I did a remarkable thing the other day. I drove a press car that was darn near close to a base trim. I almost didn’t believe it when I glanced at the Monroney–the pedantic journalist name for a window sticker–and saw only a few options. That’s rare. Even better, one of the extras on this 2026 Chevrolet Trax 1LT was an inviting shade of blue metallic paint. Good colors are always worth the money.
A common complaint is that there are no great affordable new cars. That’s maybe true. There are, however, plenty of good, affordable new cars. The Chevy Trax is possibly the goodest of all of them. It’s not that it does anything in such a superior way that it distances itself from the competition. There’s no secret here. It’s just great packaging, with most of the stuff, at what’s now an excellent price.
My biggest debate when I drive cars in this price bracket is whether or not the potential buyer would be better off with a good certified used car. In a rational market, that would probably be true more often than not. Currently, I don’t think that’s the case. I love data, so let’s look at data.
What Can You Actually Get In An Affordable Small ‘Crossover’ These Days?
The average used-vehicle listing price in the United States is $25,287, according to Cox Automotive. As you can see in the graph above, the pandemic-induced supply crunch and the collapse in leasing led to huge price increases in 2022 and 2023. The market is a little above where it was in 2024, which is not a good sign if you’re hoping to get a low-mileage, reliable used car, but it’s at least better than 2022-23.
The Trax I reviewed was almost perfectly priced at the level of the average used car, and in considering what I’d maybe buy instead, I thought of my Honda CR-V Hybrid. That’s a 2025 model and, truth be told, it’s much better than a new Trax. It’s also a class above the Trax, and it turns out, the prices aren’t even close. If I wanted to find a used CR-V Hybrid on Carvana, I’d have to go down to at least 2021 to acquire one for a price anywhere near the Chevy. That’s terrible. If you’re buying a used car, you’re almost certainly getting worse financing, which means you should really be shopping for something 10% cheaper than your budget for a new car.
I guess it’s comforting to see that my CR-V is somehow worth more than what I paid for it. That’s comforting to me. That’s not much consolation for someone in the market who wants to spend about $25-$27,000 and has to move real humans. Want to feel better? The Chevy Trax exists, and while it’s a little more expensive than it used to be, it’s still an excellent value.
If you had a certain level of flexibility and didn’t want a sedan, the $25-$30k space used to have some interesting options. That’s back when the hybrid Maverick XLT was less than $30k. It’s much harder to find an equivalent these days. An Impreza Sport gets you a little more legroom up front, a little less in back, as well as standard all-wheel drive. But that’s $29,690 out the door if you want blind-spot detection and some other basic safety features. It’s also a car. There’s the Nissan Kicks, which I’ve also reviewed recently and will write about soon, but that gets pricey rather quickly.
The non-hybrid Corolla Cross and HR-V are both options, and will almost certainly have higher resale value on the other end. That’s probably true of the Corolla Hatchback as well, if you’re willing to entertain a smaller car. The challenge is actually getting one. You may be able to find a Corolla Cross L, but you’re likely not finding one at a price that’s below a better-equipped Trax. Also, the base Corolla Cross is a lot like the base Honda HR-V in that both are hamstrung by mediocre CVTs and an average-at-best driving experience. The hybrid Corolla Cross solves a lot of these problems and offers better fuel economy, but that’s at least a $30,000 purchase.
You Get A Lot Of Car For The Money
Thomas did a full review of the Trax a couple of years ago, and, functionally, it’s the same car. What’s changed is the environment we live in these days. While the Trax is more expensive than it used to be, plenty of the cars in this price bracket have just disappeared. The Kia Soul is on the way out, and the Jeep Renegade has been gone for years. Even delightful weirdos like the Fiat 500X and Fiat 500L have vanished.
The Trax I had, in LT trim, started at $23,100 before a $1,395 destination charge. The “Driver Confidence” package was added, which, for $795, adds lane change and blindspot alert, adaptive cruise control, rear cross traffic alert, and rear park assist. That’s worth it just for the adaptive cruise control. For another $595, the “LT Convenience Package” brought heated seats, a heated steering wheel, keyless entry, and heated power mirrors. Again, a reasonable charge for those niceties. The only other option was $395 for the Marina Blue Metallic paint, which I support. Fully kitted out and delivered, that’s $26,280. Not bad.
It’s an attractive crossover that looks bigger and nicer than it is. For some reason, GM now sells the also South Korean-built Trailblazer as the AWD subcompact crossover, and this as the FWD-only version. The Trailblazer looks slightly off to me, like a little metallic turd wearing a baseball cap. The Trax is far more handsome, better proportioned, and comes with these excellent 17-inch aluminum wheels.
The money and effort spent on the Trax are mostly in places you care about, like these cleverly patterned seats.
They’re just nice, comfortable seats with small triangles that get slightly smaller to give them some visual texture.
The interior isn’t all soft-touch plastics and contrasting fake wood as you’d find on a luxury car. There are just honest, smooth plastic surfaces with enough angularity and little details to not feel cheap or entry-level. There’s no punishment here for getting something that isn’t the most expensive car on the lot.
And the little matching pops of color on the vents are a nice touch.
The Trax also has something a lot of more expensive crossovers lack: Physical controls!
This little panel of buttons and knobs already makes the Trax a superior automobile, and these particular controls are extremely intuitive to use. Wild, right?
The 11-inch infotainment display offers up wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, which is all any reasonable human being wants, and it works with no noticeable lag or other issues found on many luxury cars these days. Is the six-speaker audio system going to make you feel like you’re at the Dokken concert in the front row? Nope. Just make the volume louder, and you’ll be fine.
Here Is The Funniest Feature On This Car
On the left are my totally average, easy-to-use Honda keys. On the right are the Chevy Trax keys. This is the keyfob equivalent of one of those cell phones for elderly people who don’t want a fancy smartphone. This is a Jitterbug-ass remote. If VTech ever sold a real car, this is what the key fob would look like. You know what? I like it. I don’t need a complex remote. I just want something that works.
This Is Maybe The Smallest Car In America That Doesn’t Feel Small
Driving around in the Trax, I didn’t get the feeling I sometimes have in traffic, where I start to wonder if I wouldn’t prefer just a little bit more mass. I liked the GR Corolla I had, but it felt small. A Miata, too, feels small and delicate when surrounded by massive SUVs.
I realize I should be more evolved than this. I often tell people they don’t need a crossover and would be happier with a small hatchback, but then I turned around and bought a decent-sized crossover. The size, the space, and the convenience of a large loading hatch at about knee height are real considerations.
No one in my family thought the car was small or ever remarked on the size, other than to acknowledge that there was plenty of room for our stuff. Behind the rear seats, there are 25.6 cubic feet of space, which is enough for a small family in most situations.
It’s Weak In All The Places Every Other Car In This Class Is Weak
I will level with you: None of these cars is great to drive. It used to be you could buy a Honda Civic Si or even a Mazda Protege for something that felt like an appropriate equivalent for the time. Those cars came with manual transmissions, were delightfully light, and were just remarkably fun to drive.
The Trax has a 1.2-liter turbo inline-three that makes 137 horsepower and 162 lb-ft of torque. It is not tuned for power; it is tuned for efficiency, and returns a reasonable 28 MPG on the EPA city test cycle and 32 MPG on the highway test. That’s pretty good for a non-hybrid. It is neither noticeably fast nor, thankfully, noticeably slow. (It’s worth mentioning that there is a lawsuit related to this engine claiming that it might catastrophically fail, although nothing has been proven yet.) The ride is neither too soft nor too harsh, the electronic power steering is communicative enough, and the brakes feel better than what you’d find on some nicer crossovers.
If there’s one place where the Trax shines relative to the competition, it’s in its transmission, which is a six-speed traditional automatic instead of a CVT. It goes a long way to differentiating the Trax in a class where most cars follow the same formula and can’t escape CVT harshness.
You Can Find Cheap Ones All Day, Every Day
If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that an automaker might say it builds a cheap car, but it might not be possible to find that cheap trim for sale. Do you want a Trax LT similar to the one I drove? There are plenty out there advertised for a number below the already reasonable MSRP.
Badge snobbery might tell you that an equivalent Honda or Toyota is better, but my experience driving the other cars in the class for a week doesn’t support that bias. The Chevy is just as good and has a real transmission that makes driving it a little less annoying.
My original thesis is that this is better than most used cars you could get in this class, and I’ve gone back to Carvana to double-check this, and I stand by it (I recognize you might get a better deal from a private party, but Carvana is at least a consistent source of comparable cars). Something close might be this $25,000 Tuscon SEL with under 32,000 miles. There’s probably still some warranty left there, so I’d consider it.
A new Trax comes with a built-in warranty and the peace of mind of knowing every mile is a mile you put on it. What was once an alright deal has become an even better one without the car significantly changing at all. It’s just quietly stayed a good car while its competition has either gotten way more expensive or ceased to exist.
Test my theory, can you find something that’s slightly used and roughly in this class that you’d rather have? Put a link in the comments.
All photos by the author unless otherwise noted
I don’t hate it – but it would be better if it were lowered a couple inches and called a “Hatchback”
Might even get an additional MPG out of the thing.
A Trax SS would be lit. Where’s Mark?