2024 Chevrolet Traverse; Are Flooded EVs a Fire Hazard _ Talking Cars with Consumer Reports #456

**Hybrid Car Break-In Procedure: What You Need to Know**

When it comes to breaking in a new hybrid car, many owners are left wondering what steps they need to take to ensure their vehicle runs smoothly and efficiently. According to experts, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, but fortunately, the recommended procedure is relatively simple.

**Check Your Owner's Manual**

The first step in breaking in a new hybrid car is to check your owner's manual. While some manufacturers no longer provide detailed break-in procedures for their vehicles, many still recommend certain guidelines to follow during the initial phase of ownership. For example, Honda's owner's manual recommends avoiding sudden stops and hard acceleration for the first 500 miles, while Toyota suggests not pushing the engine too hard and allowing it to run at a moderate pace.

**Understanding Hybrid Engines**

Hybrid engines are designed to be more robust than traditional internal combustion engines, which means they don't require as much break-in time. However, this doesn't mean that owners can disregard the recommended break-in procedure entirely. In fact, many experts recommend treating hybrid cars with similar care and attention during the initial phase of ownership.

**Tips for Breaking in a Hybrid Car**

While there is no one "right" way to break in a hybrid car, there are certain guidelines that owners should follow to ensure their vehicle runs smoothly and efficiently. Here are a few tips from experts:

* Avoid pushing the engine too hard for the first 500-1000 miles.

* Don't maintain a constant speed or engine speed for extended periods.

* Try to vary your driving by accelerating, braking, and shifting gears regularly.

* Don't tow a trailer for at least 500 miles after purchase.

* Check the owner's manual for specific guidelines from the manufacturer.

**The Impact of Flood-Damaged Cars**

Unfortunately, some hybrid cars have been affected by flooding damage, which can pose significant risks to their electrical systems. According to Consumer Reports, flood-damaged cars can be more prone to electrical failures and even fires. This highlights the importance of checking a car's history before purchasing it.

**Additional Resources**

For owners who want to learn more about hybrid cars and how to care for them, there are many additional resources available online. Consumer Reports offers a wealth of information on new and used hybrid vehicles, as well as tips for maintaining their performance and efficiency. In addition, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides guidance on buying and owning a flood-damaged car.

**Conclusion**

Breaking in a new hybrid car requires some basic knowledge and attention to detail. By following the recommended break-in procedure and taking care to avoid pushing the engine too hard or neglecting regular maintenance, owners can help ensure their vehicle runs smoothly and efficiently for years to come. Remember to always check your owner's manual and follow local guidelines when purchasing a new vehicle.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everybody welcome to another episode I'm Mike Mello I'm Emily Thomas and I'm Steve ellic So today we're going to be focused on the redesigned 2024 Chevrolet Traverse uh these are going to be our first impressions and these impressions are based on a Model that we bought anonymously from a local dealer uh as we with every vehicle that goes through our test program so this one will be going through our test program for those that don't know what the Traverse is it's a three row midsize SUV slots between the equinox and the larger Tahoe and Chevy's SUV lineup and just for background on the Traverse it was a solid competitor you know one of those SUVs that's great at doing really good things but you know it's not it's not like a wonderful vehicle to drive but it's just a really good all-around family SUV um nothing stood out about it being bad nothing stood out about it like it wasn't like an amazing Handler or anything like that but just a really good SUV and as such it ranked typically uh you know toward the upper reaches of the of the category and our ratings for 2024 it gets new exterior styling a new infotainment screen but the biggest change is under the hood so the V6 is gone you can't get that anymore the only engine is a turbocharged 4cylinder um and we're going to have a lot to say about that through our discussion so we bought a 2024 Chevrolet Traverse LT all-wheel drive the LT is the second second tier trim uh so it has a 328 horsepower 2.5 L turbocharged 4- cylinder 8-speed automatic transmission we got the optional all-wheel drive it comes standard with front-wheel drive and along with a few options including the enhanced driving package which brings GM super Cruise uhh free active driving assistance system plus the $1,395 destination fee that uh Chevy charges on Ultra veres total cost of a test vehicle is $49 $1,460 um so three-year-old midsize SUV family vehicle I can't think of two people more qualified to talk about a vehicle like this uh that are here at ATC at the auto test center because you both have uh young families and I would think this would be a vehicle that would be certainly your T this you're you're the target audience I think you know what I mean yeah but even though it would make sense to talk about second and third row room maybe cargo space maybe how the child seats fit we're going to start with the engine because I think it could be a deal breaker for some people and I'm going to start with a quote from Alex nzac who is one of our uh Engineers here at uh the auto test center and this is what he had to say about the new turbocharged 4cylinder he said the engine is so loud especially anything above 2500 to 3,000 RPM it presents as a tiny engine screaming and reverberating inside of a giant Echo chamber the vehicle is generally quiet otherwise and thankfully the engine settles into the background when cruising so that's not exactly High Praise I would say um maybe he missed his calling as a wrer if you look at the log book comments uh we keep log you know digital log book on all of our test Vehicles there's a lot of people kind of in a sense Echo not to use a pun but uh what Alex said but not everyone and I want to start with you Steve uh what did you think about this new engine and yeah I just like kind of especially thinking about how good the previous V6 was yeah I um I think it replaces the V6 quite well actually it has pretty good power it has no turbo lag which you may expect from having a four-cylinder turbo the transmission shifts nice and smoothly and I mean it has this linear power delivery I think the engine itself and the transmission it's made it to is is pretty good it's executed pretty well other than you know the sound that a lot of people mentioned I also took something out of the digital log book Mike Quincy said it sounds like a metal box filled with rocks so and that's not good right it's not great but I didn't think it was as bad as some other 4-cylinder turbo larger SUVs out there um yeah this is kind of common that they're they're this loud when they have such a small engine and such a large vehicle yeah for me it really didn't bother me as much I was kind of surprised when I went into the log book and I saw just how passionately people felt about the noise yeah we're a passionate group here you are a passionate group um I guess we are a passionate group but I like hearing that feedback I went and drove it again and realize that okay yes like when it's accelerating it's a little noisy I'll give it that but once you kind of get into your trip it dies down and it's fairly comfortable like it it didn't stand out to me throughout like the course of my drive and I had taken it home so I'm driving on the highway right like um Joe and I did little field trip together so we were doing like all the back roads you know down to the Shoreline and stuff and it was fairly comfortable it was it was easy enough to um handle it it drove smoothly the noise wasn't a huge factor for me so I I was kind of surprised when I finally went to go put my notes in and I was like oh people have a lot to say about the noise yeah I mean they really have and I think one of the things because it is kind of noisy it's kind of gravel it's just not a pleasant sound like you can make a turbo 4 that sounds pleasant right this one is not one of those and I think that actually LED some people to think man this thing's really underpowered but it actually has more power than than you know the V6 did before just sounds like it's working really hard exactly it sounds like it's working really hard it's not I you know uh I think Steve's right I think it actually works well it operates well in terms of you know the reasonably smooth shifts and that it does have the power there when you need it it's there but it's just going to make a fair amount of Racket to get get it um so it wants you to know that it's present yeah I mean I I I found it kind of graveling kind of obnoxious I I don't like it I don't like this engine but uh that's just me but how often are you also like in a given trip how often are you having to really like push the so once you the engine like that I mean you don't have to flirt though because so it doesn't have uh I mean basic Bally any time during normal acceleration you're probably going to get over 3,000 RPM and and once you get reached 3,000 RPM that's around the time that it starts to get really noisy and noticeable so around town if you're you know half throttle or more you're definitely going to notice it all those situations once you're on the highway yeah or you're cruising on a regular two-lane road and like you said you're up to speed I think it's fine it's not like it's not like it's a it's a terrible engine it's just not a good sounding engine do you know what I mean so so that's but you know Atlas was louder and had a worse sound personally but you know yeah this is the new trend to of the new trend and it's and and some people do them better than others it's it's a little bit of a bummer in some ways but you know you can understand why they would want to do it typically it's for fuel economy but uh although that we have seen that that doesn't always work out either you well I think this is another case of um we see this in the car seat world right which is a good chunk of my world where just because you have a feature right just because you have this turbo 4 cylinder right doesn't necessarily make it automatically good right how it's implemented how it's tuned really matters it can vary greatly right between manufacturers and sometimes even within a manufacturer so it is important to really like when you if you're considering the new Traverse take it for a solid test drive like really try it out in the different scenarios that are most common to your typical like driving and see how that feels for you and take into account these different things right like for me personally like I do a ton of highway driving so this might not bother me as much right but if that's not your norm and you are as you're saying having to like accelerate frequently it would probably get obnoxious or it's really going to bother you during your day-to-day driving and and I think the maybe you know obviously it's a really good idea to take a test drive this is a vehicle you really need to take a test drive you you need to make sure you're okay with that engine sound if you're okay with it it operates fine it operates really well but you got to make sure you're okay with that note just as an example my girlfriend was like you know why is this thing so loud you know and she was talking about the engine you know so um anyway but enough about the engine let's talk about how did it you were you were starting to talk about do you liked the way it drove in terms of the ride and the handling do you think it has a pretty nice mix something that you'd be comfortable able with yeah so you know when we first started talking about the car I didn't have a lot to say cuz I felt like it was just kind of middle of the road you know there was nothing terribly exciting about it but there was nothing that stood out to me as like oh my gosh this is God awful and I never want to be in this vehicle again right which just happened right for sure so um I think it was a nice mix for me to be able to kind of take it on the highway for my usual commute and then also do a lot more of like our windy roads back here um and in that like I thought it handled fine and you know I wasn't like feeling a ton of body roll where I felt like um I didn't have control of the vehicle which is good because it's a large vehicle right it is like the Traverse is it's big and so um with those bigger vehicles sometimes I can feel like okay this is a little unwieldy and I don't feel like I'm always in control of what the car is doing um so I appreciate that it it handled well I appreciate that like all those bends and turns Country Roads you have a decent amount of potholes and various ruts and bumps and you know for the most part they didn't come through super strong um there was a few that were a little bit more like pronounced I was like wo I really felt that one but for the most part like it was just averagely enjoyable like no nothing was making me be like I need to get out of this right now I agree the suspension is tuned pretty well I mean it's on the fir side I think you you could feel some bumps come through it absorbs some bumps well others you can feel but like it's definitely tuned for that um more toward the handling side which is a I find to be a pretty good thing for such a large vehicle as you were saying a lot of the time you feel body roll and and this in it's more confidence inspiring than some of its peers of this size um and like to your point it's it's really like the car as a whole is like a jack of all trade but a master of none like that's what I wrote in the log book because it really does a lot of things very well but not like amazingly well not exceptional but it's not a deal breaker in any any way either well one kind of deal breaker I'll get to that later I think you both did capture it really well though in terms of the ride and handling first of all it's a nice balance between the two right like it actually does pretty well for as you said how big of a vehicle it is and yet most of the hits are controlled pretty well like you said some come through but it's you know overall it's it's pretty darn good in terms of that that balance between the two I'm going to be curious to see when it goes through our full program how it does in like our handling course the emergency handling especially right because when you have a vehicle that size from like the safety perspective the concern would be that like sure you're in this big tank kind of vehicle right it'll protect you in a crash um because you just have physics in your favor you're larger you're right you're bigger than everybody else but if you need to avoid a crash a vehicle that size might be difficult right that's where that's where it might not shine and so in our braking testing in our emergency handling testing like how is this vehicle going to perform and is it going to be able to do justice so that like you do feel like you can safely avoid a crash in those emergency kind of situations without losing control of the vehicle so I'm curious how that's going to play out um but in the day-to-day I think it was he was fine yeah and uh so uh and we're going to find all that out let's move into the interior and let's start talking about the things that you know people are you know families are going to care about second and third seat room Steve let's start with you uh what did you think about the second row in terms of comfort space those kinds of things now so I have a forward facing seat and a rear facing seat um and they fit in the captain's chairs perfectly you can slide the captain's chairs forward or back to make any combination of room if you have someone in the third row then you can make more leg room for them um the coolest feature in this car is having that forward facing child seat installed in the second row captain's chair and then being able to pull that entire captain's chair with the seat installed forward so that you could access the third row I love that feature the atlas also has it and um it's if you're using that third row often it's kind of hard to live without that yeah yeah yeah so I saw that note and it's not a new feature a lot of vehicles in this class um and larger and like minivans right have that kind of you know um tilt and and fold sort of feature and the claim always is like oh you can do this with a child seat installed and that is true in a very specific circumstance that circumstance is what you have in your car cuz I know how you have your child seats installed and that's if you have a forward- facing child seat that's installed with the lower anchors so when it's installed with the lower anchors right you don't have that seat belt interference especially in the Traverse in our Traverse um the seat belts for the second row Captain's chairs are U mounted on the seat pillar and so if you had a seat belt installation for your for your child seat especially if if you're doing your child seat install correctly that seat belt is locked so now you are not able to do that tilt and fold with the car seat still there so you really kind of have to have it in this sweet spot of having your lower anchors uh installation and a forward- facing seat in order to really make use of that feature or have like a booster seat in that position um but to that point though when you have that sweet spot it is a great way to get in there well that's where Steve lives he lives in The Sweet Spot I do but also another good thing about this is being able to slide that captain's chair back so I can I can go in front of the car seat too and and go in between the two Captain shares to access the third row as well it's not as roomy as sliding it forward but like it it has a good many combinations that now I love your kids I really do but what about adults did you guys sit in the second row uh without the car seats and what did you think of the second row honestly I thought the second row Captain chairs were pretty comfortable um you know they have just enough contouring for me that like I didn't feel like I was sliding around on the seat um it provided me some some support laterally and I found that the um like the cushion length was good for for my size right I obviously I am not the tallest of our bunch and so others might feel differently than me but for me it was pretty good um I did pop into the third row to see how that is and there is where it gets like a little bit more uncomfortable right you have your your hips and your knees kind of at a an otter angle that you know might not be so comfortable for long durations and the the seat cushion is shorter so it kind of hit me in the back of my thighs where I was like okay you know I would have to like really kind of flex my legs or stretch out more often just to kind of alleviate that pressure point Y um but as with many three row vehicles that third row is not really Geared for fullsize adults it's not and it's it's one of the better ones actually though in terms of um that the cushion is a little bit higher off the ground so you don't have as uncomfortable of that you know with your your knees way up in the air they still are bent in a slightly uncomfortable way but it's not as bad and the space isn't too bad so I mean I think it's it's decent like a lot of SUVs in this category has a you know hard plastic outer armrest which is kind of a a bummer uh but it's it's it's far as these size Vehicles it's actually one of the better ones like you said though still most adults aren't going to want to be back there for very long you know comfor Wise if you're going to be transporting adults get the Tahoe I I think it's it's fine for kids in this third row but yeah not there are bigger options if you're going to be or put your forward facing kids in that third row and let your adults sit in the in the captain's chairs that have a little bit more Comfort to them it is easy enough to access that third row to strap them in so that's a good point now which way are you talking about access in the third row because you can do it one of two ways when you have Captain's chairs you can just go in between you know there's enough space to go in between which is what I actually prefer to do you have to duck a fair amount to get back in there but at least you don't have to move the seat and the seat isn't quite as easy as some I mean it's reasonably easy but you're using a lever on top of the seat back it's not like some of the competitors you can just press a button it just automatically slides and tilts forward on its own here you have to do the you have to do the you have to do the work force it a little bit not a big deal still works fine yep but it's just not quite as easy so I think I think I might just jump back through between the two seats which obviously wouldn't be able to do if you had a bench but our version has the C the captain's chair so so not terrible the other thing that I like about third row here which this past summer my father-in-law stayed with us um he was visiting from India and so I got relegated to the third row a lot um whenever we were in groups traveling and so I've come to notice a lot where the vents are in the third row and um part of what makes sitting in the third row so hard can be just like how stuffy it gets which is like sort of I'm not a person who usually gets car sick but when I'm in the third row and there's like zero ventilation or the vents are kind of like right where you sit so your own body is covering them y it makes it awful and I really appreciated that the vents were on the ceiling and so I was like okay you could turn them still like they also just weren't like fixed right you would be able to turn them towards you and and adjust the air flow and basically just have better air flow back there so that would also contribute to me that's a big part of third row convert is whether or not I will feel like I'm going to pass out right now um let's talk about the driver seat I didn't find it that great um curious what you guys thought um I find that there's like too much built-in lumbar support which I'm not a person is that sounds like we're agreeing here I don't usually use much lumbar sport anyway but every time I got in I'm trying to turn I'm like why who turned it up and I'm like well I was the last one in it why did I why would I turned it up on myself so I'm always trying to do that and you know uh lot of reports it's okay it's not great but it's just it's not like a really comfortable seat and the front passenger seat is all manual controls and this is you know a $50,000 vehicle and it seems like you should have some power controls there but Steve you're kind of on board with me on the driver seat it's just not that 100% agree with you um we mentioned deal breakers earlier and also you should test drive every car um this is the reason why you should test drive this but not only this one because I don't want to say you know the Traverse has a a bad front seat this version's this trim this trim was was not great I found the same thing you did I don't use lumbar support I don't like it I find it to be intrusive me too um so I turn it off I want to turn off Lumber support at all costs in every car that I get into and this one you can't it's just there pushing you like and so that was this is why you know I couldn't sit in that seat and drive this car every day for that reason but it's possible that another trim may have a better seat and what about you Emily because we're all different body types yeah I was going to say I'm like your body your spine has natural curvatures so sometimes being able to adjust that Lumber support to the right portion of the curvature is helpful oh for sure um I actually didn't mind the seat I found it pretty comfortable for me I you know I can get into a good driving position I was able to adjust it enough as I needed to and again we did our little field trip so we were in it for several hours and I had no issues okay so again to your point though that's why you really should be test driving the seat I feel like when we do test drives you know it can be tempt to just be like oh okay just a quick little thing like if they give you 20 minutes take the full 20 minutes right like you need to make sure that you're really settling into the seat and you know doing the different adjustments and stuff that you need to do so that you can see if it's sustainable for you exactly cuz it was this was something I noticed when I got in the car I said okay I'll give it a chance I'll see what happens you know 20 minutes down the road well 20 minutes down the road for me it still wasn't working but in other for other people maybe it you know you get used to it and it's okay right and what and it's kind of a bummer in a sense just because like the driving position which is a big thing for me I thought worked pretty well you know like when you look at um there's there's lots of Headroom I don't have there's no no center console intrusion with your right knee which is always a big thing for arm well wide left foot rest uh no problem seeing the gauges through the steering wheel which we're seeing with and more of these rectangular you know wide instrument screens trying to see through a round wheel and I'm not saying let's have rectangular steering wheels please but we're we're having you know um information cut out at the top that's not happening here and I thought the armrest were well positioned but I thought the the one on the door is super thin and it got uncomfortable for me quickly uh so so I didn't like that but um I did like that the thing that I've been noticing lately for me is because I'm a short driver and I I have to move my seat so far forward um the padding on the center console tends to be behind me yes so by the time I'm able to try to rest my I've gotten myself positioned and then I go to rest my elbow and I'm barely catching the padded portion that's annoying and it's super annoying but I did find that in the Traverse that there was still like a decent chunk of padding that came forward and so it was it was more comfortable I could actually rest my arms on something okay so we can't do uh you know first impressions on a vehicle here Consumer Reports without talking about controls so let's talk about controls some highs and lows Emily what do you what did you think what did you like and what didn't you like about the traverses controls for the most part I was okay with it I'm okay with where like the screen is it didn't feel too far away for me um but I think I also kind of just naturally lean forward a little bit as I drive so like maybe that just kind of helped make up the difference the the thing that annoyed me the most about the controls was that I didn't know where to find the volume buttons on the steering wheel yeah um there's three buttons for cruise control but the the volume buttons are behind the steering wheel and I didn't know that until I almost went into the log book to write where in the world are the volume buttons and why do they not exist and then Joe showed me where they were and I was like I would never find this unless somebody showed it to to me because I don't I don't naturally grip the the steering wheel in that way or feel for them behind um and it's been a while you just have to get used to it yeah since I've got into I know you loved it I read your know and I was like what do you mean you love it why should they be back there clearly very different apparent it's really hard to label those I think that's the problem do you know what I mean it's really hard to label something that's on you know what I mean like it's on the back of the well you can't label it so exactly maybe that's my issue there's nothing that tells me look back you know what they need they need arrows so you're holding the steering wheel and the buttons are like here so you need an arrow here that's saying like like uh track skip here and it's saying it's like starting to wrap around I don't know I'm just help I'm trying to help Chevy out here or maybe they just move it to the front yeah but it frees up room for other controls that's why I think that's why they three cruise control ones yeah I don't know I can't explain everything um I appr you tried my biggest annoyance was the uh the uh uh emergency flashes button on the overhead console I think that is that's actually not annoying it's dangerous right because you should be able to access that quickly yeah you know see it easily should be a big button should be a big red button like like right here that you can just press for Anytime someone's slowing down ahead you know traffic's may be coming to a stop on the highway and you need to warn people behind you quickly you should be able to find it shouldn't be up here on the overhead console yeah um people don't look there I mean even when we see it for other safety system if they put it on the overhead console like that's like the last place I'm looking to find where where something is especially something that you are going to be using frequently right luckily most Americans don't use their emergency flashers for emergency situations and I'm saying that you know factiously they should be but they don't so maybe Chevy feels like ah just put it up there it's out of the way no one's going to use them anyway but they should be using them if you go to Europe that's how they drive as soon as someone starts slowing down you know as soon as traffic if it starts getting jammed up ahead they're all throwing on their emergency flashers cuz that's the way they were taught how to drive because you're trying it's it's you're trying to help the people behind you you're also trying to help yourself to not get you know rear ended but you're really trying to just it's for the good of everyone else exactly so it should be in an easy location I feel like Steve you have something you want to say well it's not related I mean I agree with pretty much everything um you both have said about the controls uh one thing that I like about it and it's almost as if like we've been saying this at CR for a while that like climate controls shouldn't be in the screen well they are and that's but there's redundant knob below buttons climate control so I that and it's almost like like instead of having just one it is kind of nice having an option to have these um features within the screen and also the knobs below so um I like the knob it's a different knob than the volume knob which is a little bit higher up so it's I agreed um I didn't like the driving mode button now I know you know maybe a lot of people the reality is probably a lot lot of people don't use them okay let's be honest okay but if you're going to put it in there you should still make it logical so it's over here on the driver's left Dash right so and it's kind of out of the way you have to kind of look around to find so you're pressing this button that's you're pressing this button that's way over here and it doesn't the modes don't show up in the instrument screen it shows over here so you now you're the proximity between the two is so you're trying to like press this press this button and also it's just it's silly and there's that that L button ah let's talk about the L but the steering wheel so in my grand search for the volume right I basically pushed everything on this steering wheel because I guess the volume knob was a little far for me cuz I was like okay this cannot be the only place that they've put it for me to adjust the volume here by the center screen right and an angle away from the driver um so in my search I did push the L cuz I was like who knows right like maybe this is what it's for and then it popped up with low gear and I was like nope not what I wanted I was like not sure what that's for either but not volume so I'm not going to lie to you I uh you know it has it has no well it has paddle shifters and I couldn't figure out I'm like why are these why won't these work you know I'm trying to downshift I like to you know use engine braking to help slow the vehicle on on downhills and stuff and I'm like they won't engage and it took me a little while before I finally saw that button on the stero wheel which says L and if you hit that that's how you can start using but that means if you want to grab a quick downshift to help slow down you have to first press this silly button it's a twep and it's I mean it's just it's silly it's annoying right you shouldn't have to do that if you want to grab a quick downshift or enough shift you should be able to do that and uh you shouldn't have to press this tiny little button so I think that's silly um I think we all agree with that so um let's talk about standard active safety and Driver assistance features uh it comes Ed with automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection blind spot warning rear cross traffic warning reverse automatic emergency breaking Lane departure warning lanee keeping assistance adaptive cruise control and automatic high beams uh so that's great but let's talk about some things that you deal with uh rear occupant alert and rear belt minder standard not standard and quick take on I guess on what they both are in case people don't know what a rear occupant alert is or rear belt minder and why you feel they're so important yeah um so I oversee our rear seat safety evaluation here at the track and essentially what we're looking for is um well two of the things we're looking for are rear belt minders so typically most Vehicles will have a seat belt reminder for your driver and front passenger and we really want to see manufacturers Implement that for the rear seating positions as well the stats show that belt usage in the back seat is like 10 percentage points at least lower than front seat usage um but we also know that like seat belts are really important right they help protect you in a crash and so we really want to encourage belt usage so we've been advocating for manufacturers to implement rear belt minders and we've been scoring them on it since 2021 as part of our reared safety evaluation so I am pleased that the Traverse does have a rear belt minder yes standard on all trims um and so what we really want to see is a buckle up reminder which is going to be something that you know shows up add ignition on in the dash um to help remind passengers to buckle up I prefer the systems to be annoying so I do want a visual and audible system that escalates I'm the one that escalates as rear passengers don't buckle up right and then we want a secondary system that's an unbuckled alert and so if a passenger unbuckles during a trip right it will ding at you and escalate until they buckle up again most vehicles on the market have a true unbuckle alert but that not a good buckle up reminder and um it tends to just be a visual only which doesn't really incentivize anybody to put their seat belt on unless you have a driver who's like we're not moving until everyone's buckled up right having an unbuckled alert is great and all but if the person never buckles up it's of no use and so that's why we are really pushing manufacturers to make a more rigorous buckle up reminder so that's one system the other which often gets confused uh between the two is rear occupant alerts and these are systems that are vehicle integrated to help prevent children being left behind in vehicles unintentionally and essentially the systems are two types and end of trip reminder which will give you it uses door logic so it just detects whether or not you've opened a rear door prior to or after turning on the car and it makes the assumption that you probably put something or someone back there that you might want to remember at the end of your trip and it'll give you an audio visual alert at the end of the trip the second type of system goes beyond that and incorporates occupant sensing and it will actually detect rear occupants in the vehicle the Traverse has the standard end of trip reminder across all of its trims rear door logic rear door logic exactly GM was actually the first ones to implement this type of system in the US market um back on their 2017 GMC Acadia Y and that was awesome and my pain point is that we're now at the 2024 model year and they've made no enhancements to their system right so I'm really hoping to see GM step up and continue to be an industry leader in this area to enhance the system and include occupant sensing because that's going to account for a lot more situations yeah um that's great thank you for that and I hope people uh enjoyed that kind of little tutorial on what those two systems are because I think a lot of people don't know what they are especially because there's uh automakers use different um terminology for some right so you might think you might think the rear they might almost call the rear occupant alert like a like a almost like a rear um rear seat reminder or something yeah so it's confusing and then you conf confuse rear seat reminder with rear belt minder right so that's easy to do so thank you clear that up on our vehicle model pages so if you go into our ratings and specs you can see under the rear seat safety section it'll tell you exactly whether or not your car has an end of trip reminder if has rear occupant sensing and a rear belt minder okay for free uh great fantastic um Steve I want to talk real quick about we we mentioned early on about uh GM's super Cruise which is was optional on this vehicle and we got it on ours it has been a very high-scoring uh active driving assistance system which if people don't know that's basically it's a system that gives the driver the ability to simultaneously use adaptive cruise control Lane centering assistance and uh super Cruise has done very well in our in our uh testing now we haven't tested this one yet in this vehicle but what are your early Impressions yeah my um I loved it I think I you know I've driven super cruise before and and other cars that we've had but this iteration of it is phenomenal like I am not even one that usually uses these active driving assists um you know but I thought this was so good I'm on the highway and it is absolutely smooth there's no ping ponging whatsoever and the coolest feature I found is you know I'm cruising in the right lane at a speed and I'm coming up on a on a car in front of me it automatically goes around them passes them so it goes into the left lane passes them and then that's not even my favorite part my favorite part is then it goes back into the right lane like and I I only say that because I feel like you know there's a huge issue of like you know people just hogging up the left lane and and and slowing down traffic where I feel like every single car should have this to bring people back into the right lane after they make make a pass more Lane oh it's amazing and I I liked it from myself and I think every car should have this I think it's really refined this is it's it's it's great now but I'm curious to see what the experts will have to say about it you know that's just my opinion yep I have a Counterpoint uh oh oh sorry so let's keep it friendly yeah it is friendly um I think the super Cruise in the Traverse did a great job like when you're you know in that one lane it handles so nicely to your point there's no none of that ping ponging it's easy to activate all of that was great the part I didn't like about the auto lane change was that sometimes I felt like I could see in the lane adjacent to me the vehicle that's coming up behind the car has started to signal that it's going to move over that car is not slowing down and the super cruise is very confident in its abilities and it starts to it wants to continue this Lane change and I'm like I don't think so because I'm not confident that the driver behind me is going to allow for that without it being really close so I actually over wrode it several times to be like no no car we're just going to stay where we are right now because I don't I don't know that it was always doing a good job gauging the oncoming traffic in the adjacent Lane um and like adjusting for maybe how fast they were coming on right so it was it didn't always make me super confident but again to your point we're going to have the team that goes and tests it out here on our ads Loop and so we'll have a better more formal sense of how it's doing but that was my one caveat I was like I felt like I had to override it a lot cuz I'm like I don't know if you see the car that's coming up I could totally see that I didn't get into a situation like that there wasn't a lot of traffic when I used it um but yeah I mean to your try it more it's a neat feature but to your point uh they don't always work perfectly yet you know U maybe they will someday maybe they won't but uh um it really drives home the point though that even if you are using these types of systems you still need to pay attention absolutely and this Super Crew system does make you do that that's one of the great things about it is is that you have to be your eyes have to be looking down the road or the system will stop you know providing uh its assist so that's that's a great thing um okay before we kind of wrap things up on the Traverse let's talk cargo because uh look families usually kids seems like they have a lot of stuff they do you me I just have like one backpack and I'm good I'm serious and your collection of bikes now they don't always come with me anyway so how how's the Traverse do in terms of cargo cargowise I thought it had pretty decent space um even if you have that third row up right throughout the cabin there's nice like in Cabin storage also um I like the extra cubby underneath the center console up front I can keep my handbag there I can keep take out things I want to hide from my children I keep it under there y um cuz they get into the center console so I can hide it underneath um I also really like there's like this secret like under floor compartment in the cargo area and so when you're doing child seat installs and you have to if you have to remove the head restraint I find it's a great place to like Stow that head restraint so that one it stays with your car when you actually do need it and two it's not just like flying around as a projectile so I was pretty pleased with the amount of cargo room and then obviously if you fold down that third row right you've got like tons of great flat storage which is awesome yeah huge car yeah yeah okay couldn't have said it better than myself I like how much cargo space is in the center console too yeah um there's like a nice little cubby where I could put the keys the phone everything else that so it doesn't occupy my cup holder yep that small item storage is very important yes we have lots of we're carrying lots of little things these days from our phones wallets Keys everything key fob you know cuz there's no more uh key holder anymore in the in the steering it's called a key holder key holder I mean it's an ignition switch but you know they're gone cuz yeah it's all push maybe we'll go full circle and have like a cubby there to put your key yeah anyway um so let's say uh you were in in the market for a three row midsize SUV uh would the Traverse be on your shopping list and if it wasn't maybe you're the one you would go with what would you go with instead I'm Stephen I'm going start with you uh okay I so this isn't even hypothetical because uh my yeah my wife did get a midsize SUV and uh it is what we would buy I would probably get a Volvo XC90 instead of this and I know you're going to say there's a difference in price yeah it's a luxury SUV it's a luxury SUV but the price is only a couple thousand different not to mention if uh you lease it Volvo has really good lease rates which actually make the lease rates are lower than for this Traverse so and the but the reason I would go with it is because there's just nicer fit and finish it has a a nicer more luxurious feel to it and it has all these great features um that the Traverse also does the third row is about is a little bit smaller maybe we don't really use the Third bro that much um just in a pinch so that for that reason I would choose that I probably as I mentioned I don't like the seat in the Traverse so I wouldn't buy it for that reason anyway but yeah um that's me okay Emily what about you yeah um I would get the Palisade if we were buying Hyundai Palisade the Hyundai Palisade um which my son affectionately called the palace for many years okay um but I I like the styling of it better I like how it handles better um and I don't know I just feel like with the Palisade Hyundai just did such a good job of making it so handy like as a mom and H like you're saying having lots of little things like there was just tons of places for me to like keep things stowed and just it was just so useful the way like I felt like their interior design was just so thoughtful to the fact that like this is likely a segment that has like little people and lots of stuff for those people and I just really appreciated that also I always loved like the safety equipment that comes with that Palisade um all the different standard Safety Systems it has um occupant sensing as well available for that rear occupant alert so to me that was just a better fit for us I think the interior quality comes across a little stronger in in the Palisade as well than the Traverse yeah and I I like that it's not as I don't feel like I'm driving as large of a vehicle yeah in the Traverse I feel like I'm in a big big right and even though they're the same class the palite doesn't give that feel yeah yeah uh for me it would be the Mazda cx90 so unlike uh I I just think first of all I think it's a lot more vehicle for for about the same money uh unlike the Traverse where I really don't like its turbo 4-cylinder I love the cx90 uh turbo inline six I mean you you pretty much I mean it's just a great motor It's a Wonderful motor it loves to rev it's it's polished there are a few you know low speed hiccups in terms of just little bit turbo lag leaving the line and then the first uh like one two two three shifts are a little bit bumpy but after that it's just a wonderful driving uh machine really smooth shifts uh the majority of the time um I think it's it's got sharp steering sharp handling you know definitely far better okay definitely I won't say far better a fair amount better than the Traverse you know you're going to enjoy taking this thing through corners uh and also kind of you were talking about styling I think it looks fantastic it's got this like kind of hunkered down like stance to it that g gives it a sporty feel and I really I really like that um this is like a little mini love letter about the yeah but not that everything's perfect it's got that goofy the some of the controls are odd it's got that goofy upside down L-shaped gear selector which we all hate so I mean it's not it's not no vehicle's perfect and it's not but anyway um yeah so we have a first drive on this 2024 uh Chevrolet Traverse we uh so check that out consumerreports.org we will be sending it through our full road test program so uh stay tuned for uh our results on that as soon as we we get it through everything and and that's written up um and with that let's move on to audience questions and the best way to reach us to send us those questions is cr.org salkars and we started a new thing where if we choose your your question uh we will send you out some CR swag so you know maybe a t-shirt hat I don't know whatever they have lying around but I bet it's pretty nice it is pretty nice yeah maybe I'll send in a question uh okay uh so do we still do video questions Dave we can send those in too so so the our producer says we can still do video questions as well so we really like those 30 second Clips when you do like put a little effort into it like a nice background you know maybe your car well I'm serious we've gotten some really nice videos where people are really trying hard and that's going to get you the swag exactly that Monty wants also yeah yeah that I'm gonna I'm going to make one of these videos all right trust me all right so our first question comes from James from Tampa Florida James says during Hurricane Helen there were reports of Tesla's Catching Fire due to flooding in the Tampa area the local fire chief warned people not to drive any electric vehicle uh that had been flooded until you can get it inspected is this a Tesla only problem are all EVS susceptible to this are hybrid cars with lithium ion batteries subject to this problem uh so Steve I'm going to throw this to you uh what did you find out about this yeah I talked to um Big John and our amazing Autotech team about this and and I asked what do they think about flooded cars like this well I found out it's not a Tesla only problem it's actually the potential for flooding the battery packs is there for all high voltage batteries that includes hybrids plugin hybrids and EVs and really the issue is when there's water intrusion into the battery case and the the biggest issue about this is when there's salt water salt is like corrosive corrosive and it really conducts electricity and and that's when it starts to cause problems and um light things on fire uh so to answer um the question here is yes you should always get it checked by a mechanic um in and that's in general that's for all cars I mean cars don't like water so even if you have a internal combustion engine there could be a lot of other issues with wiring harnesses and uh electronics in the car that are no good you really want someone professional to to take the car apart and see that that everything is dry or be able to dry everything out and even then they're telling me uh the you know our Auto Tech Team said there's still a chance that you won't dry everything out and there could still be problems down line so this is a huge issue and yes for um battery packs it is a fire risk right and we have a lot of other stories on consumer reports.org about you know flood related with with vehicles whether it's you know how to avoid buying a a flood damaged car or the dangers of driving on flooded streets we have a lot of stories up on consumer reports.org about that so please check that out um okay next question comes from Michael from South Carolina Michael says I am picking up a new 2025 Honda Civic Hybrid soon and I was wondering is there a specific way that is recommended to break in a Hybrid engine traditionally I've heard that you need to not push a standard internal combustion engine for a few thousand miles uh but I didn't know if that applied to hybrids as well I mean that's a great that's a great question and luckily the answer is kind of simple which is that you know you're going to treat them the same way as you treat internal combustion engine car and uh but the number one thing is always look at your owner's man your vehicle owners manual that's the number one place to go I will say they're not quite as easy to find as they used to be used to make it a lot more obvious in the in the you know uh contents or whatever of of where to find that but if you look hard enough you should be able to find it uh although not all vehicles uh manufacturers do that anymore Volvo for instance doesn't even have a they don't even list a break-in procedure anymore and also that's partly because modern engines and Steve I think you can speak to this as one of our um uh data analyst people is that they're just simply more robust than they used to be so there isn't quite as much uh of a detailed Breakin procedure as there used to be but Big John our chief mechanic here says that uh you know there are still things you should follow just you know as a general rule uh don't push the engine too hard for the first 500 to th000 Miles uh don't maintain a constant speed uh engine speed for too long uh try to vary it during that initial driving uh and just for fun I went out and looked at a couple of hybrids uh actually one hybrid in our Fleet and a plug-in hybrid and the KIA Carnival hybrid uh says for the first 600 mies don't race the engine which means basically don't push it hard okay and avoid hard stops to allow the brakes the seat properly so that's that's pretty easy stuff you should be able to do that and you should you should do that with any new vehicle really uh the Lexus NX 450h plus uh pH so it's a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle a little more specific for the first 200 miles avoid sudden stops again that's for the brakes okay uh for the first 1,000 miles do not drive at extremely high speeds uh I mean that's kind of a little obvious but you're probably getting a ticket if you're doing that but anyway avoid sudden acceleration that's one of the really important ones right do not drive continuously uh in low gears and do not drive again at a constant speed for extended periods so you know you're just trying to vary your engine speed as much as you can without being hard on it and for the first 500 Miles don't tow a trailer so that's uh it's a lot remember always check the owner's manual first yes that's your go-to that's a good question though for the for the plugin hybrid what if you keep plugging that in and keep driving in 30 minute spurts of of electric power or 30 miles at a time and and it's all electric and you know how do you keep track of when you're breaking in the internal combustion motor part of it yeah it's a really good question look like we'll have to research that one next well yeah I mean the engine's going to come on anyway at times so it will come on but uh but the yeah I guess the main thing is just don't push it hard for those early in that case probably could be a couple thousand miles you know but you do want to but but again luckily they are built pretty robust so you don't have to worry about it as much as you used to all right um I think that's going to do it for this episode if you want to learn more about the cars and the topics that we talked about you click on the links in the show notes and if you have a question don't forget to visit cr.org stalking cars thanks so much for watching and we'll see youall next time\n"