Chevrolet Trax

On the inside, the Chevrolet Trax has upped the ante for all small cars and SUVs by giving a feature-rich and top-notch build quality, making it look much more premium for what it actually is. The cabin feels sporty with an all-black layout with silver accents at places.

The driver’s cockpit comprises of a three-spoke multi-functional steering wheel sourced from the larger Cruze sedan, with a part digital instrument console behind it, making it feel youthful. The waterfall-like centre console of the dashboard has a curved design to it, which houses a modern and large 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system in upper housing and controls for automatic climate control in the lower one.

The cabin has been designed for five people, however, the rear seat space feels a bit cramped for the limited legroom and shoulder room on offer. However, the Chevrolet Trax makes up for this by providing a number of features such as leather upholstery, push-button start with keyless entry, powered driver’s seat, auto foldable rearview mirrors, and touchscreen infotainment system with Apple Carplay and Android Auto.

The Chevrolet Trax available in the Philippines is one handsome looking vehicle, and while it might not be a trendsetter, it certainly looks the part by being modern and inclusion of all latest design features.

The front part of the Chevrolet Trax is dominated by a large two-part grille which is quite traditional in Chevrolet’s standards. The upper part of the grille houses the Chevrolet logo and is flanked by a pair of large headlamps on either sides. The headlamps do include projector bulbs and daytime running LEDs, while the fog lamps do get their individual large housings on the front bonnet.

The side profile of the Chevrolet Trax, despite having a compact wheelbase, manages to look proportionate and high, giving it a true SUV stance. There are sharp squared bulges over the wheel arches, which themselves are squared. While the roof rails and body cladding downwards give the Trax a tough personality of an SUV, the thick C-pillar design and blackened B-pillar make the small SUV look large.

The rear of the Chevrolet Trax, however, is not as appealing as the front and side profiles, with the tail lamps with LED inserts positioned slightly lower, which along with the large rear windshield look a bit disproportionate. However, it does make the Trax look bulky and large when viewed from the rear, enhancing its visual mass.

The Chevrolet Trax is a compact SUV that has a high ground clearance which does root for a slight body roll. However, it is very much tried to be in control by the stiff setup for the Macpherson struts at the front and torsion beam axle at the rear. The large 18-inch wheels provide tremendous stability, while the disc brakes on all four wheels have great stopping power.

The sole powertrain combination employed in the Chevrolet Trax is a 1.4-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine paired to a six-speed automatic gearbox as standard. The engine is capable of producing a maximum power output of 140 PS, while the peak torque output is rated at 200 Nm.

The Chevrolet Trax is armed with some really nice and sophisticated safety features such as front, side and curtain airbags, ABS with EBD, auto headlamps, rain-sensing wipers, reverse parking sensors with camera, cornering brake control, traction control, rollover mitigation, panic brake assist, hill start assist, hill descent control, and tire pressure monitoring system.

The Chevrolet Trax has top-notch mechanical hardware under the skin and some really noteworthy safety as well as comfort and convenience features on board, which do make it a really nice and premium SUV for its compact size and affordable price.