The 2025 Buick Enclave Is Better Than You Think!

You know for the longest time Buick has really struggled to find its own identity in the American car market and that's understandable because when you're rebranding Opels from Europe well what are you? But now we have this. This is the brand new Buick Enclave and this is the top of the line Avenir edition. And in this video we're gonna do what we usually do which is a walk around. I'm gonna go under the hood. I'm gonna talk about styling. I'm gonna go sit in the front row, the second row, third row. Yes I'm gonna sit in the third row and I'm gonna show you what's behind the third row. And at the end of this video I'm gonna tell you how much it costs. So let's start with styling. There are three models in the Enclave lineup. There's the base preferred, then it goes to the ST, and then of course you have this most luxurious top of the line Avenir. And the way you can tell an Avenir from the lower trims is partially by this grille. You can see kind of the chrome with the black and I think it looks very elegant. Dare I say luxurious. I also like these pulled back headlights which kind of give you a sense that the car is very aerodynamic. But let's look under the hood and talk about how much horsepower it has. Now of course this is one of the three GM triplets and that means that it's basically the cousin to the Chevy Traverse and the GMC Acadia and they're all powered by the same powertrain which is here. And by the way this is built in Michigan. So what we're looking at is a 2.5 liter four-cylinder turbo which puts out over 230 horsepower and it's paired to an eight-speed automatic transmission. Now you can have it in either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive but that is a two thousand dollar option on any of the models. I guess if I were living here in Portland where it doesn't snow all that much I'd probably go for the two-wheel drive because there are different drive modes including touring, sport, and of course snow. And Buick says that snow mode does well with two-wheel drive. In Colorado probably all-wheel drive. Now this top of the line does have the 22s but the lower models get 19s. But I like 22s. I want more 22s. They're nice and big. All right come on let's go inside. Let me show you something. Are you stuck Cole? Cole my videographer was stuck. There you go. Now one of the great things about this is I love the white interior with this matching, it's really chocolate isn't it? I was going to say brown, but this chocolate leather dashboard and steering wheel. It just looks very elegant. I kind of feel like brown has become the new white and white has become the new black in terms of luxury. Which is great until you have kiddos that will probably spill orange juice or grape juice all over the place. But hey you know that's up to you and not up to me. But I do love the color combination. So everything in here feels very expensive. Nothing I touch is plasticky. And look at that they've got front and rear window actuators. Unlike some other luxury cars I've recently been in. But that's a whole other story. Now Vuek will tell you one of the things that they're very proud of is this floating center section. So you could stuff things underneath like take out perhaps your purse or your purse dog. Even though I don't know if a purse dog would fit or would be very happy in there. And let me boot it up and kind of show you this magic screen. Now it isn't that long ago where screens kind of felt like they were iPads that were just tacked on to a car. But now you've got this very BMS curve screen with a lot of information. And what GM does especially well I think is colors. You've got these dark navy blues that really pop. You've got reds. It just looks very good. We just bought a Land Rover Defender and the screen's about this big. And the prominent colors seem to be gray, gray, and black. But here of course you've got a lot of deep rich colors. And you've got this as well. You've got traditional controls for your HVAC which I really love. And this Avenir edition look at that. You've got both heated and cooled seats. A heated steering wheel. And it's cool. Show them this button over here. All right these aren't haptic. These are real buttons. How cool is that? And on this side you've got something that GM is very proud of and that is Super Cruise which is autonomous driving. And when we had our Hummer EV I was able to actually drive it on thousands of miles of mapped highways without actually touching the wheel. But that's for another review. So the other thing I like about the interior is this giant sunroof. Makes it feel less claustrophobic in the back. And then of course you've got wireless charging here. You have a giant, and I do mean giant, volume knob for the radio. And then this is something that you guys are probably going to love. Both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. I'm sorry you can't see that. That's because my phone is not paired. But it does come with both along with of course Sirius FM navigation. And like I said it's relatively straightforward. Obviously phone navigation, music, apps, and then the home button. Super easy to use. Not very confusing. I also like the fact that it's got more of a traditional shifter. Of course this would be very traditional. But you know a traditional shifter that they haven't reinvented. A real stock for turn signals with your wiper controls here. Apparently a very good sound system. I'm not really good at reviewing sound systems so I don't know. But this is a Bose system. I like the textures in the speaker grill. Then over here you've got your cables. If you don't want to charge it wirelessly we have USB-C. I'm sticking in the wrong one. And of course USB ports so that you've got connectivity everywhere you go. All right let's see what it looks like in the back. Or at least the second row in this case. Now you may be wondering what does this compete with? And of course this competes with three-row cars like the Toyota Highlander or the Grand Highlander, the Palisade and Telluride twins from Kia and Hyundai. And those vehicles really set the bar in terms of interior quality and interior luxury. I remember when I first reviewed, I believe it was a Telluride. I just got done driving a BMW X5 and no it's an X7 actually. And I was just as impressed with the interior of the two, the Hyundai and the Kia as I was with the BMW. And I kind of feel the same way about the Avenir version of this car. It just feels very expensive. And I do like the fact that I've got vents up here. I've got a third zone of climate controls with automatic cup holders. In these captain's chairs I've got a very easy to bring down armrest. And I could spend a lot of time back here. Now this isn't quite stadium seating where you're kind of sitting over the first row passengers or drivers. But nevertheless it's very light. It's very airy back here and it feels very luxurious. So let's get in the way back and see if I fit. And usually the answer at 6'2 is I don't. And I don't suspect that's going to be very different in this vehicle. So yeah, I mean I've got these seats all the way back. But as you can tell, I don't have much leg room, but I do have plenty of headroom. I have more vents to keep me cool. But let's face it, this car is really in the best American tradition. I'll put this down Cole. Oh sorry. This car is really in the best American tradition meant for front row family, second row maybe grandparents, and third row kids. And I think if you're a kiddo back here will be fine. You do have more USB C ports right there. You do have nice little windows and you actually have cup holders. And it's really super easy to get in and out of this. Which is, you know, a hallmark of a third row that's been well engineered. One of the things that Buick will tell you is, and I've got this car running now so it won't work, but you remember back in the good old days when if you wanted to open this hatch and you had groceries you kind of had to do the river dance, right? You had to kick underneath here. This car has something new and that if it wasn't running you'd walk up here would beep three times and then it would open the tailgate. Unfortunately it is running so I won't do it but what I will do is I will do it the traditional way and that is press the button twice and show you how much room is back here. Check it out. A good amount of room for things like roller bags and then hiding underneath here, I've got my backpack, a pretty deep storage well. Now one of the cool things this does of course is you can you can flip, come on Roman, there we go, flip that row and then come on keep going and flip this row and that should go all the way flat. Hold on, I'll show you. I will demonstrate. I can do that. There we go. Thank you Cole. Look at that. Now that is a lot of room. I mean if you were let's say a drummer for a band and you had a lot of kit to bring with you there would be no issues whatsoever in getting all your stuff back here and so obviously this is not suburban Tahoe Yukon size but nevertheless if you do need something to haul a lot of people and you don't want a minivan this may not be such a bad choice because we know the stigma that the minivan brings. The other thing I like about this vehicle is they've kind of done what is very modern now. They've done this clear tail light across the entire back of the vehicle in the avenir. It's clear to make it a little bit more expensive and I love love love love love these giant tailpipe openings on both sides. Now at the beginning of this walk around I said I would tell you how much this vehicle costs and if you get the base model, the preferred, you're at about $45,000 and then if you get this top of the line Avenir you're certainly knocking on the door of $60,000 if not more than that and then of course the thing that you might be wondering is has Buick kind of got its stride back? Have they figured out where they kind of belong in the hierarchy of American vehicles and once upon a time Buicks and Cadillacs were kind of the top end of luxury. If you couldn't afford a Cadillac you'd get a Buick. In other words, you know, the Cadillac might be the CEO and the Buick might be your local doctor or dentist and then the Germans came along and they redefined luxury in a much different way and it wasn't all about space and it wasn't about utility. It was about, you know, can you go down the Autobahn at 120 miles an hour or 180 kilometers in comfort but that's not America. Cole, if you spin the camera around over there, you'll see that this is America, right? What we're doing in America is we're in traffic, we're taking our kids to school, we're taking our family to church, out to dinner and that has nothing to do with zipping down the Autobahn but it has a lot to do with having enough space for the entire family, being able to bring all your toys and then being able to tow. By the way, this does tow 5,000 pounds. I think with this car and the other two GM twins, we are back to what traditionally has been the American station wagon but now redefined as the Buick for the family. Anyway, guys, thank you for watching. Thank you, Buick, for flying me out here to lovely Portland to drive this car. There is a full driving review coming with driving impressions. Please stay tuned for that and Cole, who is from Portland, thank you for filming this and if you want to help support TFL, become one of our patrons and don't forget to go to alltfl.com for more news, views and real world reviews. See you guys next time. Ciao.