2023 Buick Enclave

2023 is a carry-over year in the second-generation (2018–2024) Enclave, one year after the 2022 mid-cycle refresh; every trim uses GM's naturally aspirated 3.6L V6 (LFY) rated at 310 hp with no output split by trim.

The LFY V6 makes 266 lb-ft, a modest figure for a ~4,500–4,800 lb three-row that has to be revved to deliver it — turbocharged rivals make comparable or better torque far lower in the range.

Buick publishes no 0–60 claim; Edmunds instrumented a front-drive Enclave at 7.0 s and an AWD Avenir at 7.5 s, so the FWD volume configuration is taken at 7.0 s. Faster 6.5 s figures circulate from a pre-refresh Avenir test and are treated as the optimistic end of the range.

Refinement is the naturally aspirated V6's strongest suit: reviewers consistently describe linear, quiet, lag-free acceleration with an upscale feel, helped by the extra sound deadening the 2022 refresh brought. It gives up outright shove to turbo rivals but never feels coarse or hesitant.

The 9-speed Hydra-Matic is widely praised in this application — shifts are described as essentially imperceptible, with prompt downshifts and no notable hunting, aided by a V6 that does not force the gearbox to chase a narrow torque peak.

Properly equipped with the V92 Trailer Towing Package the Enclave is rated at 5,000 lbs; without it the rating collapses to 1,500 lbs, so the headline figure is option-dependent. That is mid-pack for a mid-size three-row crossover.

AWD is optional — never standard — but is offered on every trim (Essence, Premium, Avenir), and the system is an on-demand setup with a twin-clutch rear drive unit that can vector torque side to side. There is no low range, no locking differential and no terrain-mode selector, so operation is basic by design.

A pavement-oriented luxury crossover: 7.5 in of ground clearance, unibody construction, road-biased tires on 18–20 in wheels, no skid plates, no off-road trim, and no terrain-mode selector. Optional AWD gets it through snow and gravel and no further.

One engine, one transmission, no alternatives: the 3.6L V6 and 9-speed automatic are the only powertrain in the 2023 range, with no turbo four, no hybrid and no plug-in option. The only choice a buyer makes is FWD versus AWD, which is drivetrain rather than powertrain.

A naturally aspirated 3.6L V6 hauling a ~4,600 lb three-row body returns 21 MPG combined in front-drive form — thirsty against turbo-four and hybrid rivals in the mid-size three-row class, and unchanged from the pre-refresh car.

City economy is the weakest part of the picture — the big-displacement V6 has only stop/start to lean on with no electric assist, so it lands well below hybrid three-rows in stop-and-go use.

The highway figure is the Enclave's best efficiency result — tall top gears in the 9-speed and a relatively slippery body let the V6 loaf at cruise, closing much of the gap to smaller-engined rivals.

The front-drive volume configuration carries a 19.4-gallon tank, which at 21 MPG combined works out to roughly 407 miles — respectable but short of the 450–500 miles the more efficient three-rows manage. AWD models actually go farther despite worse economy, because they carry a substantially larger 21.7-gallon tank.

EPA's standard 15,000 mi/yr estimate puts running costs near $3,000 a year even on regular unleaded — one of the less appealing numbers on the car, and a direct consequence of the 21 MPG combined rating.

The 3.6L V6 asks only for 87-octane regular unleaded across the whole range, including the Avenir — no premium recommendation despite the premium positioning, which offsets some of the mediocre MPG. The manual prohibits E85 and blends above 15% ethanol, a minor limitation.

NHTSA tested both 2023 Enclave configurations and they split: the front-drive car — which is the standard drivetrain on every trim and therefore the configuration scored here — came out at 4 stars overall, while the optional AWD car earned 5. The sub-ratings are identical between them (5-star frontal, 5-star side barrier, 5-star pole, 4-star passenger side-crash, 4-star rollover); only the rollover risk figure separates them, 16.9% FWD against 15.1% AWD, and that is enough to move the combined overall star.

Textbook middle band — mostly Good, one Acceptable, no award. Small overlap front driver-side, the original moderate overlap front, roof strength and head restraints & seats are all Good on the second-generation car. The updated side test is the weak point: Acceptable overall with a Marginal structure and safety cage, plus Acceptable torso and pelvis measures for the driver, which alone rules out any Top Safety Pick for 2023. The 2023 Enclave carries no IIHS award at all; the nameplate went twelve years between awards, from 2013 to the redesigned 2025 car's TSP+. Ratings are inherited from the structurally similar Chevrolet Traverse and apply to 2018-24 models rather than coming from a 2023 Enclave IIHS crashed itself, and the updated moderate overlap front test — the one that has exposed rear-passenger problems across this class — was never run on this generation, so part of the modern picture is simply unknown.

The 2022 refresh made what had been Avenir-only content standard fleet-wide, and 2023 carries that forward: every Enclave from the $47k Essence up ships with Enhanced Buick Driver Confidence — Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Alert, Front Pedestrian Braking, Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning, Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, IntelliBeam auto high beams, front and rear park assist and the Safety Alert Seat. Four of the criterion's five named systems are standard on the base trim. The one gap is adaptive cruise, which is standard only on Avenir and elsewhere lives in the optional Adaptive Cruise/Surround Vision Package — but unlike GM stablemates that lock ACC out of the base trim entirely, it can at least be ordered on an Essence, which puts this at the top of the middle band.

The measured results are strong and, since the 2022 refresh, they describe the standard system rather than an option package. IIHS rated this generation Superior for vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention — collisions avoided outright in both the 12 and 25 mph runs — and Superior for daytime pedestrian detection with AEB plus Front Pedestrian Braking, avoiding the crossing-child, crossing-adult and 25 mph parallel-adult tests entirely. What holds it out of the top band is the thing the criterion names explicitly: IIHS never ran a nighttime pedestrian evaluation on this generation, and the more recent updated front crash prevention protocol was not applied either, so the dark-conditions half of the picture is untested rather than proven.

Coverage is fully answered and quality is not. Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert and Rear Cross Traffic Alert are standard on all three 2023 trims, IIHS confirms blind spot detection as standard rather than optional, and GM's Safety Alert Seat delivers the warning as a directional vibration through the cushion, which reviewers consistently find more legible than a chime. But every one of these systems is alert-only: there is no blind-zone steering intervention and no rear cross-traffic automatic braking at any price, and Rear Pedestrian Alert — itself only a warning — sits inside the optional Adaptive Cruise/Surround Vision Package. No safe-exit alert is offered. Standard-on-every-trim but alert-only is the top of the middle band.

Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning is standard on every 2023 trim and behaves as designed — a corrective steering nudge when the car drifts across a marking, backed by the Safety Alert Seat. What it is not is a centering system: the Enclave will not hold a line for you, and there is nothing on the 2023 order sheet that will, because Super Cruise did not reach this nameplate until the 2025 redesign. Reviewers treat the lane hardware as a competent warning-and-nudge setup, not something to lean on, and it is the absence of any centering capability at any price — rather than poor behavior from what is fitted — that keeps this at the bottom of the middle band.

The system itself is fine and the packaging is the problem. GM's full-speed-range radar adaptive cruise with stop-and-go is standard on Avenir and orderable on Essence and Premium inside the Adaptive Cruise/Surround Vision Package — better access than several GM siblings, which bar it from the base trim outright, but still not standard equipment on the trims most Enclaves leave the lot as. Reviewers describe it as working well without notable complaints. There is no highway assist above it: with no lane centering on this model year, ACC never combines with steering into anything that manages the lane, so the highway experience is adaptive spacing plus a lane-departure nudge and nothing more.

No hands-free driving of any kind is available on the 2023 Enclave, at any trim or price. GM's Super Cruise — the most mature such system on the market — reached the Enclave only with the 2025 redesign, where it became standard across the range; a 2023 buyer had no path to it. This is the criterion's bottom band by definition, and it is a genuine competitive gap for a $47,000-plus three-row in a year when Ford was already selling BlueCruise on the Explorer.

The last IIHS verdict on this generation's headlamps was Marginal, and it applied to both variations offered — LED projector low and high beams, no curve-adaptive function, with and without high-beam assist. The 2022 refresh brought new LED headlights and IIHS has not re-evaluated them, so the 2023 car is formally unrated rather than freshly cleared; the fact that the fully redesigned 2025 Enclave came back Marginal again on the same recipe (LED projector, high-beam assist, no curve-adaptive, glare from the low beams) argues against assuming the refresh solved it, and owner reports of poor low-light visibility persist into 2023. Credit where it is due: LED projectors and IntelliBeam auto high beams are standard on every trim, so there is no dim base-trim penalty and no upcharge for the best lamps Buick offers — but no Good-rated headlight is available on this car at any price.

Better than average for a three-row, without being a standout. The Enclave's upright greenhouse, tall side glass and low beltline give a commanding forward and quarter view, and the driving position is high enough to see over most traffic — reviewers routinely list visibility among its easy-to-live-with traits. Working against it are a thick rear pillar, two rows of head restraints in the mirror and a high tail that hides where the bumper ends. Camera compensation is the sticking point on the volume car: a rear camera and front and rear park assist are standard, but the two features that actually solve the rear view — HD Surround Vision and the Rear Camera Mirror — are bundled into the optional Adaptive Cruise/Surround Vision Package on Essence and Premium, so most buyers rely on the standard alerts plus deliberate shoulder checks.

IIHS rates LATCH ease of use Acceptable, and the per-position detail explains exactly why it is not Good: only two of the six seating positions have complete lower-anchor hardware — the second-row outboard seats — and one of those has anchors buried too deep in the seat bight to reach easily. The other four positions are tether-only, including all three third-row spots, where IIHS also flags that other hardware can be confused for an anchor. Working in the Enclave's favor is space: wide rear door openings, a second row roomy enough to take a bulky rear-facing seat without pushing the front seats forward, and a third row a child can actually reach past a sliding captain's chair. Workable for two child seats, compromised for a family trying to fill all three rows.

Buick's own 2023 brochure frames the Enclave as accommodating up to seven people, with a second-row bench giving the seven-seat layout and the widely-ordered second-row captain's chairs dropping it to six. Seven is the maximum configuration and is what is scored.

GM publishes both figures separately, and the criterion asks for the no-sunroof number: 42.6 in, at the very top of what mid-size SUVs offer and above the segment normalization ceiling.

41.2 in is modest for a 204.8-inch three-row — the Enclave spends its length on the second and third rows and on cargo rather than on front stretch-out space, so this is the one interior dimension where it sits near the bottom of the segment band.

Nearly 40 inches of second-row headroom is close to the top of the segment band, a product of the Enclave's upright greenhouse and tall roofline; the moonroof costs a full inch.

38.3 in of second-row legroom is comfortably above the segment midpoint, and it comes on top of a genuinely usable 33.5 in in the third row — the pair is what makes the Enclave feel bigger inside than most mid-size three-rows.

One of the better third rows in the class without quite being adult-grade for long hauls: 33.5 in of legroom and 37.6 in of headroom beat most mid-size three-rows and several luxury ones, and Smart Slide second-row seating lets the middle chairs slide forward one-handed for access. The floor is still high enough to leave adult knees raised, so it lands as teen-and-short-trip-adult territory rather than a true third bench; 60/40 split folding is standard and power folding is available on the upper trims.

57.7 cu ft behind the second row is solidly above the segment midpoint, and the 23.6 cu ft still available with all three rows occupied is the figure that matters on a full-load family trip — well ahead of the smaller GM three-rows.

97.4 cu ft is near the ceiling of the SUV normalization band and is a full-size figure in a mid-size wrapper — Buick markets it as the headline versatility number, and it is close to double what compact three-rows manage.

Better than the class average without being an innovation showcase. The signature piece is a 10-inch-deep underfloor bin in the cargo area (about 3.1 cu ft, removable for cleaning), backed by a deep center console with a wireless charging bin ahead of it, two 12-volt outlets, an available 110V/120V household outlet on the rear of the console, and USB power reaching all three rows. There is no Ford-style flat-folding trick or giga-console, and second-row storage is conventional.

Well-padded, wide chairs with good cushioning front and rear, perforated leather-appointed seating on every trim, and a rudimentary massage function on all but the base car; reviewers put the first two rows among the more comfortable in the class. Two things keep it out of the top band: the leather itself is described as stiff, and the base Essence gets only an 8-way power driver's seat, with ventilation reserved for higher trims.

Ride is the Enclave's headline strength and the reason the nameplate exists: a five-link independent rear end and long 120.9-in wheelbase give it a settled, absorbent gait over broken pavement, and reviewers stress that it rides well whether or not the Avenir's continuously variable real-time damping is fitted. It stays comfort-biased rather than tightly controlled — body motions are soft by design — which is what keeps it just short of the segment's best.

Quietness is engineered in and reviewers confirm it delivered: Buick's QuietTuning package with Active Noise Cancellation, plus the extra sound deadening that came with the 2022 refresh, leaves the cabin very well isolated at highway speed. The naturally aspirated V6 helps by staying distant unless worked hard.

Rich and, unusually, mostly standard: tri-zone automatic climate control with its own rear climate control panel, heated front seats, remote start and wireless charging are standard on every 2023 trim including the $47k Essence, with ventilated and massaging front seats, heated second-row seats, a heated steering wheel and a power rear sunshade stepping up through Premium and Avenir. Rear passengers get their own temperature control rather than just vents, which is the feature most families notice.

2023 is a light carry-over year in the second generation (2018–2024), one year after the 2022 mid-cycle refresh: a new exterior color, new wheels on the Sport Touring package, and a revised starting price. The Essence opens the range at $44,800 before the $1,395 destination charge, positioning the Enclave at the affordable end of the premium three-row field.

Essence is the volume trim — Edmunds explicitly recommends it "because of its long list of standard features and more affordable price," and the 2022 refresh had already made the driver-assist suite standard across the lineup, so stepping up buys leather and trim rather than safety content. AWD is a $2,000 option with a high take rate in this segment, giving a typical transaction configuration of $46,800 + $1,395 destination.

CarEdge's $596/yr (≈$2,980 over five years) is a maintenance-weighted figure and looks low for this vehicle: RepairPal measures the Enclave nameplate at $720/yr against a $573 mid-size-SUV average and rates both repair frequency and severity above normal, ranking it 24th of 26 mid-size SUVs. The 3.6L V6 and nine-speed automatic are mature but not trouble-free, and years four and five fall outside the 3 yr/36,000 mi bumper-to-bumper term. Sits just below the KBB-methodology $6,796 the newer third-generation car carries.

iSeeCars puts the Enclave nameplate at 58.5% five-year depreciation — about 41.5% retained, matching the weak residuals of the premium large-crossover class and of the Buick badge. This particular car tracks a point or two better than the nameplate average because 2023 units sold into a still-elevated used market: KBB shows a 2023 Enclave down 34% at three years and Essence fair purchase prices around $27,000. Even so, retention is among the weakest in the segment.

Buick cut bumper-to-bumper coverage from 4 years/50,000 miles to 3 years/36,000 miles for the 2020 model year and 2023 is unchanged — the floor of the normalization band, matched by Toyota and Honda but far short of the Hyundai (5 yr/60,000 mi) and Kia (5 yr/60,000 mi) three-rows the Enclave competes against on price.

Powertrain coverage is 5 years/60,000 miles, reduced from 6 years/70,000 miles for the 2020 model year and unchanged for 2023 — the bottom of the band and half the 10-year/100,000-mile coverage Hyundai and Kia extend to original owners. Rust-through runs 6 yr/100,000 mi and roadside assistance runs with the powertrain term.

Buick includes exactly one complimentary scheduled service visit — oil and filter change, four-tire rotation and multi-point inspection — redeemable within the first year, well short of ToyotaCare's 2 yr/25,000 mi or Hyundai's 3 yr/36,000 mi. Roadside assistance and Courtesy Transportation run with the 5 yr/60,000 mi powertrain term, and connected services are decent but not yet generous: 2023 GM vehicles carry a multi-year OnStar Remote Access Plan (remote start/lock through the myBuick app) plus short trials of OnStar's premium and in-vehicle data plans — the 8-year OnStar Basics grant only arrived with the 2025 model year.

$48,195 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (44% retained, or about $21,206) leaves about $26,989 in depreciation. Add the projected $6,500 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $33,489 in total.

2023 is the sixth year of the second-generation (2018–2024) Enclave and a carry-over year after the 2022 refresh, and the two major predictors agree for once: J.D. Power rates predicted reliability 85/100 ('Great'), and Consumer Reports found the 2023 Enclave much more reliable than the average 2023 vehicle, naming it the second-most reliable in its class and awarding the Enclave a Recommended rating for the first time in the nameplate's history. Held at the bottom of the top band because CR's absolute reliability score is a modest 52/100 and its owner survey still logs an exhaust-system trouble spot plus scattered electrical and oil-consumption complaints.

Buick's dependability standing at this model year is genuinely top-tier in the study that measures it directly: 4th overall and 2nd among mass-market brands at 159 PP100 in the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, one year after placing 2nd overall in the 2022 VDS — a multi-year top-five record. Short of the ceiling because Consumer Reports is markedly cooler, scoring the brand 55/100 and placing it mid-pack overall (though highest of the domestics), so the two sources are not in full agreement.

An unusually clean recall record: the NHTSA recall database returns zero safety recalls for the 2023 Buick Enclave, and the two campaigns that hit this generation (a frontal-impact airbag sensor action on 2021 cars and a curtain-airbag harness connector action on 2021–2022 cars) were both resolved before 2023 production. Owner complaints are low in volume and unfocused — 19 filed, the largest cluster being six exterior-lighting reports with no other component in double digits. Kept out of the highest band by the bulletin record on the 9T65 nine-speed, where torque-converter clutch shudder and harsh shifting are a recognised service pattern rather than one-off cases.

The engine half is the strong half — every 2023 trim runs the naturally aspirated 3.6L LFY V6 (310 hp), a mature member of GM's high-feature V6 family with years of high-mileage fleet service behind it and no systemic failure mode. The nine-speed 9T65 is the reason this sits mid-band rather than high: it degrades gradually through torque-converter clutch wear rather than failing outright, an accumulator endcap leak on start-stop units drove an earlier GM campaign, and Consumer Reports owner data on this generation includes transmission and oil-consumption complaints.

The 2022 refresh added soft-touch surfaces and a better-dressed dash, and the cabin is pleasant and quiet — but this is a Premium-priced vehicle and reviewers consistently judge the materials no richer than mainstream three-row rivals costing less, which is the wrong side of the price-relative test this item applies. Solidly competitive rather than class-leading, with visible hard plastics in the lower cabin and a design already five years old by 2023.

Assembly is a genuine strength of a design in its sixth year of production at Lansing Delta Township — Consumer Reports rates fit and finish on the 2023 car as excellent, and KBB's owner survey names quality and reliability the vehicle's strongest attributes. Short of the top band only because CR's owner data still logs an exhaust/heat-shield trouble spot and scattered electrical complaints rather than a wholly clean sheet.

Service satisfaction is a real Buick strength — 3rd among all mass-market brands in the J.D. Power 2023 Customer Service Index (867) and 1st in the 2023 Sales Satisfaction Index — but 2023 is the specific year the network shrank hard: GM's EV-transition buyout cut the US Buick franchise count from 1,958 at the start of the year to roughly 1,000 by December, a 47% reduction. Coverage stayed broadly workable (89% of the US population within 25 miles of a Buick dealer, and departing stores were mostly dual points that remain GMC/GM service locations), so this is thinner reach paired with excellent service quality rather than a coverage failure.

Availability is not the problem — the Enclave shares its C1XX platform, 3.6L LFY V6 and 9T65 transmission with the high-volume Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia, so component commonality is high, GM's distribution is broad and independent shops stock the parts. Cost and repair frequency are the problem: RepairPal puts the Enclave's annual repair and maintenance spend well above the midsize-SUV average and rates both how often it needs unscheduled work and how likely that work is to be major above normal.

The 8-inch Buick Infotainment System display is standard and is also the maximum: there is no larger screen anywhere in the 2023 range, which puts the Enclave near the bottom of a segment band that now runs to 15 inches. The nameplate did not get a big display until the 2025 redesign.

GM's Buick Infotainment System is one of the easier mainstream setups to live with — quick to respond, logically laid out, and crucially it keeps physical volume and tuning knobs plus hard climate controls rather than burying them in menus. What holds it in the middle band is scale and age: 8 inches of screen and a graphics language dating to the middle of the generation look thin next to rivals' wide displays, and there is no reconfigurable home screen of note.

Both projection systems are wireless and standard on all three trims — content the 2022 mid-cycle refresh introduced and 2023 carries forward. That is the top band by the criterion's own definition; the only reason it is not a perfect score is that the small 8-inch canvas limits how much of the phone interface you actually see.

Functional rather than impressive. Embedded voice recognition handles audio, phone and navigation commands competently but is not a natural-language assistant; Amazon Alexa Built-in is available and is the better conversational path, and Connected Navigation with live traffic works through the OnStar data connection. In practice most owners fall back on CarPlay/Android Auto maps, which is exactly the middle band.

The volume Essence trim makes do with a six-speaker system that is adequate and no more; the Bose performance-enhanced 10-speaker setup — the one reviewers actually praise — arrives only on Premium and Avenir. Good premium option, unremarkable base system, which is the definition of the middle band.

No full-digital cluster is offered at any price on the 2023 Enclave. The car uses analog gauges flanking a driver information center — a base-level cluster on Essence and an uplevel colour DIC further up the range — so the digital content is a strip between dials rather than a configurable display. A fully digital instrument panel did not reach this nameplate until the 2025 redesign, and the available Head-Up Display is the closest thing to a modern digital readout here.

The Enclave is OTA-capable but in the narrow sense: GM pushes software updates to eligible model-year 2017-and-newer vehicles over the built-in data connection or Wi-Fi, and the Enclave receives infotainment and system software fixes plus map updates that way. What it does not do is the whole-vehicle, feature-adding OTA that GM's newer VIP electrical architecture supports — this generation predates it — so updates are maintenance rather than new capability.

The myBuick app covers the core set well — remote start with climate presets, lock/unlock, vehicle locate and status, plus OnStar safety services — and every 2023 Enclave ships with a three-year OnStar and Buick Connected Services Premium Plan, so the functionality is free for the years most owners keep the car. Two things cap it: remote commands become subscription-dependent once the trial lapses, and there is no phone-as-key/digital key on this generation.

Quantity and reach are genuinely good: as many as seven USB ports spread across all three rows — two in the console under the armrest and two on the center stack for data and charging, two more at the rear of the console and one on each side of the third row for charging — plus standard wireless phone charging on every trim, two 12-volt outlets and an available 110V/120V household outlet. What keeps it out of the top band is that this generation's ports are largely legacy USB-A rather than high-wattage USB-C.

The convenience set is complete and standard from the base trim up: keyless entry with push-button start, remote engine start from the fob or the myBuick app, and a hands-free power liftgate with LED logo projection on every 2023 Enclave. The gap is phone-as-key, which this generation never offered.

Every trim gets an HD rear vision camera plus front and rear park assist as standard, and HD Surround Vision — GM's stitched overhead view — is standard on Premium and Avenir and orderable on Essence inside the Adaptive Cruise/Surround Vision Package, which also brings the Rear Camera Mirror and Rear Pedestrian Alert. Image quality is good; there is no automated parking assist at any trim, and the volume Essence needs an option box ticked for the surround view.

A colour head-up display is standard on both the Premium and Avenir trims and simply unavailable on the base Essence — so two of three trims have it, but the volume entry car cannot be optioned into one at any price. That is the top of the 'limited to upper trims' band rather than the 'available on volume trims' band above it.

The logistics are easy — wide rear door openings, a second row roomy enough at 38.3 in to take a bulky rear-facing seat without shoving the front seats forward, Smart Slide second-row seating that slides one-handed for third-row access, and 23.6 cu ft behind the third row for a stroller. The hardware is the limiting factor: IIHS rates LATCH ease of use only Acceptable because just two of six positions have complete lower anchors, one of those is buried too deep in the seat bight, and all three third-row spots are tether-only.

The equipment story is strong at family price points and the crash-test story is not. Since the 2022 refresh, every Enclave — including the entry Essence — carries AEB, front pedestrian braking, lane keep assist, blind zone alert, rear cross traffic alert, IntelliBeam, park assist and the Safety Alert Seat as standard, and Rear Seat Reminder and Teen Driver come along too. But the front-drive volume car is a 4-star NHTSA vehicle (5 stars only with the $2,900 AWD), the 2023 Enclave holds no IIHS award at all, its side-impact structure rates Marginal, its headlights were last rated Marginal, and adaptive cruise still costs extra outside the Avenir.

This is what the Enclave is built for. Tri-zone climate with a dedicated rear control panel is standard, USB power reaches all three rows, the cabin is QuietTuned with active noise cancellation, and — the part most three-rows fail — 23.6 cu ft of luggage space survives with all seven seats occupied. Heated second-row seats and power-folding third row are available further up the range. The one thing missing is any factory rear-seat entertainment.

Low-effort by design: the naturally aspirated 3.6L V6 has no turbo lag to manage, the nine-speed slurs between gears almost imperceptibly, steering is deliberately light at parking speeds, and the ride and noise isolation keep fatigue down in stop-and-go. The offsets are size — 204.8 in of it to thread through traffic — and the fact that adaptive cruise, the feature that most reduces commuting effort, is an option outside the Avenir trim.

A 4,359–4,685 lb three-row with a naturally aspirated V6 and no electrification is an expensive way to commute: 21 MPG combined front-drive, 20 with AWD, against hybrid three-rows in the low-to-mid 30s. Regular unleaded and conventional, cheap consumables keep it from the bottom band, but the annual fuel bill is near $3,000 and there is no hybrid or plug-in variant to escape to.

Physically a big vehicle for city work — 204.8 in long on a 120.9-in wheelbase — but it manages better than the footprint suggests: a 39.0 ft turning circle is tight for the class, and standard front and rear park assist plus an HD rear camera do the close-quarters work. The surround-view camera that would really solve tight garages is standard only from Premium up, and rear three-quarter visibility past the D-pillar and two rows of head restraints is mediocre.

Not a work vehicle in any meaningful sense. Unibody construction, no bed, and a tow rating that is only 1,500 lbs unless the V92 Trailering Package is fitted — with it, 5,000 lbs, enough for a small boat or a pair of jet skis but well short of a body-on-frame SUV. The V6 pulls adequately at that limit but the drivetrain and cooling are sized for occasional towing, not sustained load.

The mechanical set is well-proven — the 3.6L LFY V6 and 9-speed Hydra-Matic have served across GM's crossover range for years on GM's long-running large-crossover platform — but everything above the chassis is aimed at luxury duty: leather-appointed seating with no cloth or vinyl option, carpeted floors and cargo area, no fleet or work trim. It should hold up under family use; it is not built for abuse and has no commercial-fleet track record.

Few work provisions. There is a roof rack system rated to 220 lb, an available Trailering Package with Hitch Guidance and Hitch View, cargo tie-downs, two 12-volt outlets and an available 110V/120V household outlet limited to 150 W — useful for a laptop or charger, not for tools. No onboard generator, no washable interior, no upfit ecosystem, and the leather-and-carpet cabin is the wrong surface for a jobsite.

A genuinely good highway tourer: an absorbent long-wheelbase ride, QuietTuning with active noise cancellation, well-padded seats with available ventilation and massage, and roughly 407 miles between fills from the 19.4-gallon tank at 21 MPG combined. What stops it short of the top band is the driver-assist half of the equation — adaptive cruise is optional on the two lower trims and there is no lane centering or hands-free system on this model year at any price, so the Enclave never takes the workload off the way a Super Cruise or BlueCruise rival does.

Capable on gravel, dirt roads and snow and no further. Optional twin-clutch AWD with Traction Select, 7.5 in of ground clearance, integrated roof rails rated to 220 lb, 5,000 lb of towing with the trailering package and flat-folding seats that make a long load floor cover the camping-and-bike-rack use case. There is no low range, no locking differential, no skid plating, no off-road trim and road-biased all-season tires, so anything rougher is out.

One of the Enclave's real strengths: 97.4 cu ft with both rows folded is a near-full-size figure, the 60/40 third row folds flat (power-folding available) and the second row folds or slides, a 10-inch-deep removable underfloor bin swallows the things that would otherwise roll around, and standard integrated roof rails plus an available hitch handle the overflow. Load height is high and the folded floor is not perfectly flat, which is what keeps it just below the very top.

Secure and predictable rather than agile. The five-link independent rear and, on Avenir Technology cars, continuously variable real-time damping keep a 4,400–4,700 lb three-row impressively level through corners, but the tuning is comfort-first and reviewers report it turning ponderous once a road starts twisting. It never feels nervous or floaty — it simply has no interest in being hurried.

The electric variable-effort rack with Active Return Assist is precise enough and tracks straight and true at highway speed without wandering, but it is deliberately light around town and communicates essentially nothing about the front tires. Accurate, isolating, numb — the textbook middle band.

Adequate rather than reassuring. Edmunds measured 136 feet from 60 mph in an AWD Avenir — a long stop for the class, where composed three-rows generally sit in the 120s — from four-wheel discs with Duralife rotors and low-drag calipers. Pedal feel is soft and progressive in keeping with the car's comfort brief, with no fade complaints in normal use, but the measured distance is what caps the score.

The strongest part of how this car drives. The naturally aspirated 3.6L V6 has no turbo lag to calibrate around, so tip-in is clean and acceleration is linear, and the nine-speed Hydra-Matic shifts almost imperceptibly with prompt downshifts and no gear hunting. It gives up outright shove to turbocharged rivals but never stumbles, shudders or hesitates.

Quiet and well isolated in normal driving, helped by QuietTuning and Active Noise Cancellation and by an engine that rarely needs revving hard around town. Because peak torque arrives at 2,800 rpm and there is only 266 lb-ft of it, a full-throttle merge or a grade with the family aboard does send the V6 well up the tachometer, where it is audible — pleasantly enough, but present.

39.0 ft is a respectable figure in absolute terms for a 204.8-inch, 120.9-inch-wheelbase three-row, but it still sits in the lower half of an SUV band that runs from 34 to 42 ft and is populated mostly by smaller vehicles.

A commanding, easy place to sit: a high seating position with 42.6 in of headroom, tall side glass and a low beltline for good forward and quarter vision, a tilt-and-telescoping column, power driver's seat on every trim, and — increasingly rare — real knobs for volume and tuning plus hard climate controls rather than a touchscreen menu. The base Essence's 8-way driver's seat is limited next to rivals' multi-way thrones, and the thick D-pillar and two rows of head restraints compromise the over-shoulder view.

Nothing here is aimed at enjoyment. Light isolating steering, soft comfort-biased damping, a 7.0-second 0-60 that is adequate and no more, and a V6 whose defining trait is that you barely hear it — the Enclave is engineered to make the drive disappear, and it succeeds. That is the point of the car and it is genuinely relaxing, but no enthusiast takes the long way home in one.

The 2022 refresh made the Buick Driver Confidence suite standard across the whole lineup — forward collision alert with automatic emergency braking, front pedestrian braking, lane keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and rear parking sensors — where it had previously been Avenir-only, and 2023 carries that forward alongside wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, tri-zone climate, LED lighting, heated front seats and seven-passenger seating on the base Essence. Genuinely well-equipped for a $46K three-row, but Palisade and Telluride bundle a bigger screen, more driver-assist polish and richer cabin trim for similar or less money.

At $46,195 to start and over $60,000 for a loaded Avenir, the Enclave asks premium money while sharing its bones with a Chevrolet Traverse that costs meaningfully less, and mainstream three-rows at the same price match or beat it on content and screen size. The 310-hp V6, class-leading interior and cargo room and quiet ride are real value; the aging 8-inch infotainment and 5,000-lb tow ceiling are not. Fair rather than a bargain.

Three trims — Essence, Premium, Avenir — each offered in front- or all-wheel drive for a $2,000 step, with the Sport Touring appearance package (new wheels for 2023) sitting between Essence and Premium. Reasonable spacing across roughly $15,000, but a single 3.6L V6 / nine-speed powertrain and no second-row bench-versus-captain's-chairs breadth beyond seven-seat layouts limit real configuration choice.

2023 was the second generation's best year since 2021 — 39,412 US deliveries, up roughly 29 percent on 2022 as supply normalized, with GM Authority placing it third in its segment in Q2. That is a healthy mid-pack result rather than segment leadership: Palisade, Telluride and Grand Highlander each move well over 100,000 units, and volume collapsed to 26,398 in 2024 as the generation wound down.

Buick's 2022 rebrand and new tri-shield logo modernized the marque, and its J.D. Power dependability standing is consistently strong, but it remains a near-luxury badge skewing to older buyers without the aspirational pull of Acura, Lexus or Genesis. Neutral perception that neither lifts nor drags the Enclave materially — though it shows up in the resale figures.

GM discounts the Enclave dependably — promotional GM Financial APRs, lease cash, and conquest/loyalty rebates are standing features of Buick's offer sheet, and the 2023 car sold through a normalizing market where transaction prices had returned below MSRP. Better real-world negotiability than most direct near-luxury rivals, without the fire-sale pricing that would signal a model in trouble.

2023 is the sixth model year of the second generation launched for 2018, one year past its 2022 mid-cycle refresh and two years from replacement by the all-new third generation for 2025. The refresh brought new LED lighting, a push-button transmission, an available head-up display and wireless phone mirroring, so the car was current rather than neglected — but the platform, 3.6L V6 and 8-inch infotainment were visibly a generation behind, and a 2023 buyer was two years from a full redesign.

Reviewers consistently liked the Enclave without picking it: praise for interior and cargo space, ride quietness and standard-feature count, criticism for dated infotainment, unremarkable powertrain response and a badge-engineered relationship to the Traverse. It lands mid-pack in every ranking and won no major award — no 10Best, no NACTOY, no IIHS Top Safety Pick for 2023.