Holden Equinox vs Peugeot 2008

What's the difference?

Overlook the Holden Equinox LTZ-V and you could miss out on a practical, spacious and value-for-money mid-sized SUV. Concerned about Holden’s exit from Australia and how this affects servicing and parts? Well Holden has assured us that it will provide servicing support for 10 years following its closure at the end of 2020. If anything, you could be picking up a bargain and one of the last cars to wear a Holden badge.

The 2008's score is slightly hurt by the price and the lack of advanced safety features (mostly reverse cross-traffic alert) but is boosted by the fantastic looks, great dynamics and avant-garde interior. While it certainly isn't the cheapest compact SUV, it certainly is one of the most stylish and, in some ways, innovative. 

Peugeot has a mountain to climb in Australia, a hangover from more than a decade of indifferent or oddball cars. The 2008 is a key plank of its premium strategy and that will become more important when it throws the full EV e-2008 at us later this year, or early next. This 2008 is the car to grab those younger buyers, I just wonder if they're keen enough to stump up the cash.

Big cheesy grin grille? Check. Flowing curves? Check. Sharp creases? Check. Irregular shapes? Check.

The Equinox is a bit of a mishmash of design elements which doesn't win this reviewer over.

The sloping, broad grille bears more than a passing resemblance to the Cadillac family face, and hints at the Equinox’s American origins. In the United States the SUV wears a Chevrolet badge, although ours is built in Mexico.

The shape of the rear-side window is also a little jarring to me. If you want to see something you’ll never be able to unsee, take a look at my video above where I turn this mid-sized SUV into a small sedan. That sounds ridiculous but, trust me, watch it and be amazed.

How big is the Equinox? Just when you thought the design of the Equinox couldn’t get any more peculiar it does. The Equinox is longer than most of its rivals at 4652mm end-to-end but about the same width at 1843mm across (2105mm to the ends of the wing mirrors).

Telling the LTZ and the LTZ-V apart is tricky, but you can spot the top-grade Equinox by its sunroof and a metallic window garnish around the widows of the rear doors.

Inside is a premium and modern cabin. There’s a high quality feel here from the materials used on the dash, seats and doors, to the display screen which sits at an angle that’s perfect for my reach, although others in the CarsGuide office aren’t quite as enamored with it.

Many cars are dressed up at the front of the cabin, but lack the same treatment in the rear, and the Equinox is a case in point, with hard plastics used around the window sills and the back of the console.

The 2008 is a cracking looking machine, with  a lot of what looks like Audi Q2 in profile (and detailing). It fooled a few passers-by, including the regular, "What have you got this week?" crew of neighbours. It's a brilliant design, sporting the 508's big light-up fangs and the cat's claw segmented taillights. Chunky but not self-conscious, it's great to look at.

Peugeot cabins are brilliant these days, with clever, interesting designs that I think are really challenging the way other carmakers think about what to put in front of the people in the front seat. The i-Cockpit works well in the SUVs (m'colleague Richard Berry will likely disagree), but the excessively cool 3D dashboard - with a screen that looks like it's floating in front of you like a hologram - really helps push the idea that the price being asked is actually quite reasonable. Lovely materials throughout, cool detailing, lots of thought and even usable cupholders. It's mad in all the right ways.

The Equinox’s greatest strength is its spaciousness and much of that comes down to its wheelbase.

See, the longer a car’s wheelbase the more room there is for the passengers inside. The  Equinox’s wheelbase is longer than most of its rivals (25mm longer than a CX-5’s) and that goes some way to explaining how, at 191cm tall, I can sit behind my driving position with plenty of knee room.

The longer wheelbase also means the rear wheelarches don’t cut far into the back doors, which allows for a wider aperture and easier access.

So, if you have young kids like me, they’ll find it easy to climb in, but if they’re really little the large opening will make it easy for you to put them into their car seats.

Headroom, even with the LTZ-V’s sunroof, is good in the back seats, too.

Cabin storage is excellent: the centre console bin is enormous, the door pockets are large; there are four cupholders (two in the back and two up front),

Even with all this extra room, however, the Equinox is only a five-seater SUV. Still, that leaves you with a large boot with cargo capacity of 846L when the rear row is up and 1798L with the second-row seats folded.

The Equinox has power outlets galore: three 12-volt sockets, a 230-volt power point; five USB ports (including one type C); and a wireless charging bay. That’s more outlets than any mid-sized SUV I’ve tested.

A flat floor in the second row, large windows and comfortable seats complete a well-appointed and practical cabin.

Really, the only reasons the Equinox doesn't score 10-out-of-10 here is the lack of a third-row seat, and sunshades or privacy glass for the rear windows.

Starting with the bad stuff, what is it with carmakers - and fellow French carmaker Renault was front and centre in my head here - not putting a rear armrest and cupholders in SUVs? These are cars that can fit families, so neglecting the rear  passengers seems weird and sloppy. You can kind of forgive a $25,000 Kona Go (RIP), but not a $35,000 premium product. A small but irritating detail.

Up front, you do get useful cupholders, a small centre console bin and glove box and the doors will hold bottles. There's a dedicated spot for your phone, too, which is nice.

The boot is a gigantic 434 litres, beating pretty much every other car in the space that's not from France, and with the 60/40 split-fold out of the way, you have 1467 litres at your disposal. There's also a false floor on the boot that you can either remove or use to separate valuables or muddy/stinky/sandy outdoorsy stuff.

Peugeot is trying to mark itself out as a premium offering, with no bait-and-switch entry-level machines displaying startling prices. The 2008 Allure costs about the same as the top-spec Renault Captur, which is loaded up with gear. It's also gunning at mid-spec Korean, Japanese and German compact crossovers.

For $34,990, you get 17-inch alloys, a six-speaker stereo, climate control, reversing camera, keyless entry and start, cruise control, 3D digital dashboard, auto LED headlights, fake leather trim along with cloth (nothing wrong with that), power windows and mirrors, a lot of safety gear and a space-saver spare.

The media system is an updated version of Peugeot's familiar stack and it's quite good on the small 7.0-inch touchscreen (small, as in "other cars this size are getting bigger ones") and has Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and DAB. The screen is snappier than past offerings from Peugeot which is a good thing, because the old one in the 3008 was glacially slow.

The Equinox LTZ-V has the most powerful engine in the Equinox line-up – a 188kW/353Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine.

The only other grade in the line-up to have this engine is LTZ, although it doesn’t have the LTZ-V’s all-wheel drive system.

It’s a powerful engine, especially considering that it’s just a four cylinder. Only a bit more than a decade ago V8s were making less power.

The nine-speed automatic transmission shifts slowly, but I found it to be a smooth unit at all speeds.

The Puretech 1.2-litre three-cylinder is a cracker of an engine and I won't hear a bad word against it. Partly because nobody ever says bad things about it. In the Allure, it's in 130 specification, which means 96kW and 230Nm of torque. The power figure is in line with almost everything in the class and the torque figure is good for the segment, especially considering the 1267kg kerb weight.

Driving the front wheels via a six-speed Aisin-supplied automatic, the Allure will complete the sprint to 100km/h in under 10 seconds. It feels quick enough, but that might be the torque curve filling in after a tardy start. If you're willing to drop another nine grand, you can have 114kW, eight gears and a slightly quicker 0-100km/h time.

Holden says the Equinox LTZ-V all-wheel drive with the 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder and nine-speed auto transmission will use 8.4L/100km over a combination of open and urban roads.

My fuel test covered 131.6km, with 65km of that being city and suburban roads, while 66.6km were on the motorway almost entirely at 110km/h.

At the end of that I brimmed the tank with 19.13L of 95 RON premium unleaded which works out to be 14.5L/100km.

The trip computer disagreed and reported 13.3L/100km. Either way that’s a thirsty mid-sized SUV and it hadn’t even been carrying a full load of people or cargo.

Peugeot says the Allure completed its government-mandated testing with a 6.5L/100km combined cycle figure while huffing out 148g/km of carbon dioxide.

I managed 6.8L/100km driving as I normally would around the suburbs and with some fast roads in the mix. That's an impressively close number to the official figures and lines up well with the more accurate WLTP findings.

The Equinox’s handling isn’t superb and the ride could be more comfortable, but this is an SUV with far more good points than bad.

Such as impressive power from that four cylinder engine, and an all-wheel drive system which provides excellent traction, to the good visibility, and a stack of safety features.

But while I can excuse the average dynamics, the 12.7m turning circle proved annoying in car parks. Not knowing you can make U-turns in the space provided is an anxiety you should only experience when driving a bus.

Five-point turns aside, the LTZ-V is easy to drive, with accurate steering providing good road feel.

My first experience with the 2008 was in tipping rain on the same day I drove the 5008, so it was nice for the sun to shine during the time I had it. Dry roads and Peugeots are way more fun, although it was uncommonly wet on my first attempt.

What struck me about the 2008 is how sure-footed it is, even on the cheap-ish tyres fitted. It has that lovely, pointy Peugeot feel of the other cars in the range, which is partly to do with the hilariously small steering wheel but mostly because they're just so well set up.

The 2008 handles all the nastiness of suburban streets, even with torsion beams at the rear, something European cars somehow make work with almost magical effect. It's also very quiet inside, whether it's wind, tyre or engine noise, none of which make much impact on the occupants.

The transmission and engine work extremely well together, so well I don't think I resorted to the paddles even once to hurry things along. Quite a few cars in this class either have a whining continuously variable transmission or a sometimes-clunky twin-clutch auto. The smoothness of the Aisin six-speeder is excellent and it seems to know where the turbo lag is, and shifts accordingly. It also picks up when you want it to, wringing every last drop of torque out of the engine when you need it most. The car does slow noticeably when loaded up, but you'll get that in every other car in the class, too.

The Allure has six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward AEB, lane-departure warning and lane-keep assist.

The forward AEB works between 10km/h and 180km/h, with daytime pedestrian detection up to 60km/h and cyclist detection up to 80km/h.

It is missing reverse cross-traffic alert and if you want adaptive cruise, auto high beam, blind-spot monitoring or lane-keep assist, you have to step up to the GT Sport.

The Holden Equinox is covered by a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty. At the time this review was published Holden was offering seven years’ free scheduled servicing.

But normally, the Equinox is covered by a capped price servicing program which recommends servicing annually or every 12,000km and costs $259 for the first visit, $339 for the second, $259 for the third, $339 for the fourth and $349 for the fifth.

So, how will servicing work after Holden closes down? In Holden’s February 17, 2020, announcement that the company will cease trading by 2021 it said that it would support Australian and New Zealand customers in honouring all existing warranties and guarantees, while providing servicing and spare parts for at least 10 years. The current seven-year free servicing offer will also be honoured.

Peugeot's five-year warranty, five-year capped-price servicing and five years of roadside assist is a solid, if unspectacular offering. Which is a bit rude, because three years ago we'd have been bowing at Peugeot's feet for such generosity. It's a thankless business.

Servicing comes around every 12 months/15,000km, which is pretty good going for a turbo engine in this class (except, of course, Renaults, which go for 30,000km) and you'll pay, on average, $447 per service, which isn't awful, but is not cheap either.