Have you seen the commercials where they ask you to rethink what you know about Buick? I had the opportunity to try that in real life as I test drove the 2015 Buick Enclave for a week. From the new design to the plush interior, Buick is making a big effort to redefine their brand.
My wife and I both drive SUVs because we like the safety and extra room that this style of vehicle offers. With three rows of seating, the Enclave is the larger of Buick’s SUVs, with the Encore being the more compact option. What I liked about the Encore, in addition to the extra room, was that it felt solid when I drove it. The doors close with a thud, the wheels grip the pavement around corners, and you hardly feel the bumps in the road. The Encore was fun to drive and the V6 engine felt powerful when I drove up the long and windy road to our house.
The experience in the second row is one of the biggest tests with any family vehicle. Is there enough leg room? Is there something for the kids? With the Enclave, my son was a happy passenger because he had his own thermostat controls, his own radio, and a power outlet for his iPad. My son loved the captains chairs in the second row because he had his own armrests and sat up high so he could see everything out the windows. He used the Enclave’s wireless headphones to listen to his own radio station or to watch a movie. It was a luxurious experience and I just wish that I had something like this when I was a kid.
The Enclave had a lot of refined features that made it feel like a premium vehicle from the driver’s seat. During my test drive week, we had record temperatures in Seattle. The Enclave has a remote start switch that lets you start the vehicle from the key fob. I used this to get the air conditioning running for a few minutes before we got into the vehicle. It was a really neat little feature that made a huge difference with our record temps.
The eight-way power driver seat had heating and cooling options. I didn’t use the heat, but the cooling feature was fantastic. For most of the year, Seattle has cooler temperatures and overcast skies, which would make the heated, wood-trimmed steering wheel a nice option as well. Because of the nice weather, we left the dual sun roof open most of the time that we were driving so that we could enjoy the sunshine while it lasted.
The Enclave has a neat ambient lighting feature that makes the cabin feel like a spaceship when you drive at night. The blue LED lights look really neat and make you feel like you are driving a luxury vehicle.
Buick is part of the GM family, so it comes with On-Star available as a service. I gave this a try on a few trips and I was impressed with the personal service. You just press the button and then you are connected with a real person. I asked for driving directions and butchered the name of the place. But the On-Star person still figured it out and then sent the directions to the Enclave. It was kind of neat. Within a couple seconds of the call ending, the directions would appear on the navigation screen and the turn by turn instructions would kick in. It was much easier, and much safer, to use On-Star than if I had tried to fumble with my cell phone.
The Enclave was packed with safety features, which is one of the first things you look for with any family vehicle.There are seven air bags, including the segment’s first Front Center Air Bag. This inflates between the driver and front passenger, giving added protection for both front occupants in side-impact crashes. There are head-curtain side air bags in all three rows to keep you safe no matter where you are seated.
There were a few camera and radar-based safety features that would give you an alert to a vehicle when changing lanes, or if there is cross traffic when backing up. Enclave also has lane departure warning, which comes in handy during those long road trips or windy roads. My only surprise was that the Enclave didn’t have push button start. I still had to put the key into the ignition to make it go.
Buick has come a long way with the new design of its vehicles, so the “take another look” campaign is well deserved. My family had a Buick when I was a kid and the Enclave is an enormous step up from that family sedan. It felt great to drive the Enclave to work every day and I didn’t mind the traffic as much. The luxury interior and modern styling make the Enclave a wonderful choice for a family that wants a refined way to travel.
