[Christina07]

After researching prices at many different dealers, I found one offering the best price so far on the Enclave. The only problem is they are asking for a $1000. non refundable deposit. They say it is because the car is a "special order". I don't see why as I am sure they could easily sell it otherwise. cocoa ext/cashmere with the nav. dvd, sunroof & 8 pass seating. I am also concerned on how long the actual wait time will be. They say 4 -6 weeks, but that sounds a bit low to me.

also, is anyone concerned about the reliability of Buick? My husband is giving me a hard time as I want to give up my Infiniti QX56 for the Enclave. He believes that import is the only way to go and is quite surprised that I am actually considering a Buick.

 

[Centurion]

Christina, for several years, the J.D. Power and Associates initial quality and long-term reliability surveys have ranked Buick ahead of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Infiniti, and all of the European nameplates -- second only to Lexus. Buick has likewise ranked consistently better than all of the other U.S. nameplates. I suspect that you will find that a Buick would be significantly less costly to maintain and repair than your Infiniti.

This is a case where the perception of many car buyers is not accurate. We've all heard for so many years that imports are better that it requires a shift in thinking to realize that many domestics are competitive in terms of quality. Many people lump all American cars together. Car buyers are perfectly willing to differentiate between the quality of a Toyota and a Mitsubishi; they should be equally willing to recognize that a Buick is different from a Dodge or Jeep. The Buick is typically a more reliable vehicle.

 

[coopermine]

Well, I always wonder how those surveys are being done?

My neighbor has two Buicks both are Century one for himself and other one for his wife. I have always seen those cars parked at home showing that they are reliable and never sleep at the workshop. But these guys hardly drive them. If you go to them they will rate them as number one. Simply because they never had an issue but that could be due to the fact that they have driven those less than 25,000 miles in last 5/6 years!

I think Buick is coming number two since the average Buick driver drives the car less than 15 miles a day and only 2 days a week at no faster than 25 miles an hour.

 

[Centurion]

Well, let's see, I've driven my Buick LeSabre 170,000 miles with scarcely a problem, and it's still going strong. The Buick drivers I know certainly do not fit into the description you've just offered. We DRIVE our cars.

 

[coopermine]

My understanding is that almost all GMs are pretty much the same under the skin within their comparable family for example Acaida, Encalve and Outlook. They are being assembled at the same plant, sharing similar parts. So why is Buick is ranked 2nd and all other in bottom or at least after Honda, Toyota etc? My guess is simply because fewer Buicks are being sold compared to Chevy, GMC and Caddys and on top the owners do not drive them as much as the other cousins in the GM family.


By the way 170K out of any vehicle is pretty impressive, I hope that Enclave would be as good as your LaSabre :thumb:

 

[Centurion]

First off, the other GM cars are not being ranked at the bottom. Chev, Saturn, GMC, and Cadillac are all ranking above average. Among the GM brands, only Pontiac has fallen below average. All Chrysler products are below average, as are many of the European brands.

In the case of the Lambdas, it is true that the Enclave shares its mechanicals with the GMC and Saturn versions. But, if you take the product line at large, the Buicks and Cadillacs have not fully shared components across the GM lineup and the cars are not necessarily built in the same assembly plants. There has been more product differentiation than you might assume.

I doubt whether the assumption you've made that Buick owners drive less than do owners of other brands holds water.

 

[coopermine]

I guess MKaresh's website may tell us the real deal since he does the math differently. We just need to get enough Encalves sold and registered at his site, hopefully in next 3-6 months.

 

[admin]

Since this site probably represents more enclave owners than any other (as far as I can find), I would highly recommend you do exactly as coopermine suggests. As soon as you get your Enclave, post a note here about being our newest owner, go directly to http://www.truedelta.com and sign up! This is an extremely valuable resource since it collects and collates all of our Lambda issues into one database and shares that with GM. We'll not only see how our reliability compares with other cars, but we'll be providing extremely valuable feedback directly to the manufacturer on issues that affect us in the most comprehensive way possible.

I've been registered with my acadia there since I got it and it's very fast and easy. It takes literally seconds per month to fill out the simple form, so there's really no reason not to do it.

 

[mkaresh]

Thanks for mentioning the research, guys. I'll have reasonably solid results in August. I posted some preliminary results for the Acadia and Outlook yesterday, but they're based on an insufficient sample, and thus asterisked. Those early results show the repair rate a bit high, a bit under one repair trip per year on average. But repair rates often start out a bit high for first-year vehicles then quickly improve as the manufacturer finds and corrects initial problems. By now they've likely ironed out a few such things with these vehicles.

I'd be more concerned if the repair rate was very high right off the bat, which it isn't.

I should note that my repair rates excludes reflashes, which have been pretty common with these vehicles. But I exclude those because they're almost as simple and quick as software updates for your computer--the main difference being you have to go to the dealer to have the reflash performed--and increasingly common.

One person recently suggested to me that reflashes will eventually take place through OnStar. I can see that happening.

The latest results:

TrueDelta Vehicle Reliability Survey results

 

[mkaresh]

I should add that most months no actual response is required. The way the process works is that owners fill out a survey for a repair the month after it takes place, and other than that report an approximate odometer rating quarterly. Most months you do nothing, though you have the option of clicking on a "check-in" link to stop follow-up emails.