Thank you Mr Wizard

 

You're welcome, Mr. Potter.

 

I think you are missing it. With high horsepower, you are generally going to get very good torque. They go hand in hand. In the case of the Buick, it has luxury car horsepower as well as torque numbers to match.

 

I agree. With 310 hp. and 282 ft. lbs. the V6 in the LaCrosse is just fine for the intended market and use of the car.

 

As Fizzboy pointed out, though, few Lacrosse buyers (and those of competing cars like the Avalon/Cadenza/Impala/Taurus/Azera) will probably ever use those HP/torque numbers to their potential. That doesn't mean they are all geezers, but they do tend to drive sedately.

 

You're missing the point. Even if they don't use the full capabilities of the power, it still improves the overall drivability of the car.

 

It does not matter if they will not ever use that, if you are buying a luxury car you should expect very good HP numbers to go along with the other things one gets. In the current case of the Lacrosse, it lives up to what one should expect. A luxury car from a luxury car should also provide real wood and real leather among other things like premium tires etc etc.

It has never made sense that the Avalon provides faux wood but real genuine standard leather while the Lexus ES provides standard real wood but faux leather as standard.

 

Yes, and I would add that if one gets a 310 HP engine, its going to provide ample torque.

 

The DI and D4S technology in the latest RX 3.5L primarily improves efficiency and secondly nets an extra 25hp. It could only benefit the ES since the LaCrosse already has DI and has two extra gears with its 8-Speed.

 

The operative word being "terrible". With more and more lux makers moving toward faux leather as the norm, if a "real looking" imitation wood product can be used, I don't see the harm.

 

Just because everybody may be doing it doesn't mean it's right. As consumers we shouldn't be so ready to accept mediocrity when we're paying every higher costs for cars.

 

Auto stop-start systems: I have yet to drive a non-hybrid car with a auto stop-start system so I cannot comment on it.

Electronic shifters: The problem is not with electronics shifters, per se, nor is the problem that they are not (yet) intuitive (the current PRND pattern is intuitive because it has become the standard that we have become used to it -- even Lincoln's and Acura's push-button shifters follow the same PRND pattern). The problem is that there is yet no standard so Buick's pattern is different from BMW's pattern (which is similar to the Prius' pattern), is different from MB's pattern, is different from the different patterns from FCA... Here is the perfect opportunity for the EU and the USA to sit down and develop an international standard, the first step in their harmonization of vehicle safety regulations.

Grille shutters: Yes, they may fail, but how they fail is what differentiates the good design engineering team (which includes safety and human factors engineers) and engineering teams ruled by stylists or bookkeepers (as Jeep's electronic shifter team seems to be). There is a concept known as "fail safe" -- if a component does fail, it must fail so that it does not become the single point of failure in the larger system. If grille shutters failed SHUT causing an engine overheat condition, that would be a single point of failure; but if they failed OPEN, making the car less aerodynamic but otherwise not causing a safety condition, that is a good engineering design. Hopefully, we do not have a recall because a grille shutter fails closed, causing an engine overheat. This one seems so obvious.

 

I'm betting the grill shutters use an electric motor or resistor to where current has to be applied for the shutters to remain shut. IE if you have a short, the grills revert to open because there is no current applied. And when the car turns off, the grills open back up. Still not 100% fail safe(ie the gears/mechanism for the shutters might jam, happened all the time with pop up headlights). Hopefully GM is using better hardware/gears on the grill shutters than the cheap crap plastic gears on their pop up headlights back in the 80's/90's.

 

You don't see the harm? The luxury automakers will simply go to all faux offering in nobody stands up and complains. I am not against a model like Avalon offering faux or even Land Cruiser. But if one were to pay a premium to buy a Lexus, they should get real wood, real leather, premium tires, premium everything. I am willing to entertain the argument of a Hybrid or Electric luxury car using synthetic materials that do not destroy the environment etc.

The Lacrosse offers synthetic leatherette, you have to pay extra for real leather, that is a shame. Just like what Lexus does with the ES350. The RX has standard faux. The IS has it, CT has, GX has. I assume the GS will have it soon?

I see luxury brands as something that is supposed to be special. I am not really all that excited that Lexus is built in the USA, nor am I impressed that the Cadillac CT6 Hybrid will be coming from China. The clothing brand Burberry makes some very nice expensive clothing, some of it says "Made in London" or "Made in Briton" but I still remember when I was about to purchase a pair of Burberry jeans, I then looked and saw "Made in China"....why would one want to pay a premium for that?

 

I am sure GM has thought of all this. I know in Toyota's, if you play around with the HVAC systems, the system will default to the hi setting so you do not run out of heat if you break the blower motor switch