Gadgetory

the little - any crossover market has been red-hot basically leading a resurgent US auto sales face you don't want to be missing Mac card-table let's see how good Chevy's hand is as we drive the new 2015 Chevy Trax - check the check now the Chevy Trax is Chevy's newest and their crossover and SUV portfolio it's also as you can see their smallest I think it's got really nice clean lines for the first three quarters or so and then it can see it monk cheek rear haunches in the quarter panels it don't work for me it's a four seat vehicle really maybe put a little kid in the middle in the back but when you fold down the back it's surprisingly commodious for carrying cargo it goes up against Nissan Juke Fiat 500l and Jeep renegade now the cabin on the tracks as you can imagine is pretty basic and Spartan but I gotta say they've got a modern interesting layout here starting at the instrument panel you have this sort of motorcycle inspired layout that Chevy's been doing in their very small cars in the last couple of years come over here to the head unit here's the star of the show most of what you see here is standard like OnStar 4G hotspot in the car the 7-inch touch LCD with what I think is one of the better-looking and fairly logical interfaces out there in general this head unit has great metatag display for whatever source you're playing but it is irritating how any adjustment of the volume clobbers anything else on the screen there is no volume knob anywhere everything is an up and down tap either here on the bezel or over here on the wheel of an see that just drives me nuts I want a knob for volume climate controls are simple there's no automatic temp control on this car just turn it back and forth from blue to red the way you used to do let me show you some of the features now on this head unit AM and FM radio no HD radio interestingly enough satellite radio is optional on higher trim level that's not always included picture and movie seems silly to me it's like what I don't need to do either of those that high on the menu your phone menu of course brings you hands-free calling and bluetooth streaming on the media side those are your apps Pandora stitcher tune in and bring those your navigation this car may have the record for the cheapest optional nav all you need is to pair your smart phone spend 99 cents for that app and you've got in-car navigation on the dash 2 glove boxes the one on the top has USB and auxiliary backup camera is also standard on all tracks there are cars that cost three I am is this much that don't do that I'm also gonna anti-lock brakes standard a very good Stabilitrak stability system standard and by the way this guy is an IIHS safety top pick on crash ratings drive controls are simple you've got a true conventional automatic to get into your shifting mode you come back here to M for manual and then you've got this fussy toggle here on the shift lever the combination of that and no presence of paddles means this is not set up as a driver engagement vehicle one more note while head and shoulder room were real good in the tracks legroom never felt like enough ok let's talk about the tracks engine where'd it go ah here it is down here 1.4 liter turbocharged inline-4 sitting sidesaddle driving the front wheels typically all wheel drive is optional for a very good price we'll get to that later you're always gonna have a six-speed automatic transmission not a CVT not a DCT just a garden-variety automatic your horsepower is 138 you have a hundred and forty eight pound-feet of torque now it all comes out in the wash in the MPG 2634 really quite good though you get a pretty big haircut if you go all-wheel-drive some all sad to say does the tracks driving dynamics aren't it's kind of a gutless wonder to be honest the engine doesn't do anything criminal it's just not let's shove it for some reason the numbers actually are okay but I think the transmissions very much asleep at the switch even if you manually shifted much more kudos to the head unit living with it day to day I really do like it it's simple it's clean it looks pretty good and except for a few weird sort of organizational quirks it's very nice for this price point now we have a track CLS that's your base model and that's gonna come in just a tick under 21,000 delivered 1500 is all you pay for all-wheel drive I'm gonna leave that out for now because not everyone's gonna want that but then there's one upgrade that definitely gets you seen that style and that goes from LS to LT for 2,300 bucks that gets your satellite radio the only major media that was missing cruise control remote start some other niceties around the car you might also consider the Sun and sound package 1404 the seven speaker Bose rig and a glass roof so adding it all those toys but leaning out all week drive we're still under 25,000 for a car that's credibly seen in style