Buick Enclave (US) review

For all of its premium aspirations, the Enclave’s ride is just as good as it needs to be. Without the Avenir’s magic dampers, it’s not the worst thing we’ve ever driven. But it is, in a word, basic. There isn’t that extra bit of softness that at least tries to convey a sense of elevated quality. Imagine buying a nice new bed frame but using the same old lumpy mattress. Yeah, that.

With that said, Buick shows some self-awareness by siloing active dampers within the Avenir trim, mitigating most of the discomfort encountered from driving on worn-out local roads. This and ‘Quiet Tuning’ differentiates itself from the other vehicles it shares hardware with, particularly when it comes to masking the tinny drivetrain.

Despite ‘tuning’ being in the name, this is more credit to the engineers in charge of the cabin rather than the suspension, but it’s worth mentioning here since it does – effectively – mask the squeaks and rattles of its generic, mainstream platform.

But it’s not taxing to drive, right?

Like we said, the Avenir trim is doing the heavy lifting here, as is the fact that the Enclave now comes with Super Cruise, so once you do get up to highway speed, you can take a metaphorical hand off the wheel while taking both hands off the physical one. Ahem.

We’re not saying the less actual driving you do of the Enclave, the better… but with so little enjoyment to derive from it you might as well offload some of the workload to the drive assist system.

Speaking of, is it sporty at all?

Again, we’ve driven worse. All 328hp from the 2.5-liter turbo-four engine is tied up in daily duty with little leftover for heavy-foot fun. While it can get up to speed reasonably quickly, there isn’t much to do in a sporty sense once you’re there. With a conventional eight-speed gearbox, you won’t receive much pushback if you try to be speedy, though it won’t help you out either.

The brakes perform just fine in normal driving situations, but they’re a little indifferent to any hoonish ambitions you might have. There’s a theme developing, isn’t there? The suspension tuning favors cautious, deliberate driving and the whole car balks at any attempt to eke out any out-of-bounds enjoyment.

All of which will keep you within touching distance of the 23mpg you’re meant to get out of the Enclave. Being discouraged to drive is a bold fuel-saving tactic, but it works.