Buick Encore, encore - "DINK"

This is my second blog on Buick's "cute ute", the Encore. Please click here to read my first blog about quite possibly the worst vehicle GM makes today.

 



Our younger son is a sophomore at Ohio University and is a member of the school's men's singing troupe, "Singing Men of Ohio". "SMO" wrapped up their spring break tour in Cincinnati this past Saturday night and my wife and I, who take advantage of any opportunity to see him and/or his brother, made the 4 hour long traipse down I-71 to see him perform. With his brother being a junior at the nearby University of Dayton, we decided to make an over niter out of our trip and see him the next morning.

With my 2002 Monte Carlo knocking on heaven's door, our Tahoe inhaling gas at 18 miles per gallon highway and Enterprise all but throwing weekend rentals away, my wife insisted we take advantage of their promotion and rent a car from them on the cheap. Unfortunately, she didn't see the fine print in the online ad for the weekend promo that they'll zap you for 20 cents a mile if you go over 300 miles. Like discount airlines charging exorbitantly to check baggage, they have to make money someway on these promotions. Seeing how upset my wife was at herself for her over sight, the nice counter person not only waved the mileage fee, they also gave her a free upgrade. Nice. Only thing is, it was an upgrade to a Buick Encore.

It's not like she didn't consult with me on this - she did. She had a choice between a red Hyundai Elantra and this thing and I said go with the Encore knowing that she's said in the past that she thought it "cute as a button". Well, looks are deceiving. I knew we were in trouble when I came home, saw this big white bowling ball in our driveway and an annoyed looked on her face.

Right off the bat, the Buick Encore failed to impress me failing my very basic rear door slam test. Closing with an alarming and entirely unsatisfying, "DINK", I believe the last time I drove something has tin can hollow was when I skimped on myself in Nashville several years ago and I rented a Kia freakin' Rio. While it was only to scooter myself around town and back and forth to the airport, I paid through my ass physically and emotionally every time I used it. Anyway, that same sad feeling of "I coulda, shoulda, woulda" came over me test driving the Encore around our one-mile long block.

Secondly, I had almost as much difficulty getting into it as I did the Chevrolet Malibu I rented a couple of weekends ago when I was down in Florida with our older son. At least with the Malibu, the challenges I had getting into it were because of its rakish styling. On the Encore it was due to the fact that this thing is just too damn small. Isn't ease of ingress and egress one of the reason's people buy these blasted crossovers?

  

Inside, because the Encore's floor is so low and its beltline is so high, I felt as though I was sitting on a bar stool inside a small van. What's more, the center console is so low you have to bend your entire body to retrieve anything you put into it. Speaking of things that go into the center console, I always feel compelled to put the ridiculous "keyless entry/fob thing" in the console rather than keeping it in my pocket. I hate those damn things because I've misplaced them in rental cars a number of times slowing me down when I want to get out; "well, the car's running so it must still be in here". I never have to worry about losing our keys in our old cars because they're right there in the ignition. Someone, please explain to me how a push button start is an advantage over a key. I think they're gimmicky and dumb. The driving position of the Encore makes me feel as though I'm driving some big toy as opposed to driving a serious vehicle.

Turtling around our neighborhood, the Encore's 1.4 liter, turbocharged inline 4 responded well and really boogied when I nailed it on the long straightaway on the main road that leads into our development. Couple that performance with a projected 30 plus miles per gallon and that's something to write home about. Too bad the rest of the Encore just flat out sucked. Note, hood prop. On a Buick let alone a vehicle with a near $40,000 sticker? Maybe "hood prop" and "cheap car"don't go together like they once did but in my book, a vehicle costing as much as this shouldn't have a hood prop.

With 15,000 miles on the odometer, our Encore rattled, moaned and groaned and its front struts felt as though they had as much life left in them as the struts on my 155,000 mile, 16-year-old Monte Carlo, do. That's not much btw. Keep that in mind if you're considering getting one of these; it would seem they're not assembled very well if they're this creaky after only 15,000 miles. Rentals do get abused. though so there is that but, still.

Again, the driving position is really odd. The curvature of the windshield means a funky placement of the "A pillars" which means vision to the sides out the windshield is compromised. That black square thing behind the rearview mirror was stuck in the corner of my right eye making me feel as though there was something splattered on the windshield. Things I know I could get used to on our 500-mile over-niter but it's stuff I shouldn't have to get used to driving what is allegedly an entry level, premium vehicle.

Oh, one thing I really liked was the heated steering wheel. I had never driven a car with one of those and it was quite cozy; you never know what you're missing when you've never experienced something. I liked the backup camera too. Then again, a heated steering wheel and backup camera come on most every modern luxury vehicle so it's no great shakes that the Encore had them. I liked the features regardless of the fact that they were on the Encore.

To make matters worse, the damn thing pulled aggressively to the right even at low speed. Both front tires looked to be inflated properly so something was up with the front end. Not the first rental I've driven that felt as though it had been thoroughly used and abused but this Encore took that to a different level.

We dumped it off back at Enterprise and picked up the red Elantra we should have gotten in the first place and had a drama free if a somewhat boring drive to southern Ohio. The gas mileage on the Elantra was so good, incidentally, that it ran us only about $30 more to rent it than it would have been to use our Tahoe. Seeing our boys has never been more affordable.