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The Chevrolet Trax competes in the Small SUV market segment. According to data collected from verified new-vehicle buyers for the JD Power 2023 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, 55 percent of new Small SUV buyers are female (vs. 39 percent for the industry), and the median age of a new Small SUV buyer is 56 years (vs. 56).
As part of the APEAL Study, owners rated the Small SUV segment in 10 primary categories. Listed below in descending order, you'll find their preferences, from their most favorite thing about the vehicle to their least favorite:
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In the sections that follow, our independent expert analyzes a 2024 Chevrolet Trax Activ equipped with the following options:
The test vehicle's price was $26,935, including the $1,095 destination charge.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Anyone who has ever driven or been a passenger in the previous-generation Trax will be pleasantly surprised when they open the door to the 2024 version. Interior space is more akin to a midsize car than a compact one. Compared to its 2022 iteration, the 2024 Trax rides on a wheelbase that's nearly half a foot longer. Overall length increases by almost a foot for the new Trax as well. As a result, Chevrolet was able to add 3 inches of legroom for rear-seat passengers, and cargo space behind the rear seat jumps by almost 7 cubic feet. Adult rear-seat passengers can stretch their legs a bit. Due to the nearly flat floor made possible because the front-drive-only Trax has no center driveshaft tunnel, the center rear seat position is no longer the penalty seat.
The seating position is also lower in the new Trax than in the typical small SUV or crossover. It is a boon to buyers looking to replace their older, no-longer-available hatchback car with something similar. As a result, ingress and egress are a breeze.
The Trax Activ test vehicle had soft-to-the-touch perforated synthetic Evotex seat coverings in an attractive two-tone gray with yellow accent piping. The front buckets are reasonably supportive and comfortable enough during longer drives. The front passenger seat offers 4-way manual adjustment but no way to adjust the seat cushion height. The driver's seat has a 6-way manual adjustment, including seat cushion height. Buyers can upgrade to an optional 8-way power-assisted seat with lumbar adjustment.
The infotainment screen and center stack controls angle toward the driver. The layout of the controls and switchgear is straightforward and logical.
Storage in the front-seat area is quite good for a small vehicle. In addition to a generously sized glovebox and accommodating pockets and bottle holders in the doors, the center console offers a pair of cupholders, two open trays for small items, an optional wireless phone charger, and a deep bin under the padded center armrest.
Overall, the interior design is cheerful, modern, and more upscale-looking than you'd expect in Chevrolet's least-expensive offering. Heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, and a power sliding sunroof are available. There's also a lot of hard plastic in the new Trax, not unheard of in an entry-level small SUV starting in the $20,000 range. For the most part, the plastic is nicely grained or textured. The hard-plastic door armrests, however, don't love your elbows on a long trip and cry out for a product planner to green-light a few bucks' worth of foam padding there.
Photo: Ron Sessions
The Chevrolet Trax gets an upgraded infotainment system for 2024. Elements of the system include the following:
As with other new or updated models for the 2024 model year, the new Chevrolet Trax gets a larger infotainment touchscreen. It measures 8 inches diagonally in LS and 1RS trims and 11 inches in LT, 2RS, and Activ trims.
The landscape-format, high-definition screen features bright, high-contrast colors, readable type, and easy-to-tap screen tiles when making selections on the fly. There's a shortcut bar on the left flank and a favorites bar at the bottom. Volume control is a time-proven analog rotary knob to the screen's left and an up/down toggle behind the right steering wheel spoke. You can tune the radio via onscreen arrows or another up/down toggle behind the left steering wheel spoke.
The optional wireless phone charger in the test vehicle is roomy enough to accommodate today's larger phones, such as my Samsung Galaxy S21.
Pairing my Samsung phone via Bluetooth was a seamless exercise. The Trax recognized my phone immediately upon starting the engine and led me through a series of prompts asking if I wanted to activate Android Auto, which works wirelessly in the Trax along with Apple CarPlay. Using Android Auto, I was able to use voice requests to make calls from my phone's call list, stream music from my Pandora account, and get directions to the nearest Ikea department megastore. Chevy didn't equip the new Trax with an embedded navigation system, so the only way to get maps is using Android Auto or Apple CarPlay smartphone mirroring.
Photo: Ron Sessions
For the 2024 model year, the Chevrolet Trax gets a new 137-horsepower, turbocharged 1.2-liter 3-cylinder engine with 162 pound-feet of torque. That engine also powers the 2024 Buick Envista and is the base offering in the Chevrolet Trailblazer and Buick Encore GX. While that's a loss of one cylinder, 18 hp, and 15 pound-feet of torque from the 2022 Trax's 1.4-liter turbo engine, EPA-estimated fuel economy improves for the new Trax. With the 2024 model's perky low- and mid-range torque, around-town responsiveness isn't an issue. The 3-cylinder turbo is not sluggish, although it can get a bit peaky under boost in the lower gears.
A standard active noise-cancellation system, working through the vehicle's speakers, keeps odd-firing 3-cylinder chugga-chugga noises under the radar. The carryover 6-speed automatic transmission is not the smoothest or quickest at gear changing, particularly when performing a wide-open-throttle downshift. That said, the conventional 6-speed step-shift transmission is way more satisfying to drive than the continuously variable gearboxes in some competitive models.
The simple chassis features a MacPherson strut front suspension and time-honored torsion-beam rear setup that's softly sprung but with good vertical damping and very little body lean in turns.
The Trax's electric-boosted rack-and-pinion steering is nicely weighted and precise but could use more feedback coming off-center.
Four-wheel disc brakes deliver crisp top-of-pedal brake response and a linear feel that's easy to modulate.
Overall, the new Trax feels balanced, and with the lower center of gravity compared to taller SUVs, it's more akin to a hatchback car that's increasingly hard to find these days. The 1RS and 2RS trims upgrade to wider, meatier tires. The Trax Activ test vehicle displayed sufficient grip; however, its 225/55R18 tires were noisy over rough pavement.
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In addition to six airbags and a reversing camera with trajectory lines, the 2024 Chevrolet Trax gets an expanded suite of safety features and advanced driver assistance systems. Standard elements of Chevy Safety Assist include forward-collision warning with daytime pedestrian detection and automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance with lane-departure warning, automatic high-beam headlights, and a following distance indicator.
Not part of Chevy Safety Assist but included as standard features in the new Trax are a rear-seat reminder system and Teen Driver monitoring.
Optional features available with the Trax include blind-spot warning with lane-change alert, rear cross-traffic warning, adaptive cruise control, and rear park assist (uses ultrasonic sensors to deliver an audible in-vehicle beeping sound that increases in intensity the closer the vehicle's rear bumper gets to an obstacle).
On a 140-mile interstate trek, the adaptive cruise control, blind-spot warning, and lane-keeping assistance system did an excellent job of maintaining vehicle speed and following distance, alerting me to vehicles approaching from the rear in adjacent lanes, and keeping the Trax from wandering out of its lane. However, the hard button activating lane keeping isn't on the left steering wheel spoke adjacent to the cruise control buttons as in many other vehicles. Instead, it's down on the center console, below the driver's line of sight, and hidden from the driver if a beverage is in the forwardmost of two front cupholders.
Photo: Ron Sessions
The 2024 Chevrolet Trax offers a maximum of 25.6 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats and 54.1 cubic feet with the 60/40 split back seat folded flat. There is also significant additional storage under the cargo floor around the mini-spare tire for valuables and small items such as a purse, tablet, or a laptop case. At the left rear corner of the cargo bay is a cubby deep enough to carry a gallon-size beverage jug or smaller items you want to avoid rolling around on the cargo floor.
The EPA-estimated fuel economy of the 2024 Chevrolet Trax is 28 mpg city/32 mpg highway/30 mpg combined. The Trax test vehicle averaged 30.2 miles per gallon in a week of driving. The vehicle's 13.2-gallon fuel tank equates to around 400 miles of cruising range before empty.
As of this writing, neither the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) nor the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have published crash-test results for the 2024 Chevrolet Trax.
Chevrolet's entry-level SUV ranges in price from $20,400 for the basic LS to $23,900 for both the sporty 2RS and well-equipped, distinctively styled Activ. The destination charge is an additional $1,095.
In the JD Power 2023 Initial Quality Study (IQS), the Buick Encore GX ranks highest in the Small SUV segment. The Kia Soul and the Ford Bronco Sport are the next highest-ranked models.
In the 2023 APEAL Study, the Mini Countryman ranks highest in the Small SUV segment. The Chevrolet Trailblazer and the Ford Bronco Sport rank second (in a tie).
Other competitors to the Chevrolet Trax include the Kia Niro, Kia Seltos, Nissan Kicks, and Volkswagen Taos.
Photo: Ron Sessions
Sleek and spacious, the front-drive-only 2024 Chevrolet Trax is, in reality, more of a generously sized 4-door hatchback car than a boxy utility vehicle. It's reasonably priced transportation that also offers a roomy cabin and up-to-date infotainment, safety, and driver-assistive technology, although you can find better fuel economy elsewhere. Particularly fetching in Activ trim, the 2024 Trax is a good value. It provides buyers trading in their now-discontinued Cruze and Sonic passenger cars a place to land at the Chevrolet franchise. The new Trax is no hot hatch, but along with its good looks, it does offer sufficient torque to spin a front tire every now and then.
Ron Sessions is a seasoned vehicle evaluator with more than three decades of experience. He has penned hundreds of road tests for automotive and consumer websites, enthusiast magazines, newsletters, technical journals, and newspapers.
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6 speed, Automatic
Turbocharged Gas 3-Cyl
Front Wheel Drive
