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GM recalling over 243,000 crossovers over possible seat belt defect

2010 Buick Enclave - Click above for high-res image gallery
The summer of 2010's recall hit parade continues unabated today, with General Motors having just announced that it is asking 243,403 owners of its 2009-2010 Lambda crossovers to bring their three-row haulers in for inspection. The culprit? Second-row seat belts in select Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Saturn Outlook CUVs have "failed to perform properly in a crash."
According to GM, a second-row seat-side trim piece is to blame, as it can impede the upward rotation of the buckle after the seat is folded flat. As a result, if the buckle makes contact with the seat frame, cosmetic damage can occur, potentially requiring additional force to operate the buckle properly. So far, no great shakes, but in the process of applying that additional force, the occupant may push the buckle cover down to the strap, potentially revealing and depressing the red release button. As a result of this, the belt may not latch, or in certain cases, it may actually appear to be latched when, in fact, it isn't.

Junkyard Gem: 1988 Buick LeSabre Custom Sedan

The General's Buick Division began selling LeSabres for the 1959 model year, when it greeted the world with a cat-eyed face and razor-sharp tailfins, and the LeSabre rolled on the full-sized, rear-wheel-drive B Platform (best-known for underpinning the Chevrolet Impala and Caprice) all the way through 1985. For 1986, the LeSabre went to the front-wheel-drive H Platform, shedding a few hundred pounds and a half-foot of wheelbase, yet gaining interior room in the process. After that, every LeSabre ever made had a V6 engine driving the front wheels, all the way to the end in 2005. Here's one of those early H-Body LeSabres, found in a Denver-area self-service yard in incredibly clean condition. Some Buicks and Oldsmobiles of the mid-to-late 1980s (the ones on brand-new platforms) had six-digit odometers, which is the reason I was able to see that a discarded '86 Olds Calais with crazy customizing touches had better than 360,000 miles on the clock. This car just barely squeezed past 100,000 miles … and that's a higher number than I expected to see after glancing at the body and interior. Just look at that upholstery! There are no rips, and the only stains appear to have occurred after arrival in the junkyard ecosystem. I think we're looking at a one-owner car that was given meticulous care and was driven only to (a nearby) church on Sundays. Though the HRC sticker and Autobot badge seem out of place on an original-owner Buick that rolled out of the showroom 34 years ago. Perhaps the car was handed down from Owner #1 to a grandchild. This is the most high-zoot radio Buick would sell you in a 1988 LeSabre, complete with Dolby, auto-reverse cassette player, and scan/seek modes on the radio. The price tag on this? 282 bucks, or about 720 inflation-shrunk frogskins today; not cheap, but necessary to do justice to the hit songs of the day. If you wanted a factory CD player in a new LeSabre, you had to wait another year or two. Pollard Brothers Motors is still around, on the other side of the Continental Divide from the Denver region. Power came from an EFI-equipped Buick 3.8-liter V6, rated at 150 horsepower. The only transmission available was a four-speed automatic. Except for some dents that almost certainly happened at the junkyard, the paint and body look gorgeous. Problem is, H-Body LeSabres don't have an enthusiast following, and car shoppers looking for daily drivers tend to shy away from sedans this old.

China's Buick Envista crossover is coming to the United States

Confirming an earlier rumor, Buick has announced that the Envista crossover it unveiled in China earlier in 2022 will travel across the Pacific and land in American showrooms. The fastback-like soft-roader's main mission will be to lure younger buyers into the firm's showrooms. "[The Buick Envista is] already in production in China, off the design of the Buick Wildcat. Getting ready for the United States here as well; just a beautiful addition to the Buick line-up," said General Motors president Mark Reuss during a conference call in November 2022. His announcement asks more questions than it answers. We don't know when the Envista will make its American debut, whether it will be imported from China or built elsewhere, or precisely where it will slot in the Buick range. Enthusiast website GM Authority speculates that we could see the model in time for the 2024 model year and that the lineup will include an upmarket trim level with the Avenir designation. Technical details will be released closer to the Envista's on-sale date. For context, the version sold in China carries a base price of RMB 150,000, which represents about $21,000 at the current conversion rate, and ships with a turbocharged, 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 181 horsepower and bolted to a continuously variable transmission (CVT). It's available with a pair of 10.25-inch displays (one for the instrument cluster and one for the infotainment system), a surround-sound system, and a sporty-looking appearance package named GS (that should raise some eyebrows from the long-time Buick fans out there). Convincing young motorists to put the Buick brand near the top of their shopping list will be just one of the Envista's tasks. On a secondary level, it also previews the design language that will permeate the rest of the range (including a series of EVs) in the coming years. Related video: Featured Gallery 2022 Buick Envista, Chinese-spec model Buick Crossover