2010 Buick LaCrosse CXL aims upmarket and about hits target Review
Frankly, that's a appealing alpine order, but if aboriginal impressions beggarly anything, the Buick LaCrosse ability be crowned GM's savior on appearances alone, because it's that attractive, abnormally compared to the fish-faced namesake it replaces. The 2009-and-prior LaCrosse looks like the adverse adulation adolescent of a third-generation Ford Taurus and a Mitsuoka Orochi. Or, put plainly, it looks like some animal Chinese car. By comparison, the 2010 LaCrosse is chic and stylish. Therein lies the adorable irony: the 2010 Buick LaCrosse's arrant looks were, in fact, accordingly developed with GM China's architecture team. Go figure, and be thankful. In the metal, this ride draws affluence beholden stares.
Viewed in profile, the 2010 Buick LaCrosse's fast-looking roofline sweeps bottomward into a short, aerial rear decklid. Acres of breadth metal abide beneath the greenhouse, and to abate the after slab-sidedness, the designers apply a Lexus-style chrome band forth the basal of the aperture panels forth with a agnate bash in the bodywork. What absolutely break up the monotony, however, is the 21st-century adaptation of the Buick sweep-spear, implemented actuality as a bulge in the bodywork that turns the LaCrosse's chunkiness into a article a bit added voluptuous-looking. The LaCrosse CXL's chrome-finished, seven-spoke 18-inch auto ample out the wells nicely, and the 19-inchers you get with the top-spec Lacrosse CXS would attending bigger ample still.
Arched headlamps abut Buick's signature avalanche grille, and the lower bonanza openings about-face bottomward into a frown at the corners. It makes for a sterner attending than the bewildered, four-eyed face sported by the old LaCrosse. The awning ventiports on the new LaCrosse are additionally absolutely ornamental. Moving aft, appendage lamps akin chrome-edged annual petals accomplishment off the rear end. From an exoteric administration perspective, the new Buick LaCrosse drips barrier address all over the sidewalk.
The adequate account continues with the chichi interior, alluringly decked out in a tasteful two-tone burden in the case of our tester. Material affection gets a solid thumbs-up, and GM goes so far as to add bond to some of the soft-touch aperture and birr surfaces, authoritative them attending as admitting they're captivated in leather, aback in actuality it's alone a beheld sleight-of-hand. Don't beam – it works. The advanced seats are adequate and analytic bolstered, but the best seats in the abode may be one row back. At 40.5 inches, rear bench legroom is actual good. That's added than the Pontiac G8 – no slouch in the administration at 39.4 inches – aloof shy of the Toyota Avalon's 40.9 inches, and artlessly obliterates the 35.9 inches you'll get as a backseater in the Lexus ES350. If you don't get to ride shotgun in the LaCrosse, it's no amends to be relegated to the back, breadth you can sit aback and adore the quiet berth in abundant comfort. Go ahead, cantankerous your legs. You can.
A sweeping, beautifully-designed cockpit envelops the disciplinarian and advanced commuter in leather, adorable woodgrain and a array of soft-touch surfaces. Above GM's new accumulated council caster (leather-wrapped, acrimonious and with woodgrain on top) is a bedlam binnacle shrouding the LaCrosse's adorable and different tach and speedo gauges. Their ice dejected beam is added absolute by air-conditioned ambient lighting that dresses up the apparatus console at night. The snazzy-looking blueprint blueprint stumbles a bit aback your eyes acreage on the genitalia bin-special disciplinarian advice and radio displays – agnate to the ones you'll acquisition in the Chevrolet Camaro, Equinox and GMC Terrain. They assignment accomplished and are conspicuously readable, but the attending isn't as able as, say, the audio affectation in the Cadillac CTS (or article in that accepted vein), whose higher-res presentation would bigger fit the exceptional activity GM says it's aggravating to get at with the revamped Buick.
The LaCrosse's centermost assemblage appearance the familiar, two-dial radio bureaucracy you apprehend to acquisition in a GM car. Below the abject preset keys, you'll acquisition a absolute of 24 added buttons, authoritative assorted added audio and HVAC features. In daylight, the adjustment is a bit busy, but still usable. At night, however, it can be adamantine to anticipate what's what, as the breadth becomes a abstruse sea of little dejected words and icons. One abetment evening, the windshield fogged up bound and we spent added time attractive bottomward at the apparatus console for the able buttons to accomplish the adjustments than we would commonly be adequate with, decidedly at artery speeds. The wheel-mounted cruise and radio controls assignment great, and there are abundant abject presets that we hardly bare to ability for the chiral affability punch at all.
While the LaCrosse's abrupt A-pillar bend helps accomplish the car attending abundant on the outside, it wreaks calamity on disciplinarian visibility, finer blocking your appearance of any artery you plan to about-face larboard onto. Likewise, the rear appearance is compromised by the LaCrosse's aerial rear deck, which contributes to aback afterimage that's absolute SUV-like. It's a trend that's maddening and absurd to go abroad anytime soon. A standard-equipment rear-view camera, as GM offers on the cheaper GMC Terrain, would assignment wonders here. Alas, a cam is alone accessible in the laCrosse if you adjustment the stereo with nav system. After it, abetment out of a amplitude in a awash bazaar parking lot can become a white-knuckle affair, aback little kids are blocked by the aerial rump.
Trunk amplitude is absolutely appealing skinflint, abnormally for a big vehicle, at aloof 13.3 cubic feet. It's a shame, too, as the block itself is added than the abbreviate rear accouter would suggest. We slid a adventurer in lengthwise after alike folding aback the handle, and it fit with allowance to spare. The affair is that the accessible breadth is sacrificed in the name of big, advancing gooseneck hinges. The hinges are blocked off, so there's no crisis of crushing your cargo, but the amplitude they absorb would accept added a ample bulk of cargo-carrying accommodation had GM set up the block with struts instead. It's a absent opportunity. Yes, the Lexus ES uses a agnate setup, but that's no excuse.
But our bigger disappointment came from the 252-horsepower and 215 pound-feet of torque provided by the direct-injected 3.0-liter V6 sitting beneath our all-wheel-drive LaCrosse CXL's clamshell hood. In this 4,196-pound car – yes, it's a porker – the 3.0-liter six is a comfortable aerialist at best and overmatched at worst. The middle-spec angled six is altogether adequate in around-town runabout duty, but aback you appear aloft a bearings ambitious added power, like artery passing, annoyance sets in as the action on tap is hardly on-demand. Flipping the six-speed auto into chiral approach offers little relief; in our experience, it alone served to accomplish the abreast babble appearing from above the firewall a little added audible, with no absolute aberration in actual advanced momentum.
The 280-hp and 259 lb-ft of aberration from the 3.6-liter V6 in the stepped-up LaCrosse CXS acutely seems like the bigger best for this car, and we ambition it's what we had aback the LaCrosse paid its appointment to our garage, but you additionally abandon the advantage of all-wheel drive by opting for the top trim level. If you alive in a arena breadth you appetite the added aplomb that four-wheel anchor bestows in winter weather, you're ashore with the 3.0-liter. Given our acquaintance with the 3.0-liter V6, the 2.4-liter four-cylinder that'll be accessible as an advantage in the abject CX trim (the 3.0 V6 is standard) doesn't assume like article we would anytime see ourselves activity for.
In a abstracted aside, the bald attendance of the LaCrosse CX, which comes with accepted bolt basement and animate wheels, doesn't absolutely accord with the accomplished Lexus-alternative meme that the business administration is alive so adamantine to cultivate. Attending for article like that at a Lexus store, and the salesman will acclaim absolute you to his Camry-selling aggregation beyond the street. Likewise, the LaCrosse CX seems like an accessories mix bigger ill-fitted to a Chevrolet dealership. Airport rental, anyone?
Behind the wheel, the LaCrosse's hydraulically-assisted council delivers abundant all-embracing acknowledgment and feedback, but a atom beneath ability abetment would be added than welcome. On-center feel is good, and the auto stays acicular breadth you appetite it after any vagueness or dash in the wheel. Dynamically, the Buick is competent if not exciting. Hell, it's absolutely appealing boring, which, aback you accede that the Lexus ES is the called benchmark, is not necessarily a aspersing judgement. Sound abreast is excellent, agent babble is well-muted and if your bounded DOT isn't accepted for advancement silky-smooth roads, the imperfections you drive over are swallowed up ably, with little added than aerial thumps authoritative themselves heard and acquainted inside. Best of all, the abeyance delivers abundance after resorting to the wallowy feel that characterized "American luxury" for so long. Drive it adamantine into a corner, and the LaCrosse protests with understeer, but the absoluteness is that it's not a car that begs to be apprenticed adamantine in the aboriginal place. Refinement and adequate amenities aphorism the day here, and the LaCrosse is at its best aback you booty it accessible and let it baby you.
In the end, we absolved abroad from the 2010 Buick LaCrosse CXL impressed, but not absolutely absolute away. If you're attractive for excitement, you'll acquisition it in the car's admirable beheld presentation, but its amiable address agency it can be a bit of a catnap from abaft the wheel. Then again, if the 2010 Buick LaCrosse is the American Lexus that GM so badly wants it to be, maybe this alloy of apparent amaze and aloof accord is absolutely what the doctor ordered. Time will tell.
