hi I'm Kelsey mays for cars.com luxury SUV seem to be getting smaller and
smaller these days
buick drives the point home with the Affordable encore which sort of strikes
a middle ground between luxury and non luxury SUVs
so does buick have what it takes to find a sort of premium middle ground between
the BMW x3's in the honda crv the world
you're about to find out now if you're shopping these cars these sort of in
between yours here
buick isn't your only choices other cars like the BMW x1 and Audi is forthcoming
q3 that kind of play a little bit in the space but even for that crowd the encore
is very small
overall like less than a hundred and ninety three inches a traditional
non-luxury small SUV like the ford escape nearly 10 inches longer
chevy equinox GMC terrain different platforms larger vehicles as well very
different from the Encore traditional cues here a lot of them for buick things
like blue rings around the headlights here
a waterfall grille here there's a lot of lower cladding on most on court
you can get rid of some of that look by getting a 995 dollar white tricoat pearl
paint option that matches the lower cladding with the rest of the pain a
little better
around back pretty forgettable styling there reminds us of the old saturn vue
the Encore comes with front or all-wheel drive both of them employ a 1.4 liter
turbo force owner that's shared with the chevy cruze and the chevy sonic now you
might think that engine belongs more in a lot more than an SUV but with
front-wheel drive the Encore tips the scales at under 3,200 pounds that's
actually hundreds of pounds less than the german competition
it's never particularly quick but passing power is adequate
thanks in part to a six-speed automatic transmission that serves up fast if
sometimes jarring down ships ride quality continues to be soft like that
you ignore but one thing we've noticed it's a little bit bad in terms of
isolation versus other buick cars a part of that might be because their standard
18-inch wheels and the wheel base on the Encore only about a hundred inches
they're so pretty short in that area
still it's comfortable enough especially around town and the encores EPA combined
mileage 28 miles per gallon with front-wheel drive or 26 with all-wheel
drive is pretty good for an SUV
now if you're getting a premium car you're going to want better cabin
materials than the non-luxury Norman I got to say the Encore delivers a nice
premium touches like headliner that goes all the way down the a-pillars here
inconsistent materials all around the upper - and the doors that even extend
to the rear doors as far as soft padded stuff for your arms and your elbows fall
the fake wood trim in the Encore does a pretty good job of looking like the real
thing and there is real metal all the way down here by the gearshift a couple
of downsides here
the driver gets an armrest you'll notice the front passenger doesn't so they
might complain a little bit about that there's not a whole lot of storage space
down here in the center console fortunately there is in the door pockets
and in the on course
dual glove compartments Buick IntelliLink multimedia system has a lot
of features there but it's very confusing to sort through a lot of the
menus with the center part of the dance which has a ton of buttons on it now
despite the encores small size it is a very tall SUV like driving position
which enables a commanding view of the road
the backseat is pretty good packaging as well we'll show you this is where the
encores ride height pays off
you've got a nice high seating position in back here that means adults won't
have their knees kind of dangling up in the air
I'm six feet tall and that's where I would sit to drive so you can tell
there's actually surprisingly decent leg room back here and very good Headroom as
well
now behind the rear seats about 19 cubic feet of room if you fold them down in
about 50 cubic feet of room
that's a little bit of an antiquated processor you gotta fold these cushions
forward here you gotta kind of tumble them forward and then you got to put the
head restraints down and finally fold the seat backs down here to give a flat
cargo floor
the front passenger seat does fold forwards you can fit in ladders or other
tall items if you want
overall pretty competitive with the German very small premium SUV
competition
if you want more room though non-luxury small suvs do give a lot more room than
be encore any of its immediate competitors have first your reliability
for the encores come out to be pretty good but safety-conscious shoppers will
want to note that the Encore failed the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's
small overlap frontal test
despite the fact that it's got ten standard airbags now in Buicks defense
most small suvs did pretty poorly in that test as well so everyone kind of
needs to up their game
that being said buick has packaged
reasonable drivability with good passenger room and decent utility and
all important good premium interior quality in this encore
it's on sale right now
yeah