- sedan 132,099
- 6,995 high price
- Gallipolis, OH
-
- autoshopper.com
2005 buick lacrosse review this car review is specific to this model, not the actual vehicle for sale. New midsize sedan is smooth, comfortable, roomy. introductionthe 2005 buick lacrosse replaces both the regal and the century as buick's midsize sedan, representing 50 percent of buick's annual car sales. Buick says it has the competition, specifically the ford five hundred, dodge intrepid, honda accord, and toyota camry, beat on a number of fronts, including quietness and overall refinement. This is a car that was well on its way to completion when gm vice-chairman and product guru bob lutz joined the company, and charged the buick team to delay the program one year, get the car right, and then introduce it. It's pretty clear that the wait, and the extra effort and money invested into the program, were worth it. lacrosse is not an all-new car by any means. It's built in canada on gm's w-car intermediate platform, one of the oldest in the gm chassis inventory. But about 80 percent of the parts and systems underneath are new, along with new interior and exterior designs. the lacrosse has a rich, high-quality looking interior with attractive woodgrain trim, nicely presented instruments and controls and available leather seats with nice-looking gathered stitching. Buick's quiet tuning has made the new lacrosse one of the quietest, most pleasant cars to ride and drive in among the entire class. the lacrosse rides smoothly and quietly, but its steering is much more precise than previous models and it turns into corners crisply with little body lean. The v6 engines offer good power, growling under acceleration, but smooth and quiet when motoring along, and the transmissions work flawlessly. new features make a well-equipped lacrosse a safe, all-weather family car with nice conveniences. The cx 22,835) is the base model and it comes with cloth upholstery and manually operated air conditioning. The lacrosse cx is powered by a cast-iron 3. 8-liter overhead-valve v6 engine that was first introduced in buicks back in 1979, the continuously improved and now rated at a modest 200 horsepower. Anti-lock brakes (abs) are optional. the middle model, the cxl 25,335), comes with leather upholstery, automatic climate control, abs, and quite a list of additional standard equipment. The cxl also uses the 3. 8-liter engine. the cxs 28,335) is the performance car of the family, with gm's new high-feature 3. 6-liter v6 with modern double overhead cams and variable valve timing develops about 240 horsepower. The cxs gets its own suspension and steering system, 17-inch tires and wheels, and a raft of additional touches like driving lights under the front bumper. the lacrosse is available with five- or six-passenger seating: either bucket seats with a center console and shifter or a 40/20/40 bench seat with the shifter on the steering column. Standard features include tilt wheel, remote keyless entry, power driver's seat, programmable power locks, power windows, and a six-speaker am/fm/cd system. All models come standard with onstar including a one-year subscription. options include side curtain air bags 395), stabilitrak chassis control on the cxs model only 495), xm satellite radio 325 with one-year free subscription), power sunroof 900), remote starting 150), heated front seats 295), 17-inch chrome wheels 695), and a chrome package 295). A gold convenience option package 1,150) is offered with a leather steering wheel with redundant climate and audio controls, a universal transmitter, auto-dimming rearview mirror, heated outside mirrors, six-way power passenger seat, rear park assist, and rear reading lamps. Two cast aluminum wheels are available, one 16-inch and one 17-inch. walkaroundlacrosse is unmistakably a buick sedan, with its trademark vertical bar waterfall grille, long nose, long slopes and simple body curvatures. They've added a tiny third side window behind the c-pillar to add some visual interest. About the only new design theme is at the rear, where there is a discernible dent in the decklid that ties the taillamps together. There is a single, slender chrome side spear on the doors and body in lieu of anything sportier. the base lacrosse cx comes with 16-inch wheels and bolt-on faux alloy wheel-covers and has almost no decoration at all. Body, door, and fender gaps are noticeably smaller than on the regal and century, and the new aero headlamps are said to be 35-percent brighter. Cx models can be identified by a grained graphite-color finish on the rocker panels underneath the doors, while other models have these panels in body color. gm's aging w-car architecture has been torn apart and put back together to improve the lacrosse's ride and handling by several orders of magnitude. The old steel front cradle has been replaced by a lighter, stronger, stiffer extruded aluminum one that holds the engine, transaxle, steering and suspension tighter, controls powertrain rocking, and weighs 20 pounds less. buick says the new car is designed with more high-strength steel content than regal and century, a magnesium cross-car beam behind the instrument panel, another cross-car beam behind the rear seats, steel reinforcements in the rocker panels, interlocking door latch system, high-strength steel door beams, and a double-thick quiet steel floor pan and firewalls, all added in the name of crash safety and quietness. Altogether, buick says, about 40 additional pounds of sound deadeners have been added to the car, including structural foam in the front fenders. interiorthe buick designers were given a much longer wheelbase, two inches longer than the old century and regal. And all of it was dedicated to back seat legroom. My 6-foot, 4-inch frame can sit behind a 6-foot, 4-inch driver with plenty of room to spare now. the lacrosse interior is altogether new and different from the cheapie regal and century rent-a-car interiors. There are fewer but larger individual pieces, built to closer tolerances, for a richer, higher quality look inside. The instruments and controls are presented in white on black, and each of the three round dials in the deeply tunneled instrument panel has a chrome ring around it. Very nicely presented, sportier-looking than previous instruments, with small-diameter chrome-ringed knobs arrayed around the dashboard. the center stack is done in a mica-flecked flat black, with a trip computer and driver information system that's easy to put through its menu, though the information panel is so glossy that it's hard to read in the morning or afternoon light. The entire dashboard is decorated with a very good imitation woodgrain material. Taken together, the system has made the new lacrosse one of the quietest, most pleasant cars to ride and drive in in the entire class. new optional features available on the lacrosse that were never available on the century or regal include a remote starting system that will work from up to 500 feet away, onstar, xm satellite radio, and stabilitrak, and if we were ordering a lacrosse, we would add all of these excellent systems to make a truly complete, safe and all-weather family car. driving impressionwe drove all of the lacrosse models at the car's introduction in northern michigan. Both of the available v6 engines have been tuned to give a nice, healthy growl on full throttle, but disappear into the background in high-gear cruising. the standard 3. 8-liter engine is rated at 200 horsepower and 225 foot-pounds of torque, a cast-iron v6 that's been fitted with electronic throttle control (etc), a stiffer crankshaft, an underhood silencer, new pulleys, new power steering, and a structural oil pan all in the name of less mechanical noise. With all of its new parts, the 3. 8 is the same gutsy v-6 it's always been, with good torque on demand, smooth, quiet operation, and 29 miles per gallon on the highway in the new car. the new 3. 6-liter, the so-called high-feature v6, with double overhead cams and electronic throttle control has quite a bit more horsepower and torque, revs more freely, but comes only in the cxs (at a $3,000 price penalty). The final numbers are expected to be 240 horsepower at 6000 rpm and 230 foot-pounds of torque at 3200 rpm, and 28 mpg. the transmissions in all three versions worked flawlessly. The optional stabilitrak suspension package comes with magnasteer ii power steering. we found the csx more sporty to drive through the trees on an autumn day in northern michigan. The steering has the same good feel and turn-.
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