By this point of a test I've gotten very comfortable driving whatever vehicle happens ot be on the docket for the week. There's not much learning left to do and the car should feel more like "our" car. This is also when the little things the car company didn't execute at 100% start to get really annoying.
If someone was actually interested in the new LaCrosse and asked my opinion on how it drove I?d tell them you couldn?t argue with the comfort and 240 horsepower engine in the CXS. If that was all they asked me they might end up at the showroom the next day. But there is one thing that drives me absolutely nuts with this car. The buttons do not work.
I?ll clarify and say that they work, they just don?t work well or in any semblance of the normal use buttons go through. The most egregious are the environmental controls. It?s getting mighty cold outside here in Chicago so I?m adjusting the temperature, and heated seats, often. If you simply push the up arrow for more heat the command does not register. I?m not talking about a brush either, I?m talking a full force push. You have to push and hold in for an extra millisecond than normal to get it to register, and since the temperature display is so low on the dash your eyes are off the road too long when adjusting in this manner. The same holds true for the environmental modes or air direction buttons.
Now there are temperature controls on the steering wheel and they work fine. So it could be a moot point for many, but it still aggravates me. The heated seat buttons are only on the dash panel and also work in this way. They also have two settings, both of which seem too hot for me to keep on after I?ve warmed up. So you?re constantly turning them on and off.
Radio controls are pretty easy and the knobs for volume and tuning are simple and well laid out. My only beef here is with the RDS/XM information display. Usually if you select a radio like this to display the information it will scroll continuously like a ticker on CNN. Not in the LaCrosse. Here you must push the ?Display? button every time you want to see the artist information. While it may be more fun and quiz like this way it gets tiresome and the Display button is on the far side of the dash as well.
The foot brake isn?t as annoying as it was at first but I?m still not happy with it. The unlock button also lets you open the trunk if you hold it for three seconds. While at first I thought this was neat and a convenient place for a trunk release I guess I get impatient waiting that full three seconds and just get out and pop it open with the key fob. There ends my rant on the negatives of the LaCrosse, Buick?s new flagship. Hopefully they can get the little things fixed and out of the way so folks that buy the car for its ride won?t think they?re mechanically inept when trying to do something as simple as change the temperature.
Also a reader asked in yesterday?s post why I think the plastic is cheap feeling/looking with the LaCrosse. Check out the door pictured here by clicking on it for the larger image. The plastic surrounding the door handle is really cheap looking, the plastic wood trim on around the door panels (also shown above) is acceptable but nothing special and the plastic throughout, the same as the two-tone here on the door, is just bulky and cheap to the touch.
Ready Day 1 and Day 2-3 in the LaCrosse CXS.
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