Transcription
Rev up your engines today. I've got a relatively rare vehicle. It's a 2021 top-of-the-line Buick SUV. You can see top-of-the-line because it says Avenir on it. That's the top-of-the-line model. An Enclave, of course, and it's got the classic Buick crest.
Now, first, don't get confused. They sell them in China too, but the Chinese are a different vehicle. They're made in China for the Chinese market. My grandfather taught me how to fix cars. He was a Buick fanatic. He loved Buick. He's probably rolling over in his grave because they don't make cars anymore. They only make SUVs now.
For a short time, they still had that station wagon, but it wasn't really a Buick. It was a re-badged Opel, a German car, because GM used to own Opel. Just like when Cadillac used to have those cars that were just re-badged Opels. They often tried selling people cars that they say were Cadillacs or Buicks, but they're actually German cars. This is an American Buick, made in Lansing, Michigan.
Especially considering that the base model of these are about $5,500 more than the base model of the Highlander, and the top-of-the-line, it's about $6,500 more than the top-of-the-line Highlander. You're actually going to pay more for this. It is a luxury car, there's no arguing that. But most people have gone for Toyota's instead. When I was a kid, they had to advertise, "Wouldn't you really rather have a Buick?" Buick. And they were sold as luxury cars.
Now, as you look inside, you've got all kinds of space if you want to carry things. And of course, you can take the seats out and really have a lot more room. You got a lot of controls for the passengers. You got AC vents and heat vents in the top of the third-row seats. They got vents too. This is a real luxury SUV.
This is just a front-wheel drive. The rear wheels just go down the road. They're not drive wheels. If you don't need all-wheel drive, don't buy all-wheel drive. One, you pay more for. Two, it weighs more. It has extra drive wheels. They get worse gas mileage, sometimes three to five miles a gallon less than just a two-wheel drive vehicle. And they're front-wheel drive. They can go through all kinds of stuff. My mother went through Buffalo with a front-wheel drive car and didn't even put snow tires on the thing.
Okay, it's got a stupid beauty cover. So, and this one is bolted on, so I can't tear it off easily. I don't like that. Now, I do have to say, there's some strange orangish-reddish stuff all over the place. He has a squirrel issue, and so he has put cayenne pepper all over. He says it's worked so far. The squirrels aren't messing around in there. Yeah, they'll go in there when it's cold outside. They want to get warm, and they can make a nest. They can destroy your. Why not try cayenne pepper?
Now, myself, I tried cayenne pepper to keep the pigs out of the west garden. Forget that. The pigs had a taste for it. They were actually digging it up and chewing on this stuff. And I bought a gallon, put it all over the place. You can't stop pigs. He said it stopped the squirrel. They did $1,000 worth of damage, but he had full coverage, so the insurance company paid for the damage from the squirrel. I don't know how often they keep paying for it. That's why he put the pepper there. Who wants to deal with that? So, if you live in a squirrel-infested neighborhood, perhaps sprinkle cayenne pepper liberally under your hood to keep the squirrels from going in.
Now, he drives this thing sometimes in the security job. He drives fast. So he actually put drilled and slotted rotors on it. They don't come with it. This particular one's for R1 Concepts in California, and he says he doesn't get any fade. Now, the normal person isn't going to go that far. There are with luxury cars all kinds of options that you can put on later.
Realize one thing: the guy bought this, he maintains his vehicle. This car was a GMC Acadia. He put 127,000 miles on that, and he didn't have any problems. He changed the oil regularly. You have to take care of it. This is variable valve timing. It has a high-pressure fuel injection system. Now, this one doesn't have a turbo, and that's probably a good idea. Six engines have a lot of power anyway. As you put a turbo on it and raise the power, the weakest point of these is the automatic transmissions. The reason they got rid of the Acadia was because the transmission was starting to have problems at 126,000 miles. So you don't want to beat the transmissions and put a turbo on it. You want to baby it.
Now, his early one was a six-speed, and this is the new nine-speed transmission. We'll see how they hold up over time. I haven't seen any particular big problems with them yet. So, one of the reasons that he can get the good gas mileage on the highway. Now, the owner is honest. He admits with this nine-speed, sometimes the shifts feel a little wonky. Almost every single nine or ten-speed transmission and any vehicle I've driven is a little wonky because they're trying to maximize power but gas mileage at the same time. So you'll always be at a certain situation, like say, you're going 32 miles an hour and it's between gears, it might go up and down a little bit, feel a little wonky when you're going uphill or downhill. That's pretty normal for these things because they're trying to maximize power versus gas mileage. There's plenty of vehicles you can buy that have really tight shift and transmissions, and in a vehicle this size, they'll probably get 15 miles a gallon. Well, if you're getting 27 and a half, I think you'll accept a little wonky shifting every once in a while over the tremendous amount of fuel that you're gonna save.
Now, we're started up. You know, it's keyless. Everything's keyless these days. And you can see it's got the Buick emblem coming up. It's got some good setups. It's a luxury car. That's the horn. You know where the horn is. You have to look for a stalk or anything like that. And it's got wireless charging, dual climate control. I really like the colors. I got to say, they got the colors set up. A nice gigantic armrest. I hate those small ones. Got a lot of storage. You can take it apart. More storage underneath. You can either cool your electric seats or heat them up. I'm not going to heat them up. It's too hot outside. And the owner just told me he hates the electric parking brake too. But that's the way all these things are going. Why on earth would you replace a cable that you stop on that's gonna hold it really good because your feet are extremely strong with an electric button with an electric motor? More crap to break down as they age.
Now, he does live in Tennessee, so he's really not going to worry about corrosion. You live in a salty northern state, all that electronic crap, electronic parking brakes, they will rust. They'll freeze on, they'll shore it up, but they're all going to it, and there's nothing you can do about it.
As we open the back, of course, it's automatic. It's a luxury car. It's still got a reasonable trunk here with the third-row seats in there. Come out. Moving down, you got a lot more space. You can luxuriously bring a bunch of people. And check this out. The machine does it all. No hassle of having to pull them out, load them around. It's automatic. You got all this space. You can still have your other seats. But then when you want the people to come in, just push another button, and back they go. If you do have a lot of passengers, you still have some extra storage. You go under here. There's some reasonable space in here too.
But chuck it up. It has a rear-view mirror, but not just any rear-view mirror. This is not a piece of glass. I put my fingers in there, and you don't see a reflection of my fingers. You can't see me there. No, it's a completely digital camera. And you can see it's got a wide wrap-around. So, of course, at night, it's going to look better. And you don't have to worry about kids' heads getting in the way or whatever. This is completely digital. So, press this little camera button, and look what we have here. We got the whole surround view. The regular backup camera is here, but you have the regular backup camera and the rear-view one at the same time. So, like I said, with this wider angle, see, look, there's what you see. The wide angle. Here's what the regular one is. You can't even see the guy's mailbox.
Now, we'll switch from the back camera. All right. You can do some space-age things. I just push this button. Now, look what we have. There's a piece of my matrix over there, which like we're being watched by a drone from outer space. Let's push against here. Now it's like the drone is in front of the car. Look. Now the universe is is contracting upon itself like a black hole. You can have some fun with that. But I mean, as soon as you go into basic, look, got it backwards. We'll reverse it. If you're in a really tight squeeze, check it out. You're getting a really tight view there. Let's say you're next to a wall, you're doing parallel parking, you're really close. You got no excuse with this. It's these things that are really close. You can't say it's close. It's close. Well, you can see it's one finger away. So maybe you should stop there.
Let's take it for a ride. The first thing I notice is it's a real luxury car. It has no vibrations whatsoever. It's extremely quiet inside, and it definitely has pickup, even though it's not turbocharged. But as I said earlier, you can feel a little shifty laggy these nine-speed transmissions. That's just the nature of the beast. They're not going to be totally crisp shifts all the time. It's basically set up for an American who wants a luxury three-row SUV, and it's not a Toyota fanatic. Because, like I said, this equivalent model, the top-of-the-line, $6,500 more for this than you are for a top-of-the-line Highlander. I just know in history myself, generally, the Highlanders are going to last two to three times as long as one of these, or less. But I mean, like I said, the last one this guy had, similar model GM, was 127,000 miles, and he decided to trade it in and get this used. Now, he wasn't dumb. He didn't buy this new. He didn't pay the $55,000 sticker. He paid $35, so he saved $20,000 and bought one that had, at the time, 40-something thousand miles on it. Now it's got 45,815 miles on it. At least for me, it would take some getting used to.
Now, we'll take it out of the country for a little spin here. It handles the twisties pretty good for a hard-sized SUV. And we'll get to our little drag strip here, and we will come to a stop, and we'll floor it. Here we go. It actually had a little bit of wheel spin, even though it has traction control. You can see it's got very good pickup. People buying these luxury SUVs, they want pickup. And when you have that kind of pickup and you get 27.5 miles a gallon driving 75 miles on a highway, that's something you can't really complain that much about. Lane assist, parking assist, traction control that you can turn on and off. You're getting the twisties here by the airport. It handles quite well. Definitely hugs the road pretty good. I don't feel like I'm in some boxy, high-up-in-the-air, ready-to-tip-over vehicle. I feel pretty comfortable in the back seat spinning around. It is a luxury SUV, there's no arguing that.
Now, I'm a cheapskate. Would I pay $55,000 for one of these? No way. Would I pay that kind of money? It's six grand more than a fancy Toyota. I wouldn't buy the Toyota either, by the way. No, it's too expensive. I go used. Now, he saved $20 grand buying this thing. What are you going to get today for $35,000? I do have a lot of space. They cost a lot. They don't sell that many of them. They're not made in China. These are made in Lansing, Michigan. If you're thinking about getting something like this, at least take my advice. Do like he did. Buy it used.
So, if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that bell. [Music]