Comparison of CX, CSL, and CSX

I am a CXS owner since 2 Jan 05 with 3200 miles on the clock. Overall the car has been excellent. On 3 May I had a brake recall service accomplished. The part needed to complete the recall was not in stock, so the dealership provided a LaCrosse CX for a day.

I cannot stress this enough, the CXS is a different car than the two lower versions. We test drove a CXL before the purchase and could notice a difference immediately. I had the CX for a full 24 hours and really got to notice the differences since I had become so familiar with our car. First, there is a huge difference in power delivery. Yeah, the 3800 is fairly powerful, but the feel (and bonus sounds) of the 3.6 is a marked improvement. The only way I can think to describe such an intangible perception is the 3.6 feels like an electric motor. You push the pedal, you go. Very little lag time between the two. I've read complaints about "only" having a 4 speed automatic transmission. Fact is, while driving this car, I don't even know it has a transmission. I have never noticed it searching for gears (major complaint in the BMW/Benz 6 speed arena) and like I said before, you push the gas, it goes. The tranny/engine combination works exactly the way I want it to for what I bought this car for. If I want to think about the shifting, I'll drive my other car or my bike.

The feel of the suspensions is as different as the motors. My daily driver before the LaCrosse was a Camaro. Yeah, babies do that to you. The seat of the pants impression of the two lower models made me think "Grandfathers Car". As a 34 year old who is a little embarrassed to tell people I drive a Buick, I have to say I truly enjoy driving the CXS. On a particularly twisty route into Napa wine country, I completely quieted the little voice in my head pushing doubts about buying this car. Again, perception is hard to put into words, but I love the luxury/sport feel of this car.

I do have a few complaints about the car though. First, all of the commercials trumpet the QuietTuning. Yes, the car is very quiet, but that serves to amplify the typical GM squeeks I was hoping to get away from. I've got an intermittent squeek/rattle in the vicinity of the center air vents. Nothing bad, but at only 3200 miles, it ticks me off. Second, the location of the oil filter illustrates lack of cohesion in design. There is no way to remove the oil filter without dumping oil down the side of the block directly onto a frame section with A/C tubing and a wire loom on top of it. I don't like the mess, and I'm concerned about what oil will do to the cable in the loom over time. I'm a "do it yourselfer" and would have appreciated the engineer actually getting their hand in there and seeing what a stupid arrangement this is. Kudos to the dealership for washing the affected areas after the first oil change.

As an aside, Buick targeted the Lexus ES300 when designing this car. As it happened, I had the opportunity to spend a week in my parents' 05 ES300. There is nothing I can put my finger on, but the LaCrosse CXS is more fun to drive. The Lexus felt "numb" to me.

Everything else is all positive. The leather seat just keeps getting better and better with time. Note for those with child car seats- - the swoopy lines of the roof line make getting the car seat in and out slightly more difficult. Again, not that bad.

Sticker price for this car was 32,500. We had 500 off for military rebate, 2000 off with a GM rebate. I'm weird and enjoy sparring with car salesmen, but I don't think I'm good at it. We were out the door for 28,500, even with the 7.75% CA sales tax.
Hope this helps somebody

Kevin