I had a chance this week to review the sort of crossover SUV I never would have requested myself, but had more use and appreciation for than I could have imagined. The all-new-for-2008 Buick Enclave had a refreshing array of features, remarkably for the price point, and to my surprise, I ended my test with the advice that it's actually a remarkable buy from a brand that's been pretty lost for identity.
This car won't define Buick, which may be a problem of its own, since Buick has lacked an identity for more decades than its survival might indicate. Luckily, cross platform cost savings and a scarcely wavering consumer loyalty have kept the badge on the GM lapel, and this is every bit the offering you might expect.
I've read suggestions that the 3.6, which is shared with other GM platform vehicles, is fine, but not adequately premium to warrant the Buick branding, but I disagree. I'll take the lack of displacement bragging rights to keep a car that I can afford to drive in trade for that last ounce of umph in the merging lane.
I've driven enough new, premium cars to become more than a bit of a snob about them. Very little impresses me, and a lot of cars fail to stand out in any interesting, notable sense. I won't name names, but Lincoln would come to mind if I were to think out loud for just a minute. The Buick is nice, well appointed and comfortable, but to my delight, it did in fact have a truly unique feature. It is the quietest car I've driven in years. It's every bit as quiet as the Mercedes E-series, and far quieter than any American offering I've seen since the mid 70's Caddys. You can run it up to 80mph, and it will feel like 60mph, but more than that, it will sound like you're doing 35mph.
The Buick Enclave comes with a market leading 5-year, 100,000 mile power train warranty, with an equally unequalled 5-year 50,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. Very few manufacturers have ever expressed as much confidence in a product sufficient to warranty a 100,000 mile warranty, and with the unbelievable array of new features (like smart headlights, memory seats, tri-zone climate control, etc) that are offered, the 5-year 50,000 mile bumper-to-bumper insures that the confidence they have in their initial quality are in fact backed up by the legally binding guaranty of quality that would cost them a fortune in repairs, should it not work out as expected.
When I buy electronics, I always look at the warranty, but I never fill out my warranty card. It's not because I actually expect to cash in on such things, but it's because I look to the manufacturers' confidence in their product to tell me what I need to know. I bought an exceptionally expensive digital processing device from Sony back in my audio engineering days, and it came with a 1-year warranty. It died on month 13, and that's my problem, but if you buy this car, and it suffers it's first problem after 100,000 miles, I think we can agree that you've done pretty well.
As far as the whole crossover SUV genre goes, which by the way is a class of cars I don't even believe in, this one is still a bit unique. It's larger than most of the CUVs on the market, but I suspect it's mostly because it's a niche that isn't well defined. You can get smaller ones, and you can get others about the same size, such as the Chrysler Aspen, which doesn't quite master the same value, fuel economy or comfort, but it's a pretty darn smart size.
The tri-zone climate control is really nice, since the driver and navigator are famous for disagreeing about the ideally desired cabin temperature, but that third segment is nice because the seat warmers can bring the front-seaters to climatic joy while the backseaters are still freezing. If one thing can shut the backseat kids up as quick as the optional DVD player, it's surely going to be the third zone of climate control which, unlike the optional DVD player, is standard.
If we're going to talk about safety, let's start with the gross tonnage, which comes in at well over the 4,000 pound mark, but more about 4,600 pounds, which is a great girth of safety by default right there. From there, we should further mention the ABS, traction control, and stability control, all of which will help you avoid getting into an accident in the first place. Obviously you'll enjoy the scattered array of modern airbags, from dual front to side curtain and some more there beyond, but what I wish to point out is the full shoulder restraints on every seat, which means that you can put a child's safety car seat in any back seat with nearly equal safety. It's as big and heavy as you might like, the side bars are thick and safe, but the seats are also readily able (in every seat) to handle a car seat for perfect safety.
Another safety feature, which too few cars care to include, is the smart, corner pointing headlights. The Enclave is high enough up that the high beams are nearly useless, mostly pointing into the trees, but with optional fog lights and the ever-impressive smartly wiggling headlights are more important than you could ever understand until you've had them. The headlights follow your steering wheel, not the direction of the car. The harder you turn the wheel, the sharper your headlights turn into the direction you're heading. Forget where you're pointing, think about where you're heading, because that's where you're actually going. It's a small feature, and an understated one (though far less subtle than the same feature offered by other manufacturers, such as Volvo), but it's a really smart safety device, and the sort of thing that every car should offer, and immediately would, if it was free.
