Are the Americans back?
By Jeff Rundles
As an automobile reviewer I get to drive a wide variety of cars and get the feel for each. One of the side benefits, however, is to see and hear the reactions of other people, friends and the general public alike, for the cars and the whole notion of the automobile business. People are very specific and passionate about their car preferences, so I get to experience a wide range of reaction.
Of course, one of the most telling reactions is no reaction at all. Sometimes I will drive a car all over for my week-long test drive and no one will comment, ogle or otherwise react to it at all. These are “blah” cars, those lacking a “wow factor,” like a Chevy Aveo or any off brand like Suzuki or Mitsubishi. Or sometimes it’s just something that’s everywhere on the road, like a Ford F150 pickup truck. Subaru and Jeep used to fall into the latter category, but they have both since done some upgrading and created excitement about the newer models.
This isn’t a comment, or lack thereof, for these models. There just isn’t any buzz. The Suzuki SX4 crossover, for instance, is a wonderful car, but it looks like several other models on the market and just gets lost in the shuffle.
Buick used to be in the “blah” category. Indeed, over the last several years some friends of mine and I have made a sport of spotting Buicks on the road here in Denver to see if we can find anyone under, say, 75 years old driving one. The results for Buick haven’t been good: you do see a few younger people driving the Buick SUV, the Enclave, but Buick sedans, which are pretty much all they have left in a very slim line, are almost exclusively being driven by senior-senior citizens. Super seniors, we like to call them, to make the distinction between them and the Baby Boomers now cascading into senior citizenship. The generation just above Baby Boomers always had an affinity for Buick, but the Boom generation never did.
I feel that is about to change. For a week in June I drove the 2010 Buick LaCrosse, and everywhere I went people asked me what it was, stopped to talk about it, made unsolicited comments about how its beauty, and almost always added something like “The Americans are finally getting it.” I must admit that younger people did this less, although they did ogle the car, but I can say with authority that the 40-somethings, 50-somethings and 60-somethings were taken with the LaCrosse.
What is interesting is that many, many people commented on how much the LaCrosse looked like a Lexus, and my experience in the automotive review business tells me this is not by accident. After all, pretty much every other sedan in the world – Hondas, Hyundais, Kias, Subarus, even to some extent BMWs – looks like a Toyota; Toyota for so long set the standard that everyone else wanted in on the act. Lexus, of course, is the Toyota luxury division, and under the banner of The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection, has sought to be the standard by which luxury cars are measured ever since they entered the US marketplace with the 1989 Lexus LS 400.
Toyota and Lexus then went on to about a 20-year run of soaring reputations for quality and innovation, and the two lines, in each and every category where they compete, set sales records that resulted in the overall company attaining the status of the world’s largest automaker by late 2009. Very impressive. But as we all know, the last several months have been brutal for the company, with high-visibility problems in braking and unintended acceleration, a terrible management response, and a worldwide public relations nightmare. Just when it was beginning to quiet down, Lexus in early July announced the recall of hundreds of thousands of its models because of a tendency for the engines to stall. Then came the report that Toyota knew of the problems for the last two years. More PR headaches.
This is both a problem and an opportunity for Buick. That they made the LaCrosse look just like the Lexus sedan to create some affinity with the target audience – Baby Boomers – is a given, and it worked. Since it really doesn’t look like a Buick, and greatly resembles a Lexus, the target audience is at least responding by looking. But it takes a while for a car company, particularly GM and Buick, to develop a new look or engineering, and Lexus’ reputation was stellar when this process began. That’s the downside.
Another downside is that this LaCrosse isn’t a Lexus. It’s not as idiotic as the first Hyundai being advertised as “just as good as a Honda, but less expensive,” when in fact it was not even as good as a Yugo, but if Buick is going after Lexus, it has a way to go.
On the other hand, the Lacrosse is less expensive – much less. There are five models offered by Buick, ranging from the CX 4 cylinder with a base price of $25,195, to the CXS with the 3.6-liter V6 (280 hp) with a base price of $35,015. I drove the CXL AWD, with the 3.0-liter V6 with 252 hp, with a base price of $31,820. The LaCrosse looks like two Lexus models, the ES 350 and the GS 350, which carry base prices of $35,175 and $47,550 (AWD), respectively, with only the GS available with All Wheel Drive like this LaCrosse. Size-wise – wheelbase, height, length – the LaCrosse is sort of in between the two Lexi, while from an engine point of view the ES is roughly equivalent (3.5-L, 272 hp), with the GS featuring a 3.5-L with 303 hp.
The AWD thing is interesting. I believe the market for AWD sedans is growing exponentially, particularly here in Colorado and other places where winter driving is challenging. You see it in the Ford Taurus, the Suzuki Kizahsi, the Subaru Legacy, various BMWs and Mercedes, among others, and this is a great entrant for Buick. However, oddly enough, you can’t get the AWD with the larger 3.6-liter engine on the Buick.
This is limiting, I believe, because if anything, this Lacrosse CXL with the 3.0-liter V6 engine and 252 hp is somewhat underpowered. This is a relatively stout car, and with the AWD system it needs a bit more power. Off the line in the city it is adequate, and it cruises on the highway with ease, but it could use a little more spark in acceleration on city streets for lane changing and on the highway for passing. On the plus side, it is rated at 16 mpg city/25 highway, so it is a fairly economical ride for this type and size of vehicle.
But that’s really my only major downside. Outside, as I have pointed out, it looks very much like a Lexus and gets the stares. Inside it is very elegant, beautifully appointed, and it is extremely quiet. It is also quite comfortable – in a very un-American, pro-European way with stiff seats that keep the driver alert. In addition, there is plenty of head room all around, and a ton of leg room for the rear seat passengers. And for golfers or frequent road-trippers, the trunk is quite large, with enough room for four golf bags or plenty of luggage.
This car was not equipped with navigation, mostly because it comes with a free year of GM’s exclusive OnStar system that provides navigation via voice on demand. This is a good thing, for OnStar is wonderful and easy to use, and you don’t have to have one of those annoying LED screens handling all of the communications. Instead, there is a smaller screen in the center of the console that displays all of the pertinent stereo and climate information without all the distraction of the overly high-tech stuff from the Germans especially, but Lexus too.
There are two other, relatively minor issues that will take a purchaser some time to get used to. First, the interior of my test-drive model had a light grey color, and on the dash this reflected in full sunlight onto the windshield and was something of a problem in the mid-day. Then, the car is very rounded and aerodynamic, and this limits the visibility. The front pillars forming the dashboard and the side windows are thick and limit visibility to each side, and seeing out of the back, like when you need to change lanes, is somewhat daunting. The back pillars forming the rear roof line are also thick, and I really had to take extra care to make sure no one was in the lane to my right.
I have driven the Lexus models used here in comparison, and to be honest if someone offered to give me one of these three cars, I’d take the Lexus GS with the AWD. But if I had to actually pay for the car, I would select the Buick. Thousands less expensive, a beautiful ride, and with AWD all add up to tip the scale.
The base price on the CXL AWD is, as mentioned earlier, $31,820. That price includes all of the power-operated windows, leather seating, heated front seats, Bluetooth, and most of what you’d expect from a near-luxury car. On my test-drive model they added $550 for a Comfort & Convenience Package which includes ultrasonic rear parking assist, memory seats and mirrors, and auto-dimming rear view mirrors. For another $1,350 the Luxury Package includes: leather and wood grain heated steering wheel, perforated front passenger seats with ventilation (cooled seats), E-Z Key passive entry (just have the key fob in your pocket), and keyless/pushbutton start. They also added xenon headlamps for $695, rear-mounted and thorax airbags for $350, and a heads-up display for $350. Add $750 in destination charges and the bottom line was $35,865.
For my money, that’s a great price on this car. It’s not fully American – the engine was made in Canada, with final assembly in Kansas City, Kan. – but it’s a car from an American nameplate that really offers people in the near-luxury sedan marketplace a viable alternative to the European and Japanese models.
The 2010 Buick LaCrosse is proof positive that the American automakers are beginning to “get it.”