FAMILY CAR REVIEW: 2017 HOLDEN TRAILBLAZER LT

How good is the storage in the Holden Trailblazer? And how much fits in the boot of the Holden Trailblazer?

In the front of the Trailblazer, everything is essentially the same as the Colorado. There are two cup holders in the front of the car, in front of a lidded storage box in the central console, between the front seats.

You can fit a bottle into the rear holder but it is not ideal; the lid of the storage box protrudes over the holder space and forces the bottle to sit at a slight angle, having a domino effect of the bottle into the coffee cup, ending up with a hot coffee spillage (no sleep-deprived mum wants to waste a drop of their coffee or has time and energy for clearing it up!! There are some days if I had spilt my tea I would have sucked it up out of the cupholder!!)

The previous model (called Colorado 7) had a cup holder below the vent near both doors which was great positioning from a convenience and safety point of view, the driver's hot coffee cup was kept well away from the central console where little hands could access it and the vent could be used to cool it down to drinking temperature more quickly (the Isuzu MU-X has this feature)!! Little add-on versions can be added to this model but you have to pay $27 each as an additional extra which would be a must for me.

There are two 12V power sockets in the front and one in the boot.

There is not a huge amount of storage; in the front and back the door pockets are relatively small but will hold a large refillable water bottle.

There is a single sunglasses holder in the ceiling, lit vanity mirrors in both front visors and a standard glove box.

There isn’t a place to put your mobile phone and I presume the idea is it should be put away in the central console storage box where the USB plug is, however, I like to be able to see my phone screen as I have it on silent all the time now I'm a mum so that if my daughter is asleep it doesn’t wake her.

There is a shelf and a small indented space in front of the gear lever and either would be perfect for a phone but the surface of both are shiny and smooth so your phone just slides off, especially when going around a corner! As I found out when my phone and the USB cable ended up tangled under my feet in the footwell!

There are iPad size map pockets in the back of the front seats.

There are two cup holders for the second row of seats in a fold-down armrest in the middle seatback, coffee cups and water bottles fit but rattle around in them.

When the sixth and seventh seats are in use, the Trailblazer's boot is quite small with room for only five shopping bags.

Having just one of the third-row seats up in use gives you more options. This way, I could get my pram in and three bags of shopping. It just means you can’t use the roller blind but at least you can store it away in the clever storage box in the floor of the boot.

With the sixth and seventh seats both down, the Trailblazer's boot space is very good and held fifteen shopping bags.

Or I could get my single stroller and five bags of shopping in the boot.

This is an older review before I started measuring all sizes of stroller. Based on the almost identical Isuzu MU-X you would fit a double and twin, side by side stroller in the boot of the Holden Trailblazer with some shopping bags too.

There are bag hooks on either side in the boot too and of course plenty of room for an emergency nappy change with the third-row seats down. However, with them up it would be a bit too precarious!

You can carry any size dog in the Trailblazer with the sixth and seventh seats folded down.

I’m 162cm and found I could reach to load and unload the boot. The height was also really great for not having to bend down. The only thing I struggled with was the roller blind. Ideally, you would do it from the boot but it was too difficult for me to reach so I had to go in through the side doors to remove it by squeezing back each end and then lifting it out. I found I marked the side panels of the interior with it when installing and uninstalling it as it was very heavy and unwieldy to lift in and out and a very snug fit once it was in.

Equally tricky was storing the parcel shelf in its cleverly designed, boot floor storage box; again it was such a tight fit at the ends I struggled to get it in and out but hopefully over time that would become easier.

The roller blind is one big main blind that extends backwards across the boot space and two smaller ones that come forward and clip onto the backs of the second row of seats. This gives great boot coverage when using the Trailblazer as a five-seater and easy access from the side doors into the first part of the boot. However the clips for the parcel shelf are plastic and seem quite delicate, so I fear it wouldn’t take too many frazzled moments trying to access the boot or too many children pulling at them and they could break.

How noisy is the Holden Trailblazer?

I drove the Holden Trailblazer LT version which has rear parking sensors. These are a great safety feature, especially when reversing big seven-seater SUV like this as you feel more confident that there are no children in your blind spots; especially now I spend more time in parks, supermarkets, daycare carparks etc where little children are everywhere!! However the ‘beeeeeeeeeeeping’ alerts can wake or distress babies and they REALLY annoy this frazzled mum!!

In the LTZ you get two very conveniently positioned buttons on the dashboard to mute the sound for both the reversing sensors and the lane departure warning, I would have to opt for the upgrade to the LTZ as it's not that much more expensive and I couldn’t buy a car without this feature.
The LTZ has heaps more safety features all with their own beeps, buzzers and alarm sounds.

If Tulsi is content or asleep in the car and I just want to change lanes or park somewhere but can’t even do that without sounding a ‘beeeeeeeeeeeeping’ alarm then the car is not for me. There have been times in the past in other cars that I have sat behind very slow vehicles and not gone around them so I did not sound any alarms! Crazy behaviour I know some of you are thinking?? Trust me there will come a time you do the same too!!

The sat nav voice was VERY loud, I found it too much for me let alone with a child in the car. I could set the volume for the stereo but the sat nav voice always interrupted much, much louder. I didn’t find a way to turn the voice down, but I would love it if this was much simpler to find with a similarly easy to locate mute button as the park assist and lane departure warning buttons in the LTZ.

The indicator tick-tock is also quite loud.

The Trailblazer has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay which connected really easily with my phone. I already had nursery rhymes playing on my phone and as soon as I plugged it into the USB port in the central console, the songs started playing out of the speakers of the car. Which is exactly what I needed to keep my daughter content!
The 8” touch screen is clear and simple to navigate and it is easy to mute the whole audio which I find is an important feature as well as the embedded satnav.

The doors and windows of the Trailblazer have the same problem as the Colorado. None of the doors shut properly the first time and the windows open about an inch automatically when you open the doors which the first time I thought was a nice feature to let some air in but soon became annoying!

The doors and boot are very heavy and very loud when you have to keep slamming them!. Every time I shut the doors of the car when I went to drive off the beeper would sound very loudly to alert me to the fact one or more of the doors were not fully closed. The beeper was a great safety feature however it felt more like a fault with the car door seals as it happened EVERY time! The windows automatically coming down an inch when you open a door added to the cacophony!

If I had managed to transfer a sleeping child into the car without waking her, and the enormous slam or three I gave the doors to make sure they were closed, or the ‘beeeeeeeeeeeeping’ alarm letting me know that they were open didn’t manage to wake her, then the loud sound of the window going down and up automatically definitely would!!

The diesel engine noise is quite loud, although a vast improvement on the previous model. It still sounds a little bit like a tractor but I think this might actually help babies as it works like white noise and drowns out other sounds.

How many child seats fit in the Holden Trailblazer?

There are seven seats in the Holden Trailblazer and with three Isofix points across the second-row seats, giving great flexibility in car seat positioning.

The three top tether anchorages across the second-row seats are right at the bottom of the seatbacks within plastic guides and clearly labelled.

The two third-row seats do not have top tether anchorages or Isofix points, so I could not install any child seats back there.

I didn’t have three Isofix child seats to test with at the time, however, I have read that you are to use two of the Isofix at a time and the third is there for your flexibility when positioning the child seats. So you could put one child seat in the central seat and an adult either side for example.

Holden has its own branded forward-facing Britax Safe-n-Sound Isofix child seat which it says suits infants between 6 months and 4 years. Costing $780, I found a similar Britax Safe-n-Sound Slimm-line Air for $399 and I think it’s just the Holden branding making it almost double the price! I don’t know if these slimline child seats would allow you to get three child seats across the second row as they are not the seats I tested with.

I installed an infant capsule and a rear-facing child seat on either side of a booster seat in the middle. They all fitted well, with some space around them. The central seat with the booster would be snug but it did fit well and this same combination of seats has not fitted in some of the Trailblazer's competitors.

The driver's seat comes surprisingly far forward, allowing extra room in the second row of seats for getting in to install child seats and for passengers to get into the middle seat.

Installing the child seats was relatively simple, but because the top tether anchorages being at the base of the back of the backrests of the second row of seats I had to use an extension strap for my infant capsule as the top tether strap it came with didn’t reach on its own.

Also, when the third-row seats are folded, they obstruct access to the top tether anchorages.

For passengers to access the third-row seats you have to bring one of the second row of seats forward for them to climb through, which would mean uninstalling a child seat in order to do so.

The door openings gave ample space for posting Tulsi through into her seat from outside the car and the ample headroom made it easy to post her from the inside too. There is also plenty of room for feeding bub in the second-row seats too and the seatbacks recline for extra comfort.

Australia being a country of weather extremes blazing sun and  torrential rain, means you may find it easier to put bub into their seat from inside the car. If it’s hot you can get the aircon going, cool the car down and not stand out in the heat with the door open while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether bub can be easily installed from either direction. The height of the ceiling meant the posting space was ample to fit my enormous 13-month old through!

There is ample legroom in the front and back of the Trailblazer. With a child seat in the rear-facing position behind the front passenger seat there is enough legroom for a 182cm passenger.

The standard seats have a very 80’s grey triangular weave pattern which would not wipe down easily. The LTZ comes with leather-appointed seats which would be much easier to keep clean (and includes heated front seats).

The LT seats were not comfortable like those in the Colorado LTZ. I guess the Trailblazer LTZ would have the better seats, so, another reason for the upgrade!
They had no shoulder support and pushed into your lower back. This was made worse by the steering wheel not being adjustable in and out so I had to lean my top half forward to reach it properly.

I could sit quite comfortably in the middle seat between two child seats with enough knee and legroom and visibility was also good. My left arm was tight against the child seats though and on a long journey I would need to drape my arm across the end of the child seat which would be fine with a newborn but once baby got older they don’t want your arm draped over their feet!!

How comfortable is the Holden Trailblazer?

There are four air vents across the front dashboard of the Holden Trailblazer.

The aircon in the Trailblazer LT had great simple controls on the dashboard but I struggled to find a fan speed that was comfortable, it seemed to be very ‘blowy’ with an all or nothing flow.

There are rear aircon vents in the ceiling above both rear rows of seats and controls in the ceiling there too. I found although you could manually adjust their direction, the vents blew downwards onto the rear passengers and I had to shut them off as they upset my daughter by blowing straight onto her head.

There is a button on the dashboard to turn the rear aircon on and off which is fantastic for ultimate mum control!!

There are no fitted blinds on any of the windows. You can buy rear door shades and rear windscreen shades for an extra $125 each. We have the stretchy window shades with the suction cups on each corner and they fitted really well on the rear doors.

The elevated seating position makes visibility great for both the driver and passengers. Even with the back fully loaded with three child seats in the second row and two passengers with the headrests up in the third row, visibility is still surprisingly good out of the back window.

The reversing camera and parking sensors make reversing and parking very easy. The Trailblazer's turning circle is great for a big 4×4, making tight car parks and parallel parking rather fun!

One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread when we get the big cars and utes as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, but the Trailblazer was really easy and enjoyable to drive and to park!

I could drive with a ponytail due to the fact I was already sitting forward to reach the steering wheel which only moves up and down not in and out. This for me this is a big downside. I am 162cm and so have to have the seat quite close to reach the pedals but need to slide the steering wheel away from me so I am not hugging it to my chest! So I never found a comfortable driving position during the week I had the Trailblazer. Judging from my experience with the Colorado, I think the LTZ model seats would be more comfortable.

The ceiling handles in the back were well-positioned to hang a toy from to help keep bub amused.

The Trailblazer has a 2016 5 Star ANCAP Safety rating so it has not been through the child occupant protection testing.

Both models have seven airbags as standard; dual frontal, side chest curtain airbags and a driver knee airbag and side head-protecting airbags for all three rows of seats and seat belt warnings are fitted to front and second-row seats but not the third-row seats in both models.

In ANCAP testing it scored 34.49 out of 37 for adult occupancy. Broken down into 13.89 out of 16 for the frontal offset test. Full marks for the side impact test and the pole test.

As standard, all models of the Nissan Leaf EV come with seat belt pre-tensioners in the front seats only, anti-lock braking system (ABS), automatic headlights, daytime running lights (DRL), hill launch assist, electronic data recorder (EDR), electronic brake-force distribution (EBD), electronic stability control (ESC), emergency brake assist (EBA), emergency stop signal (ESS), roll stability system, rear cross-traffic alert (RCTA) and trailor stability control as standard.

The top-spec LTZ model comes with blind spot monitoring (BSM), following distance warning, lane support system (LSS) and tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS).

Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert on the LTZ or the park assist beeping sound. I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when bub's asleep!