2017 Buick LaCrosse: First Impressions
The redesigned 2017 Buick LaCrosse is a sleek, low-slung full-size sedan with nice proportions. It’s also the first car with Buick’s new front-end styling theme. It’s good to see the return of the Buick tricolor badge, but the overall design is understated for a luxury car and more reminiscent of something from a mainstream brand.
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Subtle body lines add visual interest, and the hood porthole appliques of the prior LaCrosse have been transformed into contemporary front-fender accents.
It took me a while to place the familiar-looking dashboard, but then I remembered where I’d seen it before: the 2009 Hyundai Genesis. There’s a flat upper section with vents, wood trim and a touch-screen below. The integration of the touch-screen is really well done; it looks like someone propped their iPad mini on the dashboard.
Audio and climate controls are grouped together below the touch-screen, and I’m happy to see that Buick has ditched the touch-sensitive controls for the heated and ventilated seats, replacing them with traditional buttons. The prior LaCrosse’s touch controls were maddening to use when wearing gloves.
I’m less enthusiastic about the LaCrosse’s new electronic gear selector. They’re becoming common in luxury cars, but they’re no easier to use than a traditional automatic-transmission gear selector. The gear selector is also surrounded by a swath of dark-gray trim that doesn’t look particularly luxurious.
There’s generous legroom in the backseat for taller passengers — I had a lot of room between my knees and the front seatback — but not much extra headroom. The car’s roofline is 1.6 inches lower, which may be a factor, but the previous LaCrosse didn’t have a lot of backseat headroom either.
