20 out of 20 people found this review helpful.
Compact SUV Crossover?
Date of Review: Dec 7, 2007
The Bottom Line: Great combination of SUV utility with gas-savings of a compact.
With the break down of our company's handed-down Ford Winstar, our IT department finally gets our first brand new vehicle! We travel to different locations in the city, and sometimes we have gear to haul. The Winstar was a gas guzzler when we only need it as a single-person transportation vehicle. However, the space it provides when impromptu moves and deliveries rear their heads proved to be valuable.
After the Winstar died, we needed a gas-efficient vehicle that can double as a cargo carrier and be affordable enough for a non-for-profit organization. Although I suggested the Scion xB (before the redesign), it was not a choice from our leasing company. So instead, the Chevy HHR was the best choice. After all, it's a crossover vehicle that cross a roomy SUV with a gas-saving compact.
Exterior
The HHR looks pretty retro. It looks like a more squared version of Chrysler's PT Cruiser. Because of this, the HHR reminds me of a modernized 1950s milk truck. I guess that can be kinda cool...
The windows are pretty square, which is rare in today's design. This really gives the HHR a unique look. Chevy have the HHR listed in their SUV and car category. That would be the definition of a crossover, huh?
The chrome grill and large Chevy bow-tie logo is displayed prominently and proudly. It gives the HHR the look of a large nose. The headlights looks as if they are mounted on the fenders just like cars from the 50s.
Speaking of which, the front fenders do make the car look like they bulge where the wheels are. To complete this effect, the rear fenders are also flared out. Thus, the rest of the body (where the doors are) seem to look a bit recessed. This gives the HHR a very attractive profile.
The tail lights are simply two circles with one above the other. Typical Chevy would have them housed together, but this gives it a more forward-looking feel for a Chevy design.
Depending on who you ask, you either love it or hate. I'd say Chevy designed this with the PT Cruiser in their cross hair.
Interior
The interior of the HHR LT is very typical of a typical budget American car such as the Neon. Everything feels like cheap hard plastic, more so than your typical budget Japanese car. The dashboard texture is overly textured, and knocking on it gives it a hollow reverberation. Even the doors have the same hollow plastic feel! The steering wheel have just enough heft to remind you it is not a toy, but only JUST enough.
The seats seem comfortable enough for an hour drive. We haven't had any trips that require more than an hour in those seats. I don't see an issue with longer trips, however. The seats are manually adjustable with your typical lever below the seat as well as on the side. I found it hard to adjust the reclining, however.
The rear seat feels very firm, and may be uncomfortable after a while. There is enough legroom for 2 adults. Trying to cram a 3rd may result in unhappy passengers. The hollow plastic doors seem to have made their way to the rear as well. The rear windows are all tinted, which sets a nice calming mood inside. Hopefully that would help those with kids.
The seats fold down easily with a simple pull of a lever. They fold flat without much effort. This gave us the van-like cargo room we were used to with our old Winstar. Loading cargo is easy with this flat surface, and the plastic floor seem to be inviting us to put wet drippy items on it. For those who go camping, this kind of plastic floor may sound like it would facilitate easier clean ups, but in reality, it does not! Because of the texture, it would trap dirt and ruin the light tan color of the plastic. Just think of it as more of an extension of the cheap plastic interior you found at the dashboard and doors.
There is a cubby hole in the rear. The door lifts up to reveal a place to put an item as large as a skateboard.
Conveniences
The list of standard features for a budget car such as the HHR is pretty astounding. First, there is OnStar, which allows for emergency assistance as well as navigation help with a live operator. This is, of course, a paid-for service. It is free for a year from the time you purchase or lease your vehicle. Power doors and locks are also standard, along with AM/FM CD Player with auxiliary in jack and remote keyless entry.
There is also a Driver Information Center that is located just below the speedometer. It includes oil life monitor, tire pressure readings, fuel efficiency monitoring (MPG real-time and average), fuel range based on fuel in tank and current MPG, water temperature, outside temperature, and your basic odometer and A/B trip meter. I did not expect to find such feature in a sub $17k vehicle!
The audio system is pretty decent, actually. It's your standard AM/FM stereo with CD player (sorry, no MP3 or WMA playback), digital clock, seek-scan, auto tone control, automatic volume, TheftLock (requires a code in the manual if battery power was disrupted), Radio Data System (RDS - allows for radio station data to be displayed) and auxiliary audio input jack for your MP3 or other external audio source. The auxiliary audio input jack is a pleasant surprise. I was hoping it would also play back MP3 and WMA discs like the basic standard audio in the Scion xB, but no such luck.
There seem to be 6 total speakers in the basic package. 4 full-range speakers (2 front, 2 rear), and 2 tweeters in the front by the pillars. Perhaps they are microphones for OnStar. I have no idea where they hid them.
It does not seem that hands-free bluetooth is included. However, OnStar allows for you to dial out and make calls. How this service works (and how you get charged) remains a mystery for me.
Also included in the standard feature is a auto-dimming rear view mirror with electronic compass. I think all vehicles should have this feature! The electronic compass was fairly accurate. The self-dimming mirror actually caused me to freak out a bit when I first used it at night. All you'd see are headlights and almost nothing else! Keep in mind, I drive in a city, so having the details of the road missing was startling. You can still make it out though, but I learned to appreciate the dimmer headlights. It caused less strain, and once you get used to it, you can see the details of the non-lit areas.
One of the things I felt was not a convince at all are the buttons to roll up your windows. Instead of being on the door, they are located very low in the dash - almost by the shifter. I found myself fumbling for them at times when I need to use the parking punch cards or to pay tolls. At night, the window buttons are not lit up at all, making them hard to make out. Instead of glowing like other buttons, they rely on a small white LED located on the ceiling of the car to illuminate them. The overhead white LED is on when the headlights are on, which gives it an eeire feel at night if you look at the shifter area (where the LED cast its light).
The gauges seem too small to be easily read at a glance. The tachometer is too small to be useful, while the speedometer is about the size of what a tachometer would normally be in an automatic transmission vehicle. The glowing teal numbers are easy on the eyes at night, but you'd still be doing double or triple takes to make sure you're not speeding.
Driving
In terms of handling, the car feels very forward-bias despite having "junk in the trunk". More metal, glass, and other materials in the rear (it is a wagon after all) does not seem to affect the fact that it is a front-heavy front-engine front-drive vehicle. When driving within the limits, the HHR seems confident in maneuvers at speeds up to 50 MPH. Above that, and you'd want to keep maneuvers down to a minimum.
Ride is very comfortable. It is stiff enough from keeping the car from bouncing from bumps, but soft enough to absorb harshness. In all, it feels like a suspension from a car, not a truck, SUV, or a van (I find most vans are too soft).
Driving the HHR feels like a slightly taller Neon. The dashboard and front view seem small, so it makes it feel like you are driving a real compact car. Looking at the rear where the seats and cargo sits and you realize it is bigger than it feels.
The car does have huge blind spots, thanks to the thick pillars all around. If you look from the outside, you can already see the problem. The design looks nice with ported-looking square windows. However, that means less windows and thicker pillars! The side mirrors are pretty large so you can see behind and on the side without much difficulties, but it requires you to relearn the way you normally check for cars on the side and behind. What's worse is that the larger side mirrors block the view going forward. I almost clipped someone trying to cross the street in a wheel chair because they were pretty low, and the mirror was blocking me from seeing them! The only clue was that when I stopped, I saw someone's head emerging from the mirrors!
Using the rear view mirror to look directly behind me, I felt like I was in car that has a rear that gets narrow like in Willy Wonka's factory. The rear window, again, is designed to look like a ported window, and because of this, is smaller than what most drivers are used to.
Performance
The standard tires are just "okay" as I was able to lock up the tires easily with the brakes in semi-panic stops. It seems that anti-lock brakes are not in the standard feature set. They seem grippy enough to handle full throttle starts without much noise. That may not seem bad since the 4 cylinder 2.2 ECOTEC engine puts out 149 hp and 152 lb/ft of torque. Those figures come at a high RPM, however. The 149 hp figure is found at 5200 RPMs, while the 152 lb/ft of torque can be found at a strange 4200 RPMs. This explains why the tires doesn't squeal under full throttle starts.
Also because all of the torque is at the upper range of the RPMs, the engine provide less oomph than the Winstar we previously driven starting from a stop. The engine is smooth, but buzzy. Even when not being pushed, the engine sounds like a large fly trying to escape. The buzzing amplifies when you're on the throttle hard.
The average gas mileage we were able to attain in mostly city driving is around 28 MPG, which is not bad for this kind of vehicle.
Conclusion
There are definitely better cars out there that would fit our bill. My initial suggestion of the Scion xB still rings if you are in a market for a small compact car that is roomy enough for cargo. However, with the new Scion now redesigned with a bigger engine, more gas-thirsty, and a larger chassis, the choice is harder to make if you don't believe in Toyota/Scion's reliability over Chevy.
Although I would not personally go with an HHR for my personal vehicle (that choice would have easily gone to the previous generation xB or the current xA or xD), the Chevy HHR LT is not a bad choice if you wanted basic transportation with a side of cargo space.
