2018 Chevrolet Equinox Diesel AWD

2018 Chevrolet Equinox Diesel AWD. GM’s turbo-diesel 1.6-liter inline-four engine is now available in the dramatically improved, new-for-2018 Equinox compact crossover, too, so we snagged one to see if it’s a genuine fuel sipper with usable bottom-end grunt or just a clattery addition to the 1.5- and 2.0-liter four-cylinder gasoline engines already in the lineup. Let’s get this out of the way up front: If you are standing next to the diesel Equinox when it fires up from a cold slumber, there’s no mistaking that a compression-ignition engine is under the hood. The cabin is substantially louder at idle—we measured 43 decibels in the diesel versus 39 in an Equinox 1.5T—but that additional hum isn’t obnoxious or off-putting. And as the engine warms to operating temperature, even its outside bark grows subdued, and the masses will be none the wiser to the absence of spark plugs under the hood.