Buick Enclave

Published · Researched 2026-09-21

Buick Enclave — Review

Verdict: the redesign is handsome and powerful, but 2025 is a first-year car with first-year problems — buy the older one, not the new one.

This is an awkward review to write, because the 2025 Buick Enclave is genuinely impressive on a walkaround. A 30-inch display that's the largest in the class. A 328-horsepower turbo four. Super Cruise — the first Buick to offer it. Three rows, quiet cabin, premium feel, standard trailering package from 2026. Then you read the owner groups, and the walkaround glow fades: torque-converter failures, all-wheel-drive faults with no permanent fix, blank infotainment screens, and a Consumer Reports predicted-reliability rating sitting below average. The Enclave didn't get redesigned; it got reset, including the reliability clock.

The community evidence is unusually specific, which is both useful and damning. In the Facebook problems groups, the 2025's issues have part numbers attached. There's a TSB-tracked torque-converter turbine-shaft seal failure — code P2817, slipping, delayed and rough shifts, fluid leaks. There's the 2025–2026 all-wheel-drive fault: a "Service AWD/4WD" warning with code U3000 Sym 92, for which the documented remedy is a battery reset while GM engineering investigates. A battery reset. While engineering investigates. With no permanent fix at last report. If you're buying a $50,000–$62,000 family vehicle, "we're looking into it" is not a repair.

The older generation contributes its own warnings. A 2019 owner in the Facebook group reported a $10,000 transmission replacement at 125,000 miles. A 2021 Avenir owner documented undercarriage creaking. Older threads recycle the same themes: transmissions, timing chains, no-start issues. That's lineage context, not proof the new car shares the faults — but it establishes that the Enclave nameplate has never been a reliability all-star, which matters when the new generation's early signal is already shaky.

Support reality adds another layer. A 2024 owner reported a failed radio receiver on national backorder — a part that disabled the backup camera and audible warnings. Sibling-brand evidence (the Optiq's six-month Wi-Fi module wait) suggests GM's new-tech parts pipeline is strained across divisions. When your AWD fault's official fix is "disconnect the battery and hope," parts availability isn't an abstract concern.

Then there's the money. The 2026 Enclave runs $48,395 to $61,995 after a December 2025 price adjustment. But the used market is already voting: a one-year-old 2025 averages $41,191, and a three-year-old 2023 sits at $33,462. That's steep first-year depreciation, and the Enclave has lost its Consumer Reports Recommended rating. A competitor analysis making the rounds puts it bluntly: the Enclave commands roughly $10,000 over a Kia Telluride while earning the same 4.7/5 user rating, with real-world fuel economy barely ahead of the Kia's V6.

So what's the actual play? The late second-generation cars — 2023, 2024 — with the proven 3.6-liter V6. Mature powertrain, all the teething done, mid-$30,000s used. You give up the giant screen and Super Cruise, and in exchange you get a vehicle whose failure modes are known quantities instead of open investigations.

Who should skip the 2025+ entirely? Anyone who needs their family hauler to simply work — the AWD fault alone disqualifies it for the "I don't think about my car" buyer. Anyone paying near sticker: the depreciation curve punishes new buyers hard. And anyone cross-shopping the Telluride or Palisade: drive those first, because the value gap is real.

Sweet spot: 2023 (late second generation, mature V6). Years to avoid: 2025 — the redesign year with the torque-converter TSB, the unresolved AWD fault, and below-average predicted reliability.

The third-generation Enclave may yet mature into a good vehicle; most redesigns do by year three. But right now it's a $50,000 beta test with a battery-reset workaround, and the used lot has the finished product parked two rows over for $15,000 less. That's not a close call.