Buick is evolving, and the LaCrosse with eAssist is a shining example of how the more than 100-year-old brand is redefining its image, while staying true to its older, more traditional customers.
DETROIT, MI- Buick is evolving, and the LaCrosse with eAssist is a shining example of how the more than 100-year-old brand is redefining its image, while staying true to its older, more traditional customers.
The mid-size sedan, which replaced the Buick Century and Regal (reintroduced in 2009), mixes dynamic styling unforeseen by Buick in years with a smooth ride and technology that can keep a Millennial driver happy.
I drove a LaCrosse with the four-cylinder, 2.4-liter engine with eAssist, GM’s light-electrification system that turns the vehicle into a mild hybrid – improving fuel economy by 25 percent. The system, really without the driver’s knowledge, includes an electric motor that allows the gas engine to shut down at prolonged stops, such as at stoplights.
The vehicle, which debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show last year, is rated to get 36 miles per gallon highway and 25 mpg city, adding up to an impressive 29 combined mpg rating.
When I first started driving the vehicle, which also is an IIHS Top Safety Pick, the interior really sticks out – particularly compared to the Buicks I grew up knowing. Its cockpit-feel and the extremely “Buick quiet tuning” makes for a great drive that almost provides too much interior room for the average person.
The only problems I had with the vehicle were in the details, including vision and trunk space.
The eAssist battery takes up a lot of trunk room (see slide show), which isn’t very large in the first place because of the larger interior. While a small detail, it is a dramatic change for Buick, which can now barley fit two sets of golf clubs in the trunk.
eAssist diagram (Courtesy GM)The blind spots in the vehicle were also somewhat troubling. The optional safety features, such as the side blind spot alert and rear parking camera, help out substantially, but without them, the back window seems somewhat small for the overall size of the vehicle.
However, my nitpicking is not meant to take away from the overall great performance of the vehicle, which was truly the flagship for the brand’s redesign nearly five years ago.
Since 2009, when Buick sales hit a recent low of 102,306 vehicles, the General Motors Co. luxury brand has overhauled its lineup.
Total Buick sales -- retail and fleet -- remain slightly down from last year (less than 1 percent through October), but officials earlier in the year said the brand “dramatically reduced fleet sales” to improve residual values for its retail customer base, which has drastically declined in age.
According to Tony DiSalle, vice president of Buick and GMC marketing, the average customer age for the brand has dropped to 57, a seven-year decline from five years ago.
“We’re seeing a younger buyer,” DiSalle said during a media event earlier this year. “If you look across a lot of our competitors and you look across the industry average, they have gone up. So we have kind of defied the laws of gravity over the course last five years.”
According to automotive data and marketing solutions Polk, 40 percent of all vehicle buyers last year were aged 55 years or older, up from about 30 percent just four years earlier. And only 11 percent of all new vehicle buyers were aged 34 years or younger in 2011, down from almost 16 percent four years earlier.
Buick and GMC told dealers last month that they will introduce nine new or significantly updated models in the next 12 months, including the LaCrosse.
It’s going to be hard for Buick to top the current LaCrosse, but the brand has been full of surprises.
By the numbers
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
MPG: 29 combined mpg (36 mpg highway, 25 mpg city)
Base pricing: $30,170 - $38,820
Category: Mid-size sedan
Auto reviews from MLive Detroit's Michael Wayland will publish the first and third Mondays of each month. For more information, contact the author.
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