Buick LaCrosse AWOL; Launch Botched

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Buick dealers are telling us supplies of the ballyhooed mid-launch 2010 LaCrosse have slowed to a trickle. In fact, several dealers report they’re out of stock. Needless to say, waiting on the first hypeworthy Buick in ages isn’t putting them in a good mood. Nor are the problems rumored to be causing the delays; it seems initial reports of electrical problems may be true despite GM’s denial. We are hearing dark mutterings of weird malfunctions. Specifically, opening a door while the hood is popped causes the dashboard to light up like a Christmas tree. You’d think that with “only” four brands, GM could get a potentially brand-rescuing product launch right. Or at the very least get the story straight. We done a ‘ring ’round’ to check on supplies, and we can smell the napalm in the morning on this one . . .

Hurd Automall in RF’s Rhode Island reports they have one black LaCrosse CXL. The salesman said they’re getting one—count it, one—car per week.

TTAC commentator 210delray reports [below], “My employer has been trying to find one for weeks, and we finally received word from GM that they’ve located 9 in the entire state of Virginia (maybe excluding the far southwestern part) — 3 each at 3 dealers.”

Buick-Pontiac-GMC Trucks of Thousand Oaks, CA, has three fully-loaded, full-retail CXLs; two in white, one in (you guessed it) black. “We’re lucky we got that,” a despondent salesman admitted.

Considering GM’s ad spend on the car, the botched launch should make heads roll down at RenCen. But it probably won’t.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • DweezilSFV DweezilSFV on Sep 05, 2009

    Sounds just like the mis fires of the 1982 Cavalier launch described in Brock Yates old book "The Fall Of The American Automobile Industry". Old GM lives.

  • FreedMike FreedMike on Sep 05, 2009
    Ronnie Schreiber : September 4th, 2009 at 11:52 pm And wtf is up with the name change in Canada. Why would they think that using a French model name in Canada is a bad thing in a country that has a significant number of French speakers. Lacrosse is slang for masturbation in Quebec. :)
  • FreedMike FreedMike on Sep 05, 2009

    Chill out guys...I remember when I had to wait 6 months for a Civic.

  • Bimmer Bimmer on Sep 05, 2009
    Can someone please explain to me how the car’s computers know that the hood is open. If there is some sort of hood position sensor that is connected to the car’s other systems that’s just batshit insane. IIRC E46 BMW ///M3 with SMG would not start with hood unlatched. Not sure about 6-speed, tho.
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