K2 Drives: 2008 Chevrolet Equinox Sport FWD

Dodo bird.

Oops, they did it again.

In person and up close, quite handsome in its way.

Like that now extinct bird, GM tried to spiffy up their rather Plain Jane crossover with a sporty model. And just like that freak of nature, it went extinct...real fast. Here's why.

The interior quality was a step down, but still livable.

Scorned for slapping the SS badge on senior citizen scooters, GM was understandably hesitant to do it again. But really, they should have because the Equinox Sport follows the formula, albeit in a modern way. With a 264 hp 3.6 V6 that was a roughly 80 hp hike over the regular model, it could scoot from 0-60 in under 7 seconds. FWD or AWD was optional and the main Equinox complaints were also addressed with an upgraded and lowered suspension and dreadfully dead electric steering replaced with far superior hydraulic. The five-speed slushbox was replaced by a shiftable six.

Great leg room back here.

I saw this on a small dealer lot and the look got under my skin so much that I had to check it out. Driving it was a lot of fun and everything worked for us, with the exception of the rear seat which was okay but not optimal. When folded flat (the bench slid forward and back, too), it utilized a little pivoting shelf that created an angle so that the cargo floor would never be flat. I wanted to show it to my wife, but to make a long story short, we never got that far.

Center mounted window switches - shwing!

The unavoidable problem with the Sport was that all that made it interesting and fun to drive also made it a POS. The timing chain is such a problem in GM vehicles with the 3.6 that they were forced to recall all of them...except the Sport. There is no recall for the Sport! The theory online is that they sold so few that they just skipped them. Nice. Who cares about the Sport owners. The truth about what is happening is a bit of a mystery, too. Do the timing chains really fail or is it a sensor that goes bad? Nobody seems to know. But the fault triggers a warning light or the car dies on you, without any heads up that it's about to happen. I found tales of owners who have replaced their timing chains multiple times. Ouch. The problem is so bad that it removes the vehicle from our consideration, not to mention reported horrendous problems with the six-speed automatic.

This thing was pretty loaded, including remote start.

Too bad, I actually really liked it. GM royally screwed this one up and then wouldn't support owners in any way. Taking a use car like this would be shooting yourself in the foot.

See the panel that pivots to cover the gap when the rear seats are folded?

After 2009 the Sport was mercifully dead, but the Equinox (and rebadged variants) lived on. There's no doubt in my mind that they're an interesting alternative to, say, the CR-V.