Buick Enclave

What We Like

Ride refinements

The Enclave’s suspension does a very good job of absorbing the impact from most bumps and ruts. It feels as if it has a more plush and compliant ride than the Traverse and Acadia. Some testers said that they felt the Enclave also stays more settled over larger bumps than the Traverse and Acadia.

Only the biggest impacts—such as hitting highway expansion joints or poorly patched-up construction zones—crash through noticeably.

Rear accommodations

The second row is easy to get into and out of and the seat itself is pretty comfortable. The seatback and bottom cushion work together to create an ergonomically sound seating position, and there’s plenty of headroom and legroom. Other niceties set the Enclave apart from the other GM SUVs. The leatherette seats feel more plush in the Enclave, and the door armrests are more comfortable and better positioned for passengers to rest their arms.

The third-row seat is roomy enough for two adults to sit without coming to fisticuffs over knee and foot room. It’s not quite as good as the third row in the Volkswagen Atlas, and it’s not as roomy as a minivan or a full-sized SUV, but it works.

Getting in and out through the rear doors is straightforward and easy, due in large part to the huge door openings. We appreciate that they have external unlocking buttons, which make it possible to approach the Enclave from behind with the keys in your pocket or a bag and open the back door just by grabbing the handle. Pitching the second-row seats forward creates a decent path to the third row.

Super Cruise

GM’s hands-free active driving assistance system works very well, especially negotiating curves and changing lanes on its own. Unlike some systems from other manufacturers, Super Cruise uses a direct driver monitoring system that requires drivers to keep their eyes on the road even while it automates steering, acceleration, and braking. This ensures the driver is paying attention while letting the SUV reduce the stress of highway driving.

It’s worth noting that you can also get Super Cruise on the less expensive Traverse and Acadia.

Winter warmers

With some of the “arctic blasts” that have hit our Connecticut test track this winter, it’s nice that the remote start will kick on the seat and steering wheel heaters (yes, we know idling doesn’t make your car warm up faster) when coming out of a store, for example. While the seat heat comes on somewhat slowly, it eventually gets quite hot. The steering wheel gets similarly toasty and warms up very quickly. But operating these features while driving is a different story, as we note below.

Storage and cargo area

There’s an abundance of places to store your stuff, from belt bags and phones to keys and wallets. The front-door pockets are deep and fairly wide, although they aren’t particularly long. They feature well-defined bottle holders that don’t take up much room from the rest of the pockets. There’s an open bin under the center console that comes in handy for small bags, and the grippy rubber base prevents items from sliding about. One nice feature of the Enclave is that there’s a gap between the center console and the lower dash, so you can better see what items are actually in that cubby and will be less likely to forget them. Unlike in the Traverse, the wireless phone charge mat is skewed to the right side to make space for the large volume knob.

There’s a generous amount of underfloor storage beneath the cargo floor, which makes it easy to stow groceries or sports gear, or store a sizable emergency kit and jumper cables. It would be nice if this more premium version of GM’s midsized SUVs had a one-touch power lock-and-close button on the liftgate in addition to the “close” button, if not for convenience than just to differentiate it from the Traverse and Acadia. We do like the optional power fold/raise feature for the third-row seatbacks, which is easier and more satisfying to use than the standard manual straps.

What We Don't Like

Controls

Many of the flaws in the Enclave are the same ones we’ve seen in numerous recent GM vehicles, such as how the steering wheel preset selection functions. The controls on the back left of the steering wheel are used to move through audio presets. But they work in the opposite direction of the way the stations are displayed on the screen: The top button moves to the selection below what you’re listening to. What’s worse is that the same function in the head-up display (HUD) works conventionally—press down to go to the next selection below. So odd.

One feature that separates the Buick from the Chevrolet and GMC versions is the big 30-inch-wide screen that spans the left half of the dashboard, effectively connecting the driver’s instrument panel with the center screen. It looks cool, and the unified background is pleasing to the eye, but it’s also the source of some problems.

Despite the instrument panel’s massive real estate, many of the Cheerio-sized buttons are squished together. The Android Auto and Apple CarPlay displays fill only a portion of the screen. Similarly, the image for the backup camera display is unreasonably tiny, both for its importance and the available space.

Most climate functions have physical buttons, but some can only be accessed through the touchscreen. For example, the sync function is stuck in the submenu, and using it also turns on the rear climate system. Assuming the driver wanted it off, this adds more steps to the process.

The controls for the seat heaters are also accessed through the screen, forcing the driver or a passenger to make multiple taps on the screen. While it’s not a major challenge for the passenger, doing this while driving is a distraction because it requires a precise push that can’t be done by feel. The steering wheel heat is activated by a hard button on the steering wheel itself, something that can be turned on and off just by muscle memory.

Like the seat-heat controls, the “button” for the lane keeping assistance is on the screen and requires multiple pushes in quick succession to turn it off, which is challenging to do while driving. 

There are a few useful controls, such as the large volume knob on the center console (though it’s an odd use of valuable space) and the physical button on the driver’s left dash to turn off the fuel-saving engine stop/start system. But the ignition stop/start button and the button to activate the HUD are obscured by the steering wheel. The drive mode button is low on the left side of the dash, but the screen that it activates to show the selected mode is on the center infotainment display, far away from where the driver is looking while making the selection.

It’s a strange workaround that you have to hit “L” on the steering wheel to use the paddle shifters. Sure, it prevents the driver from making an inadvertent up- or downshift when they intend to adjust the volume or use the media skip buttons that are hidden behind the steering wheel. The more conventional solution would be to allow the paddles to activate manual shifting anytime they’re squeezed and place the paddle shifters away from the media controls.

Engine noise

Following on the heels of the Traverse and Acadia, we pretty much knew what to expect with the Enclave’s engine: noise, and plenty of it. But somehow it seems even worse in the Buick. It’s barely acceptable at low RPM and with a light load, but pile in six more people, and the resulting effort required by the engine really ramps up the noise. One tester said that a passenger remarked that it sounded “like the engine is hurting,” while another likened it to “screaming.” The engine sound is more high-pitched and hollow than in the other two GM SUVs. Some testers also heard an odd harmonic resonance, like a trumpet sound, coming through at around 4,500 RPM. This engine sound isn’t a luxury experience at all.

It’s a shame because otherwise, the Enclave is pretty quiet, with good isolation from wind and road noise. It’s like a horror movie: The noise is coming from INSIDE the Enclave!!!

Driving position

As with the Traverse, a number of drivers criticized the placement of the left footrest, noting that it was too close to the driver and had an angle that was too upright. For them, this meant a tendency to not sit squarely, causing discomfort on trips short and long. One tester said it was so uncomfortable that had they been on a test drive, it would have stopped them from buying this SUV.

Fit and finish

The Enclave’s interior is pretty nice. But $58,000 nice? We aren’t so sure. It’s certainly better than the Traverse and Acadia, which each cost $49,000. There are soft touches here and there, exposed stitching on some panels and the seats, and chrome trim. Plus, the big curved display gives the Buick’s cabin a high-tech look. But that’s pretty much it, just a few “special” touches that differentiate it from the other two GM SUVs. The Enclave’s cabin can’t compete with the luxury found in the Acura MDX or Infiniti QX60.

Emergency flasher location

As with other GM vehicles, the emergency flasher button sits high above on the overhead console, out of the driver’s line of sight. It’s nestled among other buttons for OnStar and making an SOS call. This completely disregards safety because the emergency flasher button should be easy to spot and press quickly—for example, to warn drivers behind you on a fast-moving road that traffic ahead has suddenly come to a stop. In fact, one tester inadvertently called OnStar when pulling up to a curbside mailbox and trying to turn on the flashers.

We’ve hit on this topic in reviews and tests of nearly every recent GM model, from conventional SUVs to EVs (including the ones built for Honda), and even though it’s technically a “control,” it requires being called out separately. It’s just a too-small, poorly located button that feels like an afterthought.

What We'll Keep an Eye On

Handling

Soggy. Wandering. Big and heavy. Not sporty. Less sharp. Our testers had a lot of words to describe the Enclave’s handling, but they weren’t the best words. In general, the Enclave drives much like the large SUV it is. Body roll builds up quickly through turns, and the vague steering doesn’t give the driver much information about where the tires are pointed. So far, the Enclave hasn’t done much to live up to the Sport Touring trim level name.

Visibility

Yes, yes … keeping an “eye” on visibility. On the plus side, the Enclave has large windows all-around, including a rear quarter window that’s far more useful than the one on either the Traverse or Acadia. The side windows are tall and long, and the side mirrors are of a good size to be useful but also mounted low enough that they aren’t in the way. But most of the roof pillars are thick, particularly the windshield pillars, which are very chunky at the base. This makes it a challenge to peer around them at intersections. While wide, the rear window isn’t very tall. Compounding the problem is that the display for the backup camera and 360-degree surround camera is very small.

Fuel economy

Drivers have reported seeing 22 to 24 mpg on the trip computer in mixed city, suburban, and highway driving. In our tests, both the Traverse and Acadia got 20 mpg overall.

Safety and Driver Assistance Systems

The Traverse comes standard with automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, blind spot warning, rear cross traffic warning with reverse automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, adaptive cruise control, automatic high beams, and sign recognition. Some safety warnings can be communicated via vibrations to the driver’s seat.

We also added the Super Cruise Package to our Enclave, which includes the active driving assistance system that allows hands-free operation on many highways, along with a driver attention monitor and active parking assistance. We’ve seen that GM has continued to expand the network of roads that Super Cruise is available on.