Buick Verano: Creating New Paths

It’s about time that Buick throw their hats into the ring for the compact luxury group. The new Buick Verano is GM and Buicks poster child. But wait a minute; does the compact luxury market even exist? It does now. The Verano seems to place itself below cars (price-wise) such as the Lexus IS 250, Acura TSX, and Audi A3, but above the Honda Civic, Chevrolet Cruze, and Ford Focus. The Verano comes in at around 23-25K, but fully loaded for around 29K. So what exactly is the Buick Verano “compact luxury sedan” all about? Let me explain.

            The Verano comes standard with a 2.4 Liter direct injected four, pumping out 182HP. It reaches 60MPH in about 8.4 seconds. It’s not the fastest car in the world, but it’s not expected to be either. Later on in the year Buick is expected to offer a turbo based Verano with an engine similar to the Regal Turbo. The current engine gets very good gas mileage at: 22MPG city and 31MPG highway.

Now let’s move on to the Buick aspect of a Buick, luxury. Buick has gone to great lengths to make the Verano as quiet as possible. The Verano has: Triple sealed doors, laminated side glass, an isolated engine cradle, aero panels underneath the car, and a fabric wrapped headliner. Talk about obsessive quietness! A plush leather interior and elegant dash give the Buick a luxurious feel. The optional leather seats in the Verano are extremely high quality which resemble that of the Cadillac’s, if not even better than Cadillac.

The interior instrument panel is extremely similar to the popular Regal; with it’s easy to use functionality and attractive blue ambient lighting it makes the lesser valued cars such as the Focus seem undervalued and the high priced cars such as the Audi A3 seem overvalued. The engine Start-Stop is a neat feature, but I would have liked to see it be distinct from the rest of the buttons, which it’s not. The Verano is also equipped with Buick’s Intellilink system which is a great touch screen audio system that can connect your phone through Bluetooth or your iPod through a USB port. 

            Safety is also a focal point for Buicks, the Verano is no exception. Standard with 10, yes 10 airbags, the Verano is a IIHS Top Safety Pick for 2012. Like most other GM cars, OnStar is standard for 6 months with the option to be continued.  

            The Verano is not offered in the traditional CX, CXS, and CXL models, instead it is offered with various packages including the: Base, Convenience, and Leather group. I like this idea as the CX, CXS, CXL badges seemed to be getting boring and over-used.

            GM and Buick are very excited about this new compact luxury sedan as well they should be. The Verano has a chance to open new doors, not only at GM, but around the auto industry as a whole.