#2014 buick encore premium awd upgrade

But in the Encore, with the Premium grade’s accoutrements and the weight of all-wheel-drive hardware, it’s not, even if the smooth six-speed attempts to make the most of the available power. We can’t be fooled now.ġ38 horsepower can be enough. And if at first you think the Encore’s off-the-line throttle response bodes well, remember how automakers have employed similar tactics with lackluster powerplants in small cars for decades. Constantly, you’re prodding the Encore to downshift. Without that engine, a perkier direct-injection powerplant that significantly reduces acceleration times, the 2017 Buick Encore I drove for a week is a laggard. Now you’re into $36,745 BMW X1 xDrive28i territory and beginning to feel distinctly more underpowered, unattractive, undersized, and unencumbered by good sense.

#2014 buick encore premium awd upgrade

There’s an optional powertrain upgrade available for the Encore now, a different 1.4T with 153 horsepower, 177 lb-ft of torque (gains of 15 horsepower and 29 lb-ft), stop-start tech, and superior fuel economy.īut that more prodigious engine would have driven this Encore’s price up by $895 to $36,720. Others will argue it’s difficult to make a case for luxury without horsepower. We surely couldn’t have even considered doing so between our two child seats, one of which required the driver’s seat to move far forward. But you won’t ever want to squeeze in a fifth occupant. And the Encore is decently spacious for four people. Many will argue that luxury is a corollary of space. Is luxury the absence of a front passenger armrest, or are my passenger and I supposed to share the pencil affixed to the side of driver’s seat, the one with the big hump right where my elbow is supposed to land? Luxury, however, is a difficult standard to live up to, especially when the power seat isn’t fully powered: you’ll operate the back rest manually. The Encore is a compact luxury SUV, Buick says. GM doesn’t want the Encore compared with its twin, the Chevrolet Trax, nor does Buick want you to think of the Encore as a mere foe of the Honda HR-V and Mazda CX-3. If that $35,825 as-tested price for this Encore Premium AWD doesn’t tell you something about Buick’s intentions, the $995 optional paint ought to. The 2017 Encore’s proportions aren’t the stuff that car designer dreams are made of, but the facelift for the entry-level Buick’s fifth model year upped its game. Say what you will about the 1990s two-tone look, this $995 White Frost paint looked very good in person, helping to propel the upmarket image Buick is chasing. Chintzy steering wheel controls and GM’s ubiquitous and disappointing signal stalk remains, but the Encore’s interior, at least in sixth-from-the-bottom Premium trim, is almost, well, premium.

Up front, the updated layout minimizes buttons and maximizes touchscreen, and to good effect.

Head and legroom are acceptable out back, perhaps at the expense of an 18.8-cubic-foot cargo area that’s notably lacking space for a four-person vacation’s worth of stuff. Viewed as a four seater, the Encore is also a roomy subcompact CUV. Quick steering and positive brake feel work with tidy exterior dimensions to make the Encore an agreeable downtown companion. The short, 100.6-inch wheelbase keeps the Encore’s suspension busy at work, but harsh impacts are kept at bay, and the Encore does a surprisingly decent job of traversing rough pavement like a much larger Buick. That refinement carries forward to exceptional ride quality. In a segment littered with relatively unrefined competitors, the Encore’s knack for keeping the outside world outside is more than welcome. Wind noise around the A-pillars is made known only because of the silence elsewhere. The noise you do manage to hear from the 138-horsepower 1.4-liter turbocharged inline-four is sufficiently refined.