Video: 2024 Buick Envista Review: Peppy and Pretty, But Not Too Pricey

This is what Buick says is the first full implementation of their new styling theme that we first saw embodied in the Buick Wildcat show car from a couple of years ago. While the Wildcat certainly looks good as a two-door coupe, this is a four-door crossover coupe style of things, so it's not necessarily as big as a full-sized SUV or even a compact SUV, it does have this swoopy lower roof line. The styling elements from the Wildcat mostly show up in the front, however. These are not your headlights, these are LED running lights, the headlights are actually below those. This is the Sport Touring trim, the ST, so it's supposed to be the mid-level sporty model and not the big luxurious Avenir, and so you get things like blacked out trim, blacked out grill, and 19-inch blacked out wheels as well. If the overall shape of the new Envista looks familiar, that's because it shares a lot of its bones with the new Chevrolet Trax that's just appeared in Chevy showrooms. However, in terms of the Buick showroom, this thing actually slots in below the Encore GX, which is a little unusual because this thing is actually bigger than the Encore GX and less expensive. However, the styling is really the point here. It is very much a swoopy roof line crossover coupe style and that means that it actually has a hatchback, not a trunk, and the hatch is pretty useful. You've got quite a decent amount of space back here, you could fit a couple of decent suitcases back here, drop the rear seats and have even more storage, so there's actually plenty of room in this thing, despite the fact that it has that low roof line. The interior of the new Envista is perhaps one of the more surprising areas because it is a subcompact crossover coupe, but it is spacious in here, even for a big guy like me. Plenty of width, plenty of length, even with this optional sunroof, plenty of headroom, my head doesn't hit the ceiling in the front or in the back seat. Material quality in here is acceptable. Buick is supposed to be a premium brand but this interior is only a little bit premium, it's really not that much nicer than the Chevrolet Trax, which is only a couple thousand dollars less expensive. You've got some soft touch plastics here and there but there are some hard touch plastics as well, both in the front and in the back. The material quality becomes entirely hard plastic in the back seat, so that does drop off. You can see where they shaved some cost out of the interior. Things like there's no height adjustable seat belts, there's no rear window wiper, which is potentially a problem given how horizontal that rear window is. However, the rest of the interior, quite nice. You've got a standard digital gauge cluster, that's an 8" cluster in front of you, and an 11" touchscreen next to it. The graphics, however, are a little bit simple, which is a little unusual given the fact that you have a fully digital gauge cluster and dashboard to play with. The fact that there isn't more customization shows that they didn't spend a whole lot of money making it interesting. It's also a little bit dim, which I find interesting. Out here in the bright sunlight, this gauge cluster itself, which you can reconfigure in only really one of two ways, doesn't feel very bright or obvious to me, so even with the brightness turned all the way up, it still seems like it fades out a little bit. The actual 11" touchscreen itself is easy to use, but again, has some limited functionality. You can connect Apple CarPlay or Android Auto wirelessly, which is nice, that's standard. That's actually something you can't do on most Hyundai's and Kia's with their large infotainment systems, because that's still not a feature that they allow. Automatic climate control is here as well, and the rest of this interior, like I said, it's comfortable, it's nice, it's a good step up from a Chevy Trax, but calling it a premium interior, I think that might be stretching things a bit. But to answer the question of whether or not the new Envista is any good, of course, you have to drive it, and that's perhaps where the new 2024 Envista is the most surprising. You see, it actually is pretty good to drive. It's powered by a turbocharged 1.2 liter, 3-cylinder engine, making just 137 horsepower, and if that doesn't sound like a lot, that's because that's really not a lot. However, the way they've tuned this thing is that it produces most of its torque way down low in the rev range, so it actually feels really quite peppy. Could it use more power? Yeah, it could use more power. Does it need more power? No, it actually doesn't. Acceleration is pretty brisk, even with a big guy like me on board, and if you're getting on the highway or even trying to do some passing maneuvers, it still has a decent amount of power, so I don't think that it feels underpowered, I think acceleration is frankly perfectly good. Perhaps the more surprising aspect of how the Envista drives is just how quiet it is. Yeah, Buick makes a whole lot of noise, eh, about tuning their vehicles to be more quiet than a lot of the other brands, but you don't really realize it until you're out on a highway and realize that the only thing that you're hearing is a little bit of tire noise. There's no wind noise in this thing, and even the engine noise is pretty muted. The engine is made to a 6-speed automatic transmission, and that's not a lot of gears in today's day and age, usually you're seeing things like 8 or 9 or even 10-speed transmissions, but the 6-speed that's in this thing actually works quite well. It shifts very smoothly, it's quiet, and even on the highway, when you're going about 70 miles an hour, the engine is really only turning over at about 23, 2400 RPM, which is fairly low in the rev range, so you're not getting a lot of drone and loud engine noise, which you might expect from, quite frankly, a small three-cylinder engine. The steering is pretty over-boosted. It's meant really more for comfort and ease of driving than any kind of sporting pretense, and that's all right, this really isn't a sports car, I don't expect it to behave like a sporty vehicle, despite the fact that this is the Sport Touring model. Still, that's not really why you buy one of these things. You buy one of these because it's comfortable, it seats five people, and it actually does seat five people. That back seat has a flat floor well in it, so given the fact that you can only get this vehicle with front-wheel drive, there is no all-wheel drive option, there's no need to have a tunnel connecting the front and rear axles, so there's no drive shaft, there's no auxiliary way of getting power from the front to the back, it's only a front-wheel drive vehicle. If you're looking for all-wheel drive in a small Buick crossover, well, they would be happy to introduce you to the Encore GX, which is a little more expensive but a little smaller than this one, but does come with optional all-wheel drive and a more powerful engine if you want it. But again, I don't think this thing needs more power. It's adequate just as it is, and if they wanted to make a more powerful version, yeah, it'd probably be fun, but you've already got a decent amount of torque steer if you're powering out of a corner or at a dead stop, so I don't think that more power is necessarily gonna be the answer to any of this thing's issues. And it really doesn't have very many issues, the visibility is good, the comfort is good, these seats are a little flat, but not too bad. Overall, it's just a really pleasant driving experience, and given how much this thing costs, well, that's even more surprising. The new '24 Envista is on sale now at Buick dealers and the prices range from about $24,000 to start all the way up to a fully loaded Avenir for around $31,000. Now, that is quite the bargain price, especially for a vehicle that's this quiet and refined and spacious inside and even gets decent fuel economy. Considering the average new price of a car these days is about 46 to $48,000, that Buick price really does look nice. If you'd like to learn more about the new '24 Envista, you can look everything up at cars.com. (upbeat music)