Cobb County, GA: The third wave of three-row crossovers will begin with the 2024 Chevrolet Traverse. It does the same main thing as before, but this time, it does it stylishly. With its new look, this family hauler is now beefier and faster, and it’s getting closer to the body-on-frame branch of the Chevy family tree. The inside has also been changed, and now two dashboard screens look like they belong in a tech-themed room. Chevy also adds some spice to the Traverse’s original taste with the streetwise RS and tough-looking Z71 models at the top of the line. During our short trips outside of Atlanta, we were able to test out those two grades.
The changes are deeper than they seem. The 3.6-liter V6 engine and nine-speed automatic transmission are no longer available. The engine produced 310 hp and 266 lb-ft. A brand-new 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine with 328 hp, 326 lb-ft of torque, and an eight-speed automatic gearbox takes its place. The new 2.5-liter engine in the Traverse is based on the 2.7-liter turbocharged engine that came out in the Silverado and was made better for the Colorado. One of the main goals of the 2.5 was to get better gas mileage. This was done with a brand-new GM “ePhaser” that changes the camshaft on the fly to move the spark further forward or further back, depending on power and efficiency needs. The phaser also makes the stop/start system work more smoothly. It gets 20 mpg in the city, 27 mpg on the highway, and 23 mpg total with front-wheel drive. It gets 19/24/21 with all-wheel drive. Compare that to what they were last year when they got 18/27/21 with FWD and 17/25/20 with AWD.
The list of important safety gear has grown a lot and is pretty amazing. The new buckle-to-drive technology for 2024 stops the car from moving for 20 seconds after the key is turned on if the driver doesn’t tighten their seatbelt. There is a setting that lets you turn it off totally if it bothers you too much. An HD surround-view parking camera, haptic safety alerts through the seat, traffic sign recognition, side bicycle detection (which helps keep cyclists from being doored), automatic emergency braking at intersections, and a teen driver mode are some of the other safety features that come as standard. There’s more, and the Traverse’s basic safety features make it look like a real commitment to safety.
The new $47,995 Traverse Z71 model gives the Traverse more credibility off-road and is more than just a beauty. Four-wheel drive with all-terrain tires on 18-inch wheels, and an extra 1.2 inches of ground clearance for a total of 7.76 inches are the first signs that it can handle going off-road. There are steel and metal skid plates and red tow hooks that protect the engine, transmission, and rear differential if you look good enough. It also has twin-clutch all-wheel drive, which lets the Traverse send a force to either the left or right rear wheel, depending on what it needs to do. Its ZF FE4 passive dampers make the ride-handling ratio better by using frequency-based damping and valve technology that can be adjusted very precisely. There is a hydraulic rebound stop in the Z71’s dampers when the rebound motion is used up. This stops that “slap, that hard clunk,” as Lead Development Engineer Van Childers put it.
The Z71 now has off-road and terrain drive modes. The terrain mode is for slower, harder terrain where you might trip over things and have to cross high ground.
Children advised “thinking of it as a one-pedal drive.” “You literally crawl up on the thing, stop, and then kind of get the thing to drive off, and it really only moves when you’re on the gas.” This happens when you get close to a two-track site obstacle and are sure you can get around it because of how high you are off the ground. In Terrain mode, when you press the accelerator, the Traverse stops moving and stays still, no matter where you are. “We actually freed up the vehicle… we backed off on our controls, as far as traction control and stability control,” Childers said. This meant that the vehicle could turn and slip more when it was in off-road mode. The off-road mode gives you more wheelspin, which you might want or even need in some situations.
The RS ($57,595), which is the top-of-the-line Traverse, is the sportiest and most likely to be seen on the street. It looks good with its 22-inch shiny black wheels and black accents on the grille, moldings, and roof rails. Inside, the seats are black with red details, the headrests are embroidered with “RS,” and the steering wheel has three spokes and a flat bottom. The RS, like the Z71, is more than just a nice-looking box. With passive chosen damping control technology, the same ZF shocks are used as before. However, they are tuned for comfort and driving on the road and don’t have hydraulic rebound stops. There is no doubt that the RS is better than the Z71 because it comes with extras like Super Cruise, Bose premium music, and power everything. The chairs are made of very nice leather that has holes in it.
We drove the Z71 around the large grounds of Foxhall Resort north of Atlanta on grass and gravel paths for our first time with the 2024 Traverse. The Z71’s great ride was the first and last thing that stuck with us. It was easy to handle bumps, keep going fast in Off-Road mode, and avoid the odd flock of geese. The Z71’s suspension was tuned to make the rough terrain more comfy, and 17-inch wheels with all-terrain tires were put on it. We kept going at a slow pace of 40 to 45 mph as we went from bumpy grass to rutted dirt two-tracks. I was amazed at how well the cabin held up against the rough play of the tires on the ground.
We thought this would be a lot of fun to do on the sandy roads that go around the northernmost point of Michigan’s Mitten. Pure explosives made of broken asphalt are used on the roads in Southeast Michigan. We’re happy that a Traverse Z71 has been added to our neighborhood group.
We went up a path through the trees to get to the area where the lodge might have a lot of clay shooting traps. Aside from a few tight spots between trees on a path that looked like it was made for UTVs, it wasn’t hard terrain, but it gave me a good idea of what I might face on my way to a cabin or while camping in the middle of the woods. We couldn’t crawl over rocks or fire skeets, but we did have a short window of time to use Terrain mode to get up and down some hills and slopes. Exactly what it promises to do is carried out. This place also lets you use the different cameras to find your way over blind crests or between trees; the screen of the camera can be seen even when you’re going faster than a crawl. Toyota, pay attention.
Outside of Atlanta, we drove the RS on real roads, some of which had turns. The Traverse did a great job. The driving felt a bit mechanical, but it was well-balanced, and it took some work to get around corners. It went around turns without any problems, and the car looked a little smaller on the road than it did from the outside. Once more, the ride was fun, especially since the RS has big 22-inch wheels. We need to do a longer test on the RS’s comfort level when we get back home, but these roads were much better than the ones near Detroit, where Chevy is from. Our test drive, on the other hand, showed that the suspension works well on roads with lots of bumps. It has yet to learn how it handles very large potholes. You can always use the Z71 if your infrastructure could be better than Michigan’s.
The new 2.5-liter engine works well with the Traverse. Like a good four-cylinder engine should, it stays quiet and out of the way when paired with such a big SUV. The experts said there would be a short path between the intake and the twin-scroll turbocharger, which lets it make power quickly. It has more power, and it grows linearly and reliably. However, it doesn’t have quite the flat power curve of the V6 from the previous generation. Our RS tester had all-wheel drive, but like other GM SUVs, we had to press a button to make it work so that power would be sent to the back wheels if the front wheels started to slip. For as long as the AWD button was off and the drive mode was set to Sport, we could start spinning the front wheels of the Traverse from a stop.
The base model of the Traverse has adaptive cruise control. The LT, Z71, and RS models, on the other hand, have GM’s Super Cruise hands-free driving feature. Man, Super Cruise keeps getting better. It surprised us to find that we could activate it on some off-the-beaten-path two-lane roads. GM plans to expand its network to cover 750,000 miles across the US and Canada by the end of next year. As long as you trust Super Cruise, it can take over some driving duties without scaring the living daylights out of you, and, most importantly, it will let you know when you need to take back full control without being annoyed.
Every Traverse has the same Android-based entertainment system, which has already been a big hit with other Chevrolet models thanks to its clear menus and flexible settings, like choosing which apps to dock at the top. Also, the new Traverse’s basic HVAC controls are further down the center stack, even though the screen can be used to change the temperature. Yes, the volume button is still there.
As always, the Traverse is very big. It’s important to note, though, that all models except the $40,995 LS grade with its eight-seat second-row bench come with regular second-row captain’s chairs that can seat seven people. In the same way that older three-row SUVs did, the second-row slides make more room for people who end up in the third row. They will have less bad luck in the Traverse, though. You wouldn’t believe it, but I found a spot in the third row where I could sit easily behind a copy of myself in the second row. There was also a third copy in the driver’s seat. I’m 6 feet tall. There is a lot of room for cargo. The average 22.9 cubic feet behind the third row is better than everything else in its class, even though it is less than the previous version’s 23.6 cubic feet. You can get as many cubes as you want by putting the third row after the first. The largest you can get is 97.6 cubic feet. You can pull extra things behind you with the Traverse, which can pull up to 5,000 pounds.
We still need to learn a lot more about the 2024 Chevy Traverse, but what we have seen so far is very good. The car is great to drive, has a lot of space, and has good technology. It looks a lot more classy than it did before, and the new trim levels make it suitable for a wider range of tastes. It is much more interesting now than it was before, even though SUVs like the Hyundai Palisade and Kia Telluride already exist. We love having more time behind the wheel with people and things, especially in the Z71.
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