Video: 2014 Buick Encore Review

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 X-3s and the Honda CR-Vs of the world? You're about to find out. Now, if you're shopping these cars, these sort of in-betweeners here, Buick isn't your only choice. There's other cars like the BMW X1, and Audi's forthcoming Q3 that kind of play a little bit in this space, but even for that crowd, the Encore is very small, overall length, less than 193 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 grill here. There's a lot of lower cladding on most Encores. You can get rid of some of that look by getting a $995 white tri-coat pearl paint option that matches the lower cladding with the rest of the paint 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 four cylinder that's shared with the Chevy Cruze and the Chevy Sonic. Now, you might think that engine belongs more in a lawnmower 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, downshifts. Ride quality continues to be soft like the Buick norm, but one thing we've noticed, it's a little bit bad in terms of isolation versus other Buick cars. Part of that might be because there's standard 18-inch wheels and the wheel base on the Encore, only about a hundred inches there. So, pretty short in that area. Still, it's comfortable enough, especially around town, and the Encore's 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 gonna want better cabin materials than the non-luxury norm, and I gotta say, the Encore delivers. Nice premium touches like headliner that goes all the way down the A-pillars, here, and consistent materials all around the upper dash and the doors that even extend to the rear doors, as far as soft padded stuff where your arms and your elbows fall. The fake wood trim and 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 downsides here. The driver gets an arm rest, 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 Encore's dual glove compartments. Buick's 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 dash, which has a ton of buttons on it. Now, despite the encores small size, it has 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 Encore's 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, there's about 50 cubic feet of room. That's a little bit of an antiquated process here. You gotta fold these cushions forward here. You gotta kind of tumble them forward, and then you gotta 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 forward, so 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 the Encore, or any of its immediate competitors have. First year reliability for the Encore has 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 10 standard airbags. Now, in Buick's 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. (upbeat music) (engine revs)