That's a Buick? Nice surprise! 2025 Buick Envista review

We've got the Buick and Vista. The Buick version of the Chevy Trax. Oh, you're letting the front tires rip there, Andrea. Wow. This little car, it's amazing. I can't believe it. On paper, you're like, nah. But when you drive it, you're like, yeah. So let's get into what's under the hood of this thing. A 1.2 liter turbocharged three cylinder with a six speed automatic transmission, 137 horsepower and 162 pound feet of torque. This is front wheel drive only. As I mentioned already, this is based on the same platform as the Chevrolet Trax, but they do make it into a Buick. So let's get into the key standard features of the Vista. The base trim comes with an 11 inch diagonal touchscreen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, an eight inch diagonal driver display, six speaker audio system, heated steering wheel, cloth and leather upholstery, heated front seats, eight way power driver's seat, four way manual passenger seat, manual liftgate and Buick driver confidence. In the U.S., not all these features are standard, including a power driver's seat and a heated steering wheel. But they are available. One thing they do at Buick, Andrea, and I think they do it really quite well, is what's called quiet tuning. They tune the car to be quieter than, say, the Chevrolet Trax version. Are you enjoying it? I am enjoying it. I'm pleasantly surprised. I remember when we were at the drive event from Vista and I couldn't believe the power that this offers because you think about the horsepower and you're like, that's not a lot, but it's that torque number. It's 162 pound feet of torque. And boy, it makes a world of difference. And the fact it does not use a continuously variable transmission, it uses a six speed automatic transmission, and it gives you very lively responsiveness. It's a satisfying vehicle to drive. When you drive it, you're like, oh, forget about the numbers. Just the seat of your pants. You can feel that this is actually a fun little car to drive. And do you think that quiet tuning stuff works? Yeah, it does work. It is quieter than the Trax, for sure. One thing I like about Buick and Chevrolet, they do a really good job with making the suspension comfortable. I was going over a speed bump, a couple of them, in a school zone, and I just couldn't believe for the price, like this is a real value player, how good it was. OK, so why would you get the Buick over the Chevrolet Trax? It's the same platform. It's the same engine. Both of them are front wheel drivers only. It comes down to aesthetic on the outside. We're going to talk about that in a moment. And it's some of the little small features we talked about that they do for Buick, which does give it a slightly more upscale feel when you're driving it. And a lot of it comes down to acoustics. But there's nothing wrong with either choice. And Andrew is absolutely right. Both of these vehicles are value plays and they've replaced the small car. So people are like, I used to have a front wheel drive small car. Now I can get a utility. And that's exactly what Buick said when they launched this in Vista. They said, look, we're going after young professionals who maybe aren't part of the Buick portfolio and young families because here you get into a vehicle that offers the versatility of an SUV versus a sedan. I remember being a young guy. Andrea was just not that long ago. Sure. I learned to drive on a Buick. My very first car that I bought was a Buick. My stepfather had a Buickless Sabre station wagon. My mom had a Buick Century. I beat the hell out of that thing. She has no idea. So I have an affinity for the brand. But well, interesting to see if other people do. And stick around for questions, coffee and cars, because there's a good question about why does J.D. Power rank this in Vista so high? And one of the big differences between Buick and Chevrolet is the way it looks. This is a much more elegant and polished and upscale looking vehicle for the Chevy tracks. They tried to make it a little bit more outdoorsy, especially with that active trim. Sure. What do you think of the way it looks? I really love the look of this. It's sporty. It's sleek. It has a flowing roof line and kind of looks like a hatchback. Really? That's kind of what it is, really. If you think about it, you could have called it a if you're very European, you call it a shooting break. Yeah. Do you know what that means? Kind of like, is it a wagon? Is it not? Is it a hatchback? It is what it is. And I think that on style, they did a very nice job. This is the ST model. We had the Avenir to drive the first time around. This one has the blacked out look. I think I prefer the Avenir myself. I am actually really enjoying this with the red exterior. You've got black wheels, black exterior accents, a black grill. One thing that is missing on the Invista and both times that we drove the Invista, it didn't rain. It doesn't have a rear wiper. So I've never experienced whether we need one or not. For those who own an Invista, let us know. Can you believe it's been a whole week in Vancouver and it hasn't rained? I'm shocked. All right. So now we're up at higher speeds, Andrea. What do we need to put it in? Got to put it in. Ask for subscribe. And if you can hit that notification bell, you'll be notified when all of our reviews drop and then you can watch them. And we do this. A couple car review twice a week. The first one drops on Wednesday. We put another one out on Saturday. Let's we're at higher speeds now. See if the torque still works. Look at this. Well, it makes a little bit of a noise. A little bit. It's actually, yeah. But you get up to speed pretty fast. You got to remember what this is replacing. It's replacing a compact front wheel drive car. Yeah. And you know what? Mission accomplished. We've done a good job. So what what what is the what link, Andrea? Oh, they've got an available watts link suspension on this model. All right. So that is an arm in the middle of the rear trailing arm that gives you better handling in the corners. We've driven the tracks without it and then this with it. And it's hard to really know. You'd have to go somewhere aggressive and really try it out. It's perfectly competent for everyday commuting, for sure. For sure. And the price is just right. So if you are on a tighter budget, this is definitely a good option for you. The Invista comes standard with LED headlamps, 17 inch wheels, available 18 inch and 19 inch wheels. And how about this? It gets a compact spare tire. Well, the inside of this is a slightly different look than the Chevrolet tracks. I don't really see a big enough jump, in my opinion. They've added some chrome features to maybe justify a higher price. That's for you to decide. But I think that the overall experience here, considering that you had to consider the price is actually a pretty nice experience. It is a nice experience. I mean, there's some piano black. I like how they went with like a matte finish on the doors. There's some blue stitching in here. The seats are pretty comfortable. A little bit of storage here at the center console, but it's actually quite deep. And the door pockets are good. Now, there are some features that the Invista doesn't get, and we would expect that. But I'm still going to let you know what they are. There's no driver's seat memory. There's no ventilated front seats, heated rear seats and a power passenger seat. I do miss the height adjustment here because I feel like I'm sitting a little bit low. It's funny because I think I'm sitting too high over there. Really? But I got the torso of a giant. I that's the thing. We want options, Buick. We want to lift it up for Andrew and we want to drop it down for Zork. So that would be nice. Just give us one of those ratchet things. But overall, considering the price, I think that they've done a nice job. Is it really a premium offering on the inside? I wouldn't say that. I would say it's a good, competent, everyday commuter. I mean, these screens, this is a 19 inch diagonal display. It's standard and it comes standard with leatherette and cloth upholstery. You can also get leatherette and leather. There are just a few other available features. They include a wireless charger, power liftgate, which is really quite rare in this class, a moonroof plus park assist. Well, here's the back seat and you can see that it has a perfectly flat floor, which gives you a lot of room when you get inside. You can stretch out quite nicely. Good legroom, good headroom. But where the heck is the armrest? How does it stack up? Comparing the Invista to other subcompact crossovers like the Volkswagen Taos and Honda HR-V, the Invista offers 41.9 inches of front row legroom, which is almost two inches more than the Taos, but equal to the HR-V. Second row legroom at 38.7 inches is big for this class, beating out both the Taos and HR-V by up to an inch. And this does have the power liftgate option. As I mentioned, really quite rare in this class of vehicle. Nice size cargo area. Under the floor, there is a temporary spare tire. How does it stack up? Space behind the second row at 20.7 cubic feet. And overall cargo capacity at 42 cubic feet is small and less than both the VW and Honda. All right, let's get into your questions. Time now for questions, coffee and cars. Your questions from Instagram. Is the Invista made in China? It is not. South Korea. It's the Envision. That is made in China. But by the way, because it's not electric, it doesn't have the 100% tariffs. Yes, that's right. It has the 25% in the US. Yes. Any thoughts on how or why the Invista is J.D. Power's number one small SUV? Not typically top of mind. J.D. Power says it defies expectations. It does. At the beginning of the video, we're driving it like it's uncanny. And if you want to do this on a budget, you just do the Trax version by Chevrolet. And they've done an amazing job. I would suspect that it's also a combined cumulative over the years. And people aren't aware of this, but Buick index is well above the industry average, near the very top of J.D. Power quality scores year after year after year. So they're just building off that, I think, too. Yeah. And the overall score for the Invista is 87 out of 100. That's high. 85 out of 100 for reliability. And this may or may not surprise you, but dealership experience, 93 out of 100. So Buick is doing something right. The one thing I know the Internet is they're going to be clanking away on the keyboard right now. But what about when it hits 120,000 miles or whatever? Yeah, we're going to have to wait and see on this little engine and how it's going to hold up. We don't know about reliability long term, what's the longevity of. But GM has had some success making smaller engines in Korea for some time. All right. If you want to get a question in for a future video, make sure to follow along on Instagram. It's MotorMouth underscore Andrea. Plus, you'll see what's going on behind the scenes. For me, it's MotorMouth underscore Otto. And the links are below the like button. Is the engine the same as the Chevy Trailblazer? Trailblazer actually has two powertrain options. So it's the exact same as Trax. It's the same platform pretty much, except for some changes we talked about earlier. But Trailblazer also built on this platform. They have a 1.2 turbo and a more powerful 1.3. So a slightly larger displacement, relatively the same underneath. The big difference with that one is all-wheel drive. And we don't get all-wheel drive with this. No, we don't have an all-wheel drive option. And some have asked about that on Instagram. I think that Buick and Chevrolet just wanted to keep the price down. And we did ask them about this at the InVista Drive event. And they said, you know what? If you want all-wheel drive, we do offer it with the Trailblazer and the InVision. And the Encore. And now it's time for our hot topic. What's this one, Andrea? Is there a hybrid option for either InVista or InVision? If not, do they plan to introduce one anytime soon? Well, we had the head of Buick here in Vancouver for the auto show. And we grilled him. We said, why are there no hybrids? I think they're missing a great opportunity to have, you know, an electrified portfolio. Good for them in General Motors. But I think they're missing something here. We were also with Cadillac and Chevrolet at the same meeting. And we said, look, you need hybrids in the mix. And they said, we're monitoring the market. But Toyota, if you ask them, they're going to tell you you need hybrids. They don't need to monitor the market. They need to go to the auto mall and go and see the Toyota dealer and how many hybrids they're selling. They can't make enough of them. We said this to Nissan. We said this to Honda. It's just, you know, it's the right technology for today. It might not be 10 years from now, but you're selling cars today. And that's what consumers want, a hybrid. All right, we've ranted enough. Now let's get into the vital stats of this Buick. Let's start with pricing. We'll do Canada first and then move on to the U.S. Pricing includes freight, PDI, and fees. The base model starts at just over $32,000. And the top trim is just over $36,500. In the U.S., the base model starts at just over $25,000. And the top trim is under $30,000. Here's the fuel economy for this 1.2-litre turbo three-cylinder. 8.4 litres per 100-kilometre city, 7.4 on the highway. That's 28 miles per gallon in the city, 32 on the highway. The warranty is three years, 60,000 kilometres, or 36,000 miles. In the United States, you get one scheduled maintenance visit included. So you want something that's subcompact and a crossover? What else can you choose? For your consideration, four vehicles for you to consider. Up first is the Honda HR-V with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder, 158 horsepower and a starting price of $33,000. The Toyota Corolla Cross with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder, 169 horsepower and a starting price of $31,000. The Volkswagen Taos with a 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, 174 horsepower and a starting price of $32,000. The cousin to this is the Chevrolet Trax with the same 1.2-litre turbocharged three-cylinder, 137 horsepower and a starting price of $28,000. So there are four subcompact SUVs for you to consider. Lightning round, two things we like, two things we'd like to see improved. For a value player, I think that Buick did a great job with the Invista. The power is uncanny. What I'd love to see is a manual height adjustment on the passenger side. That's what I was going to say. I think they did a great job. So it's nitpicking at this point. So there it is. It's the Buick Invista. Is that right? Invista. It's not the Insight? No. All right. You guys were waiting all the way through the video to see if I would get it right. There were bets on that. All right. I knew he'd say it. All right. So thanks for watching. What do you guys think of that? If you like what you see, subscribe and we'll see you next time.