Looking at the 2011 Buick Lucerne
One thing you’ll remember about the Buick Lucerne is that the company’s biggest sedan has a body that has a basic front-wheel design just like the Cadillac DTS. In the upcoming year, the 2011 Buick Lucerne wouldn’t have changed much.
There are four trim levels offered for this lineup: the three CX, CXL, and CXL Premium, as well as the Super models. The Super models are sports-themes models. The CX, CXL, and CXL premium all run on 227 hp 3.9 liter V8 engines. These are capable of running with E85 ethanol-blended fuel.
On the other hand, the Supermodels are powered with 299 hp 4.6 liter V8 engines that work together with revised steering as well as GM’s Magnetic Ride Control suspension. This system allows the vehicle to automatically adapt to certain road conditions and adjust the suspension.
Lucerne models use 4-spee automatic transmissions. As for seating capacity, the CX, CXL, and the Premium CXL can seat as much as 6 people. The Supermodels, however, can seat up to 5 passengers.
A series of safety features are available for the Lucerne models. This includes an antilock brake system or ABS, an antiskid system, a traction control system, airbags on the front-side and airbags on the curtain-side.
The ABS, which stands for antilock brake system, allows you to keep effective control over the vehicle by preventing the wheels from getting locked in any instance that you hit the brakes. Sometimes the brakes, if not controlled, can completely lock one of the wheels. And when the wheels can’t turn anymore, it could potentially endanger the passengers and damage the car. The system basically detects these locks when you hit the brakes. Once so, it will relieve the wheels of any pressure should locking occur to allow the wheel to continue turning.
An antiskid system, as the name suggests, works to prevent the vehicle from skidding. It is designed to act upon any instance of skidding, and when it does, it taps the ABS to apply individual brakes on the wheels. This will prevent the car from skidding too much, and will allow it to go back in its course.
While the system above is designed to react to skidding, the traction control system is what prevents them. Traction control enhances the vehicle’s grip, which is what allows you to smoothly accelerate, turn, or back up the car. As long as traction is strong, the vehicle is less likely to lose grip, which would have otherwise caused the vehicle to skid.
And of course, we have the classic airbags to prevent the passengers from getting hurt inside the car in the unlikely case of a collision.
Other safety features include blind spot alerts and lane departure warning systems. The Supermodels, in addition to the ones already mentioned, have for its standard features heated steering wheels and heated and cooled front seats (complete with memory programming). You also get a wireless cell phone link.
