Halfway decent hack on a difficult car to typically lease, even with the GM strike cutting inventory severely in my area! Sat in all of the 3 row SUVs except Atlas since no VW dealer in my area and wont support the Dieselgate scandal company unless it’s with an EV lease. No on MDX since really small inside (couldnt even fit a dog crate with 3rd row down) despite looking large on outside. No on Ascent since numerous stories of the CVT blowing out at 5k (despite having come from a '12 outback with 100k on the CVT and loving Subaru cars and the AWD). No on the Pilot either with the class action lawsuit on the Infotainment center going dark while driving incl the digital speedometer… scary. Highlander only has 1 center 3rd row tether which prevents 60 split seat fold down in back cargo area from holding a dog crate. Traverse was nearly the same price (identical built car) but cheap feel inside for $40k plus already and dealers treating them as luxury cars with leasing. QX60 OK and decent lease deal but slightly smaller inside than Enclave/Traverse and has a CVT.
Was surprised they’d deal this decent with a 2020. I did lease my Bolt with them 2 yrs ago.
2020 Enclave Essence AWD Summit White
MSRP: $486XX (Bose, Nav, 20" much nicer wheels, trailer hitch and tranny cooler)
Selling price (before rebates/incentives): $441XX
Monthly Payment: $400+tax (if incl Costco $700 deal is ~$410/mo INCL tax). Total effective monthly is ~$450/mo incl tax, DAS, costco. Effectively 0.9% monthly of MSRP. Not too shabby.
Down: 0
Drive-Off Amount: roughly $1400-1500 (DMV/TTL, ridiculous CA fees)
Months: 36
Annual Mileage:10k
MF: .00094
Residual: 60%
Incentives: $2500 lease loyalty (leasing Bolt), $1000 Auto Show, small amt GM lease cash
Region: NorCal by Sacramento
Leasehackr Score: 10.1 (incl $700 costco as untaxed incentive). My required minimum score to lease has been 10, similar to others on here. Got spoiled with my Bolt being about a score of 11.5.
Leasehackr Calculator Link: CALCULATOR | LEASEHACKR
Pretty solid deal. Congrats! Is that straight supplier pricing?
You left Acadia off your list, although you probably also would’ve ruled that out due to size. Seems like you are really good at finding ways to dislike cars
To complete my list, I sat in Kia Telluride and the Palisade. Telluride had beautiful dash and nice locking diff, but forums full of discussion on the drivetrain issues and things breaking made me nervous. Palisade being in same family and both being new put them lower on my list until better tested with time. Both have nice appearance but looks dont get you from A to B.
Acadia I thought would be good size but fairly narrow cargo area. One dog crate in most the cars allowed the 40 split 3rd row seat to still be up. With the Acadia, it is 50/50 split 3rd row which means both 3rd row seats down and effectively 2 row car. Might as well stick with my outback if I got that although interior was a bit bigger.
Will also add in the Explorer I sat in but it felt very cheaply made for $40-50k.
With a 2nd kid on the way, 2 car seats and an occasional dog crate without stepping up to the full size beasts of Escalade, Expedition, etc, left few options.
I’d probably put the Telluride, Traverse, QX60, Enclave towards the top of the pack based on the issues I read about. If Ascent and Pilot cleaned up their issues, they could probably be leased slightly better and I would’ve chosen them knowing their AWD systems are likely superior (queue the controversy) for Lake Tahoe trips.
Plus this light up ground projection for the tailgate to show where to put your foot to auto open the tailgate sealed the deal lol. It showed up when I walked up to the car. Wife holding kids would have this come in handy…
The TSB seemed to resolve only some of the units that were having issues from what I read. For a brand new car, I was shocked this wasnt detected during mfgr testing for something so obvious. My only conclusion was that Kia/Hyundai rushed to production and other issues will arise with time that could be worse. So new and with not enough units in the hands of consumers for them to even have a chance to report in the forums, I figured things potentially were being underreported. Didnt want to be the Guinea pig for them… maybe in a few yes since the Telluride really is a strong contender in the class.
Understandable. I do wonder how many people are actually having issues though. It isn’t like there’s a large community and no one posts up saying “my car is fine!”
True rates of these issues are known only to the mfgr really. It’s a guessing game about what is the acceptable risk based on minimal, anecdotal information. Maybe alot of the Buick owners are the stereotypical older generation who dont like/use the internet forums, hence no issues reported. Who knows…
I really had to put aside my preconceptions of the Buick brand and really had to be objective about the decision. No perfect car exists, just have to find what is acceptable to the user.
And how many Honda owners are apt to throw a sh*t fit if something breaks versus GM owners? Preconceived notions, past experience and expectations play a huge role. Confirmation bias.
It’s like the 1.5T Honda engine. There’s this huge internet hysteria over fuel dilution based on folks smelling dipsticks. Yet GM had a huge rash of 1.5T engine failures due to piston top land failure/low speed preignition 3-4 years ago and hardly anyone knows about it.
Anyway the Enclave is a very nice vehicle and hopefully it serves OP well. On a lease I wouldn’t care one bit about reliability as long as the brand I went with had service loaners, but to each their own.
I know allllllll about that one! My Malibu cracked a piston at 10k miles before the recall even started. They fixed it under warranty and that was that. Best part was between the initial repair and subsequent recall process to address the underlying matter I got like 2 or 3 free oil changes due to the nature of the repairs
Me neither (my next EV will probably be Bolt, Niro, Ioniq, or Kona which I usually avoid any of those brands in the past), but wife with 2 kids would be driving 99% of time, wanted to analyze as best I could to find a car that keeps running and not breakdown, leading to a huge hassle for her. I think the Ascents shocked me the most. Someone even made a huge spreadsheet tracking batches of trannies which went bad so early on, seemed mostly in the 2019s around Aug/Sept 2018 but who knows. Im sure most would do OK up to 30k and probably fooling myself thinking I did that with any scientific rigor. Was quite entertaining Im sure to dealer staff seeing me carry around 2 carseats and the dog crate to automalls for hours testing all possible future sesting configurations. At least it kept me away from the crying baby lol. Just biding my time really leasing till some cheaper 3 row 300mi PHEV/EV SUVs come out.
I’m in the market for the same car! If you don’t mind me asking, what dealer did you get your car from? My local Buick dealer just quoted $817/mo for a $50k Essence!! Ouch!
I really think you need to design your own 3 row SUV. You found something wrong with all of them! I do have to say I had the pilot the highlander and the enclave, and the Enclave i miss the most!
