I have driven Lexus vehicles with “zigzag” shifters for 22 years, and I do not see how anybody could have a problem using them. The shifter just glides through the gear selections. Now, the better cars have shifters that feel much nicer. For instance my LS cars including the LS400 had mechanisms that felt much more fluid than say my ES300. But difficult to use? I don’t see how.

I know! I thought that interior and the 2GS were really great. All high quality materials, just the right amount of wood, nothing over the top. Very functional but also beautiful.

 

now that's funny because it's a lexus is300 aka toyota altezza and it has those colored gear indicators you rave about too. but hey, you're free to think it's terrible.

 

I told you in the post, Jill.....it comes out of the 1Gen IS300 and (non-U.S.) Toyota Altezza. It was one of this car's features.......along with chronograph-style instruments.

Fine...that's a legitimate opinion, though I don't agree with it.

 

It's both Classy and Terrible, all at once.

 

I liked that shift **** so much that I took the OEM **** off of my 2008 IS250 and replaced it with an IS300 **** (IS250 also had the zigzag shifter). I think it's a matter of preference. Zigzag shifters aren't harder to use, they're just different. I think they look better without a shift boot though.

 

Good point. It’s is a matter of preference...I do think the gated looks better than the boot as well.

 

The Enclave in my family has that exact same steering wheel, color and all. The wheel is very nice, but it's got nothing on my LS430. However it is a heated steering wheel and it works like heck. And it's the only car I've been in where the butt coolers actually work worth a damn. The shifter is straight back and feels great to use and also is high quality I should note. The rest of the interior...eh. Mixed bag. At least it's very comfortable and nice to drive.

The rest of the fake wood in the Enclave is awful. But the wheel is definitely nice. It's a little too dark for my tastes, I'd like it a little lighter.

 

Yeah few years back i was interested in the new then enclave (current model) but wasn't into it after i looked it over and took a test drive, but then the salesperson tried hard to push a remaining first gen sitting on the lot. He opened the door and said look at all this wood. I took a quick look over and couldn't help myself from laughing. I said i appreciate it but that's not for me.

 

Yes, I mean, it's horrendously bad. Not just because I have a car that has beautiful wood either. It also has faux dash stitching which is also pretty low-rent. Nobody is going to ever believe a gen 1 Enclave has a real stitched dash, haha.

But like I said, there are high quality bits. The wheel and shifter and climate controls are all very nice. It is very easy to get comfortable in it.

Drives quite well, great V6, is quiet and smooth and has great steering and handling for what it is. We've had it for 5 years and nothing is falling apart in the interior, at all. No rattles or anything. Just not the greatest to look at.

Nobody will ever in a trillion years use a gen 1 Enclave interior to showcase GM, lol.

 

Plastics-wise, and their low quality, yes, I would agree with you. But the tons and tons of wood-tone trim all across the dash and rear-passenger areas is something that is rarely seen on modern vehicles.....it is a true retro-look that harkens back to a time when the more wood-tone a luxury vehicle had inside, the better. One of our condo board-members and his family had a 1Gen Enclave for years (partly on my recommendation). He just loved it....said it was one of the nicest vehicles he ever owned....they took lot of long trips in it.

 

Ours is the darker (dated IMO) wood which doesn't look nearly as good as that. It screams fake to me, but to many consumers it was fine (obviously by sales). And yessss it is a perfect vehicle for trips. It's not far off from my LS430 in how quiet it is at high speeds.

 

Harkens back to a period that we can let stay in the past lol

 

Electronic shifters are lighter & smaller in the passenger compartment. Lighter = more MPG=reduced emissions which is law in U.S.A

 

You really think the shifters make that much of a difference?

 

IMO yes.....the easiest to use, for me, is a simple fore/aft lever with no zigzags. The simpler, the better. Lincoln probably has the best alternative to a lever.....simple push-buttons. But the rotary-shifters, the double push/pull buttons that the GMC Acadia uses, the E-joysticks, the small Mercedes-style midget-stalks, the older Jaguar J-channel levers, and the L-shaped GM joysticks....IMO, they all s**k to a degree....some worse than others.

That's one of many things that attracted me to the Encore GX.....a proper fore/aft traditional lever, and the huge number of features inside for the price. For my current needs, Buick did almost everything right with this vehicle......except for one thing, under the hood, where you have a choice of two toy engines.