, and current fuel prices and political climate don't exactly favor doing this right now, but a plug in hybrid Equinox is probably just a matter of time before it happens.
 

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
I'm still shaking my head at how FCA beat Toyota to a plug-in hybrid minivan. I cannot speak to the quality of the Pacifica, most of their stuff isn't all that great, and certainly statistically nowhere near a Sienna, but they have something that literally no one else does. Kudos to them for that.

Still missing the station wagons. Love mine, and I think it is a great package. Too bad so many Americans have turned their backs on something that is, in my opinion, distinctly an American "thing". A modern take on a larg(ish) station wagon with a third row kid seat, an efficient diesel engine, etc. would be a great highway cruiser.
 

tikal

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Overall I think a light duty diesel drivetrain will be a better fit for a CUV/SUV:

1) Better performance to fuel economy ratio under load. The low end torque will come handy with the shape and gearing of these types of vehicles. And more and more people feel like AWD is a 'necesity' so the diesel engine will be the most optimized for vs a gasoline hybrid.
2) Head to Head current diesel has a smaller environmental footprint vs a gasoline hybrid counterpart. Reference are latest GREET model and graphics posted by wxman. Current gasoline engines are greatly contributing to the worsening of local air quality due to the emissions of VOCs or volatile organic compunds.
3) Highway driving experience: diesel vehicle will be better going at lower RPMs.
4) Durability: diesel superior to gasoline
5) Complexity: the gasoline hybrid might have a slight edge here but I am not sure.

Of course once you can make an all electrical Equinox for like $35K and 300 miles of range then you can give up the diesel vehicle :)
 

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Right now, a non-hybrid, non-turbo, non-DI gasoline engine wins handily in the complexity department. There are fewer of these left (all three of the Equinox engine choices are turbocharged DI engines, two gas, one diesel). Plus, the few that are left are still equipped with complicated and often fragile (Honda comes to mind) vario-valve/cam stuff.

There fuel economy is abysmal. And because they do not have the extra power afforded by other technologies, the only way they can get them to have a chance to actually move whatever they are in is to make them BIGGER. Add to that the fact that they are almost always saddled with an automatic transmission, you can see why they are at the bottom of the "wanted" list until the buy in price gets brought into the equation.

But by the time these relatively simple engines are completely gone, the gasoline engines will have particle filters and some form of SCR added to them as well.
 

kjclow

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I'm still shaking my head at how FCA beat Toyota to a plug-in hybrid minivan. I cannot speak to the quality of the Pacifica, most of their stuff isn't all that great, and certainly statistically nowhere near a Sienna, but they have something that literally no one else does. Kudos to them for that.

Still missing the station wagons. Love mine, and I think it is a great package. Too bad so many Americans have turned their backs on something that is, in my opinion, distinctly an American "thing". A modern take on a larg(ish) station wagon with a third row kid seat, an efficient diesel engine, etc. would be a great highway cruiser.
I like the looks of the Pacifica much better than any of the Japanese minivans. Although, I was very unimpressed with the drivability when I had one as a rental.

From the wagon perspective, IIRC, my JSW had the same storage space as our CR-V but the CR-V would take taller things. It will be hard to decide what will replace the JSW when that time comes. It's nice to have a car that will fit both bikes inside without taking wheels off, when necessary.
 

truman

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'05 Passat Variant, Still miss the 03JW
I feel very unexcited about a potential replacement for my 05 Passat wagon. I still enjoy driving it everyday.
 

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Yep, that is why I am keeping both my B5s. In the process of doing a few needed refreshes on my wagon. 230k miles, needed the plastic coolant flange and a few other things. Still runs and drives great. Can't buy a new one. Can't even buy anything like it, really. Closest thing would be the $45k A4 Allroad. And I think my AWM will outlast that. Besides, the amount of parts in the newer Audis that have "made in China" on them don't give me a lot of good feelings about the long term for them.
 

GoFaster

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Location
Brampton, Ontario, Canada
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2006 Jetta TDI
Overall I think a light duty diesel drivetrain will be a better fit for a CUV/SUV:

...
4) Durability: diesel superior to gasoline
5) Complexity: the gasoline hybrid might have a slight edge here but I am not sure.
When you take the high pressure fuel injection and emission control systems into account, diesel powertrains don't have superior durability any more.

The Volt uses a non turbo engine. If you consider the electric part of the powertrain to be part of the transmission, it is mechanically simpler than the (for example) 9 speed automatic transmissions (GM now has one, and it's different from the ZF / FCA transmission), but electrically more complex.

And on that point ... back to the Pacifica hybrid for a moment. Buying the hybrid version gets away from the ZF / FCA 9 speed ...
 

03 shaker

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Skimmed most of this thread.

My dad bought a diesel Equinox FWD about a month ago for his wife to drive (he drives an 04 Golf). The first 3 tanks have been 42, 42, 43. All hand calculated. Most of this driving has been highway, 50-70 speed limits.

I drove it last weekend and was very impressed actually. One thing that surprised me about the car was the trans tuning. It actually held what I felt were the correct gears for speed/load. I was afraid the trans would be shifting into high gear at 35 MPH like so many new cars are prone to. But it always seemed to hovering 1900-2800, which seems to work well for that engine.

As for the sizing, I almost compare it to an over sized Golf. Curb weight is only ~3600 pounds, which I was surprised to hear. Overall I think a lot of people would enjoy having one.

Now to play the waiting game and see how reliable it will be :rolleyes:
 

tikal

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Right now, a non-hybrid, non-turbo, non-DI gasoline engine wins handily in the complexity department. There are fewer of these left (all three of the Equinox engine choices are turbocharged DI engines, two gas, one diesel). Plus, the few that are left are still equipped with complicated and often fragile (Honda comes to mind) vario-valve/cam stuff.
There fuel economy is abysmal. And because they do not have the extra power afforded by other technologies, the only way they can get them to have a chance to actually move whatever they are in is to make them BIGGER. Add to that the fact that they are almost always saddled with an automatic transmission, you can see why they are at the bottom of the "wanted" list until the buy in price gets brought into the equation.
But by the time these relatively simple engines are completely gone, the gasoline engines will have particle filters and some form of SCR added to them as well.
And then the efficiency gap between a gasoline Equinox with particle filter and the diesel Equinox will increase even further in favor of the later one.
 

GoFaster

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GPFs operate differently from DPFs. In particular, there is generally no need for active regeneration. The normal deceleration fuel cut periods during normal driving are enough to regenerate them and the exhaust temperature during normal driving is high enough. I expect GPF to have no significant effect on fuel consumption.
 

Tin Man

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I'm not convinced about this, since diesel fuel is still basically like light vegetable oil and has a natural lubricant quality. While emissions tech creates problems, it is getting better and may not be so much of an issue in the future. GPF equipped engines still have high pressure fuel pumps which, at least in BMW's, have had issues, so direct injection gassers are not quite up to the level of current diesels in reliability it seems.
 

kjclow

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I'm not convinced about this, since diesel fuel is still basically like light vegetable oil and has a natural lubricant quality.
Yes and no. We all now this but I'm restating it here.

Distillate fuels are all high in surfactants which are mostly bound to sulfur. This makes them a great lubricant. However, ultra low sulfur fuels are hydrotreated to remove the sulfur. This also results in removing most of the surfactants. Without added surfactants, ULSD would trash our HPFPs in probably the first tank, much the same as trying to run gasoline through them. Balancing the lubrication properties with additives is entirely dependent on the specific tank farm and end customer. Easy to screw up if one of the additive tanks is empty or contaminated. This might be one of the reasons we saw so many early HPFP failures.
 

tikal

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tikal, I haven't found a good equinox forum to compare to this one yet.Check fuelly for what other people are getting and yes wife drives a lot of highway miles.
Yes, good deal with Fuelly. Is one of the better MPG databases as it provides the largest numbers of real life MPG. Sure people make mistakes entering their data but as the miles accumulated The Central Limit Theorem (CLT) takes care of providing you the best average or expected MPG. Here is the one for 2018 Equinox diesel with the 1.6L engine:

"Based on data from 14 vehicles, 340 fuel-ups and 127,669 miles of driving, the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox gets a combined Avg MPG of 36.13 with a 0.89 MPG margin of error."

So, in theory, if there was a way to separate out the AWD vehicles, the above average would probably be better by like 5 to 10 percent perhaps.
 

compu_85

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... None :S
... back to the Pacifica hybrid for a moment. Buying the hybrid version gets away from the ZF / FCA 9 speed ...
Having driven a Pacifica Hybrid, I can tell you the power split trans drives much nicer than the rando select a gear 9 speed.

Thanks,

-J
 

tikal

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Chevrolet Equinox Diesel Was Is Now Dead

The end of a very short 'era': two years (2018-19) of a light duty diesel non-luxury CUV averaging around 36 MPG in the US:

The 39 MPG Chevrolet Equinox Diesel Was in Fact a Hard Sell and Is Now Dead

"But, I opined, the overlap between conservative crossover shoppers and people willing to own diesels probably isn’t particularly large, especially considering the hassle associated with needing to refill Diesel Exhaust Fluid; the difficulty of finding gas stations that sell diesel; the price premium of the engine, which would take many years to pay off when compared to the available gas motor, which offers 33 horsepower more and just 37 lb-ft fewer; and the image issue—people still see diesels as dirty and unrefined"

Imagine the price premium of the Equinox diesel (vs gasoline one) is let's say around $2000 (I am not sure of the exact figure), how much would be a premium (vs gasoline) to electrify it, would it be $10,000 to $15,000? :eek:

Then you realize how difficult is to sell a fuel efficient vehicle in the US when the average price of RUG is the lowest among industrialized countries.
 

ilyago

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Chatham, NJ, USA
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When shopping for my Terrain diesel, dealers either did not have them, or did not know that they had them. The few diesel ones that they had were always parked deep in their lots. And offered with some big discounts.

I also noticed that the dealers who got stuck with unsold 2018s weren't ordering 2019s.

At least Chevy had the Cruzes (even manuals) and they could get previous Cruze Diesel buyers into the Equinox. The Terrain was GMC's first light duty diesel offering - but they failed or choose not to market them. In 2019, they finally added a Diesel badge to go on the tailgate. Maybe they were hoping that the GMC Sierra HD Duramax owners would consider a diesel Terrain for their family.

GM also reduced the engine size from the old 2.0 in the 2017 Cruize to 1.6 in 2018 and that was when they added the Equinox/Terrain SUVs. Its funny my 2015 Jetta TDI has a 2.0 and my 2018 Terrain has a 1.6. The old 2017 Cruize diesel with the 2.0 must have been a rocket!

The article was right for saying that GM was hoping to get Diesel buyers to look at the Equinox/Terrain, not to switch Exquinox/Terrain buyers to Diesel. I was one of those. Now I would also look at the Mazda MX-5 and even the Jaguar SUV (maybe those are heavily discounted now?).
 

turbobrick240

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Are they actually selling any of the Mazda CX5 diesels here yet? Seems perpetually around the corner.
 
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