- This is the new 2024 Buick Envista.
It's a brand new nameplate from Buick
and it's the cheapest Buick you can buy in America,
but is it any good?
Let's go take a look.
It certainly looks good.
This is what Buick says is the first full implementation
of their new styling theme that we first saw embodied
in the Buick Wildcat show car from a couple of years ago.
While the Wildcat certainly looks good as a two-door coupe,
this is a four-door crossover coupe style of things,
so it's not necessarily as big as a full-sized SUV
or even a compact SUV,
it does have this swoopy lower roof line.
The styling elements from the Wildcat mostly show up
in the front, however.
These are not your headlights, these are LED running lights,
the headlights are actually below those.
This is the Sport Touring trim, the ST,
so it's supposed to be the mid-level sporty model
and not the big luxurious Avenir,
and so you get things like blacked out trim,
blacked out grill, and 19-inch blacked out wheels as well.
If the overall shape of the new Envista looks familiar,
that's because it shares a lot of its bones
with the new Chevrolet Trax that's just appeared
in Chevy showrooms.
However, in terms of the Buick showroom,
this thing actually slots in below the Encore GX,
which is a little unusual because this thing
is actually bigger than the Encore GX and less expensive.
However, the styling is really the point here.
It is very much a swoopy roof line crossover coupe style
and that means that it actually has a hatchback,
not a trunk, and the hatch is pretty useful.
You've got quite a decent amount of space back here,
you could fit a couple of decent suitcases back here,
drop the rear seats and have even more storage,
so there's actually plenty of room in this thing,
despite the fact that it has that low roof line.
The interior of the new Envista
is perhaps one of the more surprising areas
because it is a subcompact crossover coupe,
but it is spacious in here, even for a big guy like me.
Plenty of width, plenty of length,
even with this optional sunroof, plenty of headroom,
my head doesn't hit the ceiling in the front
or in the back seat.
Material quality in here is acceptable.
Buick is supposed to be a premium brand
but this interior is only a little bit premium,
it's really not that much nicer than the Chevrolet Trax,
which is only a couple thousand dollars less expensive.
You've got some soft touch plastics here and there
but there are some hard touch plastics as well,
both in the front and in the back.
The material quality becomes entirely hard plastic
in the back seat, so that does drop off.
You can see where they shaved some cost out of the interior.
Things like there's no height adjustable seat belts,
there's no rear window wiper,
which is potentially a problem given how horizontal
that rear window is.
However, the rest of the interior, quite nice.
You've got a standard digital gauge cluster,
that's an 8" cluster in front of you,
and an 11" touchscreen next to it.
The graphics, however, are a little bit simple,
which is a little unusual given the fact
that you have a fully digital gauge cluster
and dashboard to play with.
The fact that there isn't more customization shows
that they didn't spend
a whole lot of money making it interesting.
It's also a little bit dim, which I find interesting.
Out here in the bright sunlight, this gauge cluster itself,
which you can reconfigure in only really one of two ways,
doesn't feel very bright or obvious to me,
so even with the brightness turned all the way up,
it still seems like it fades out a little bit.
The actual 11" touchscreen itself is easy to use,
but again, has some limited functionality.
You can connect Apple CarPlay or Android Auto wirelessly,
which is nice, that's standard.
That's actually something you can't do on most Hyundai's
and Kia's with their large infotainment systems,
because that's still not a feature that they allow.
Automatic climate control is here as well,
and the rest of this interior, like I said,
it's comfortable, it's nice,
it's a good step up from a Chevy Trax,
but calling it a premium interior,
I think that might be stretching things a bit.
But to answer the question of whether or not
the new Envista is any good,
of course, you have to drive it,
and that's perhaps where the new 2024 Envista
is the most surprising.
You see, it actually is pretty good to drive.
It's powered by a turbocharged 1.2 liter, 3-cylinder engine,
making just 137 horsepower,
and if that doesn't sound like a lot,
that's because that's really not a lot.
However, the way they've tuned this thing
is that it produces most of its torque way down low
in the rev range, so it actually feels really quite peppy.
Could it use more power?
Yeah, it could use more power.
Does it need more power?
No, it actually doesn't.
Acceleration is pretty brisk,
even with a big guy like me on board,
and if you're getting on the highway
or even trying to do some passing maneuvers,
it still has a decent amount of power,
so I don't think that it feels underpowered,
I think acceleration is frankly perfectly good.
Perhaps the more surprising aspect of how the Envista drives
is just how quiet it is.
Yeah, Buick makes a whole lot of noise, eh,
about tuning their vehicles to be more quiet
than a lot of the other brands,
but you don't really realize it
until you're out on a highway
and realize that the only thing that you're hearing
is a little bit of tire noise.
There's no wind noise in this thing,
and even the engine noise is pretty muted.
The engine is made to a 6-speed automatic transmission,
and that's not a lot of gears in today's day and age,
usually you're seeing things like 8 or 9
or even 10-speed transmissions,
but the 6-speed that's in this thing
actually works quite well.
It shifts very smoothly, it's quiet,
and even on the highway,
when you're going about 70 miles an hour,
the engine is really only turning over
at about 23, 2400 RPM, which is fairly low in the rev range,
so you're not getting a lot of drone and loud engine noise,
which you might expect from, quite frankly,
a small three-cylinder engine.
The steering is pretty over-boosted.
It's meant really more for comfort and ease of driving
than any kind of sporting pretense, and that's all right,
this really isn't a sports car,
I don't expect it to behave like a sporty vehicle,
despite the fact that this is the Sport Touring model.
Still, that's not really why you buy one of these things.
You buy one of these because it's comfortable,
it seats five people, and it actually does seat five people.
That back seat has a flat floor well in it,
so given the fact that you can only get this vehicle
with front-wheel drive, there is no all-wheel drive option,
there's no need to have a tunnel connecting
the front and rear axles, so there's no drive shaft,
there's no auxiliary way of getting power
from the front to the back,
it's only a front-wheel drive vehicle.
If you're looking for all-wheel drive
in a small Buick crossover,
well, they would be happy to introduce you to the Encore GX,
which is a little more expensive
but a little smaller than this one,
but does come with optional all-wheel drive
and a more powerful engine if you want it.
But again, I don't think this thing needs more power.
It's adequate just as it is,
and if they wanted to make a more powerful version,
yeah, it'd probably be fun,
but you've already got a decent amount of torque steer
if you're powering out of a corner or at a dead stop,
so I don't think that more power is necessarily gonna be
the answer to any of this thing's issues.
And it really doesn't have very many issues,
the visibility is good, the comfort is good,
these seats are a little flat, but not too bad.
Overall, it's just a really pleasant driving experience,
and given how much this thing costs,
well, that's even more surprising.
The new '24 Envista is on sale now at Buick dealers
and the prices range from about $24,000 to start
all the way up to a fully loaded Avenir for around $31,000.
Now, that is quite the bargain price,
especially for a vehicle that's this quiet and refined
and spacious inside and even gets decent fuel economy.
Considering the average new price of a car these days
is about 46 to $48,000,
that Buick price really does look nice.
If you'd like to learn more about the new '24 Envista,
you can look everything up at cars.com.
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