Croc

The spongier material only gets damaged if you intentionally try to. A purse buckle will NOT scratch that in the normal process of getting in and out of the car.EDIT: Now, my main question is where the hell the passenger airbag comes from...I mean I know the airbags can rip through the vinyl and leather dashes in other cars, but it looks like the bag is coming through hard plastic here without an obvious panel for doing so...I wouldn't want an air bag busting through hard plastic that will likely result in some small flying pieces...

The AURA is a fine piece of engineering. You are actually in luck, I was just asking someone the other day about the build date for AURA and production starts July 24th. The wait is short!

Slightly off-topic, but I found this on autodeadline under Cadillac accessories:

In the Lucerne, the console is the same hard plastic as the dash lower. Now, I do need to clarify one thing: I am assuming what you say regarding the Park Avenue is true since you are a current owner, but I do not recall large expanses of hard plastic in the P.A. like the Lucerne has. I shall be looking this up... EDIT: This is the best interior shot of the Park Avenue I could find... Honestly? The only thing offensive about this is the design (purely subjective) and the fit and finish (mainly that panel under the center stack that looks loose, otherwise a minor complaint). I think the materials used are, for the most part, fine. Now, Ven, where is this hard plastic located? The only place I can see that would be similar to the Lucerne's is the passenger airbag cover, but I know that is not hard plastic. I see no large expanse of hard plastic in this picture. (I guess that's my biggest problem with the Lucerne's plastic...it is one large, unbroken expanse in front of the passenger).

I explained that at the time; that I had tested both the Lucerne and DTS in the same day, back-to-back, and that since the interiors on both are extremely similar I forgot about the plastic in the Lucerne.The DTS interior is perfect, material-wise. I think some of the styling is a bit off, but the quality of materials is spot-on. The Lucerne should have the DTS's lower dash materials. Including that would not change the price of the car substantially if at all. My biggest beef with the DTS is that it is grossly overpriced. I also think the Park Avenue was overpriced. As for your point regarding the regression, well the Park Avenue was introduced in 1997 and the LeSabre in 2000. I would hope the LeSabre had better interior materials (which it did). I don't see the logic behind your claim that since the Lucerne replaced a dated model and a much less-dated model, that there was no regression in interior materials with the Lucerne because it's interior materials are on-par with the dated model and behind the less-dated model? I don't get that, please explain.

If you sit in a Lucerne and don't just look at the photographs, you will understand that it is unfortunate. You just kind of sit there and touch it and are like "...oh!" and then re-touch it because you can't believe they did that. I saw this happen time and again at the various autoshows I've been to...it's really disconcerting.

Are you high? No it won't! Out of all the divisions, Saturn has the most "non-image" of them all, except maybe SAAB. Saturn is known for great dealers, though. So...if the product is there...what would take long to essentially create an image? With Buick, you have to fight the geriatric image. That's a hard image to shake...especially when the current product does nothing to combat it.

old news. Currently, there is a plan to bring back a RWD Pontiac that might carry the GTO name as some kind of large Zeta quad coupe, but such plans are very fluid and likely to change.

It's not melodrama. And it is the one glaring flaw in an otherwise superb vehicle. Fly, even your Aurora has higher interior dash quality than the Lucerne, and it predates it by a decade.

Yea...um, so show me a single competitor that uses hard plastic like that in a ~30k "luxury" car. "Better" than LeSabre still isn't good enough. The competition and points of reference aren't with GM's past models, but rather other manufacturers. Now, here are some reasons why the use of hard plastic does affect daily enjoyment of the car (or will soon after buying): Rattles. Plastic rattles, especially if the roads are full of potholes. Rattles will develop with dash panels. Safety. In an accident, if your head were to fly forward, would you rather hit a padded vinyl or hard plastic? Yea, that's what I thought... Quality. It just doesn't seem as high of quality when you know that GM and Buick cheaped out on the dash to cut costs. I've said this before and I'll say it again: if a manufacturer is going to cut costs and cheap out, the manufacturer should only do so on parts the consumer will have LITTLE TO NO CONTACT with. No one is going to care about the material underneath the dash at the back of the footwells, no one cares if the floor carpeting extends under the front seats (or if there's a plastic tray there instead), no one cares if the trunk liner is of high quality materials (as long as it isn't obviously crappy-looking) and no one cares if the glovebox is lighted/made of excellent materials because the only thing that will fit in there is the owner's manual. But people do start to care when there's this big hunk of cheap hard plastic staring at them from the dash every day. Again, find a competitor's vehicle that has a huge plastic dash like the Lucerne's. To make sure everyone's on the same page...

No way.

I honestly don't think the Town Car will pass the Marcia litmus test. Look at a Lincoln LS. My cousin just got one and she loves it!

Ohhhhh, nice. That's slick!

ew

Tupac

The LeSabre did not have a cheap, hard plastic lower dash. I do not enjoy seeing Buick regress in its interior materials.

No, those are FWD.

Yea yea, I was just typing stream-of-thought and realized it wasn't that chris at all...because he was a mod and I know he'd never do something like that.

you don't mean the guy whose username was just "chris" do you? EDIT: No way in hell it's "chris"

Well, if you have no problem with acres of hard plastic on the dash where the DTS has squishy material, fine. The Lucerne interior is styled very well, but the shear amount of hard plastic is hard to reconcile. I will say this: the car gets a B- from me. If the only change made to it were an upgrade of the lower dash to some padded vinyl or something other than hard plastic, I would give the car an A-. If a few features were made available as options (like a telescoping steering wheel, a better tilt, DVD entertainment, etc) then the car would get an A+ with me. Why a B-? Because it is very obvious where GM cheaped out. GM has to stop doing this with their interiors. It's been a chronic problem at GM, and I haven't been convinced they've turned over a new leaf on this yet...too bad.

Sarah Jessica Parker

The exteriors are so good; it's just a shame the interiors are such a letdown.

There's always the gen-II Catera. Those were very nice, especially in Catera Sport trim. All the reliability gremlins were pretty much gone by 2000.

square burgers

I believe GMT 966 is Outlook, and GMX 002 was the next ION. GMT 967 and 968 would be Enclave and Acadia, or vice versa.