Tidbits- 2005 Buick LaCrosse

I picked up a few new car catalogues at Buick last week. Naturally the

05 Park Avenue catalogue is similar to the 2000 - 2004 catalogues with the same dark, blurry, cropped and extremely close up photographs that do nothing to impress me of a car that I may be interested in purchasing. Do we really need to have a camera zoom in 1 inch from the side of the seat showing the stitching. NO.

Show me a full width photo of the backend sporting the new taillight assembly.

The LaCrosse, being a new model car has a better selection of photo's. But there are some clinkers in there too.

Two things I read in the LaCrosse catalogue indicate a new die cast aluminum intake manifold for the 3800 engine and

High Intensity Halogen Headlights:

LaCrosse also uses a four bulb burn configuration, with two high beam lamps and two high intensity halogen low beam lamps coming on whenever the high beams are turned on.The result is greater nightime visibility imediately ahad of LaCrosse and bright uniform illumination further down the road. ( quote from the Catalogue ).

Seems like the old technology is coming back. Why GM knocked the low beams off in the 90's when the high beams were on, is beyond me.

========= Harryface =========

1991 Pontiac Bonneville LE 3800 V6 ( C ), Black/Slate Grey _~_~_~297,525 miles_~_~_

~_~_~_~_U.S.A._~_~_~_~_~_

~~~The Former Fleet ~~~

89 Cavalier Z 24 convertible 78 Holiday 88 coupe 68 LeSabre convertible 73 Impala sedan
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Harry Face
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Probably because of the changes in federal lighting standards that went into effect a number of years ago. Look how long it took for the manufactures to get halogen sealed beams approved for use in the US. A lot of todays lighting was not legal back then. The 'spot' type lighting that one sees today was developed by Chrysler back in the sixties but did not meet lighting standards of the day from the offer it on their cars.

mike hunt

Harry Face wrote:

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MajorDomo

Plastic is great for disposable razors, but not as well suited for intake manifolds. GM's 3800 and Ford's 4.6 come to mind. I saw one plastic intake manifold on a 3800 that literally blew in half after a backfire.

Concerning headlamps, I'm for whatever provides more effective illumination. I've seen many people rewire their headlamps so that the low beams stay illuminated with the high beams. Although there is indeed more light on the road, I can see where it would actually *reduce* long-distance visibility because you have more light closer to you which will cause a human eye's pupils to constrict resulting in reduced sensitivity to the realtivaly dimmer light further ahead. It's not so different than the reason why it's harder to see the road when you turn your dome light on at night. Alas, I digress. I'm no headlight engineer so until I become one, I'll leave that to the experts .

On to the LaCrosse... My 1999 Regal with 84,500 miles is still in near-showroom mechanical and cosmetic condition, but after 6 years it's growing "old" to me. I visited my local Buick dealer a few weeks ago and test drove a LaCrosse CXS. I wrote a review on a forum at

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giving a summary of my test drive. In a nutshell, it's a nice, new car and I consider it an improvment over the Regal. However, It was not rewarding enough to prompt me to trade. I left with a business card and the satisfaction that I owned a car that was still 95% as rewarding to drive and it's paid-for.

Roger

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Roger Maxwell

The link doesn't work.

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nospam

Oops, my bad. I forget that this is one website in particular that requires a preceding, "www". Try this...

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Roger

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Roger Maxwell

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Car Guy

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