"SCORE" another beautiful Buick for MOON'............................

After moving to South Carolina, selling a couple of houses in NY, spending a boat load on building my garage, I finally came thru for the little lady (as promised) and bought her a real nice Buick.

We considered a Caddy CTS, then a Toyota Avalon Limited, then an Escalade, then a Denali and every damn car you could imagine. After going to a couple of dealer auctions down here (and finding nothing),I happen to stumble (on line) a real nice 2011 Buick Enclave CXL-1 that was loaded and just the color the wife wanted.

Although the Enclave was located in NJ, I think I have developed a 3rd sense (after being in the car business) for who's a bull$h!ter and who's not. I spoke at length to the owner and ran a Carfax and everything he told me about the vehicle was right on the money. He is a well to do Landscaper with a thriving and quite large 30 year old business, an honest old school guy who pulls no punches and tells it like it is. We hit it off well.

So Tuesday 3/3/2015 ole Moon' hops a flight to NY, then a Jitney ride to Newark and the owner was nice enough to drive an hour and pick me up at Newark airport. (no direct flights from SC to NJ). After 1hr of talking cars, business and life in general we arrive at a "knock out" beautiful house. He has an unbelievable 3 1/2 acre parcel in a very upscale neigborhood.
Up a long driveway and past his house we arrive at a 10 car garage that would make mine look like a shed. He hits one of the door remote and there is his wife's Enclave sitting there in all it's glory. This thing is so nice I thought I was taking delivery of a new car. He was selling it because his wife said it was to big and he went out and bought her a 3 series BMW.

Now I'm supposed to be looking this truck over but I can't get my eyes off his 6 other cars in that garage. A 1969 Pace Car Camaro (restored), a 1969 Z/28 Camaro (survivor), a 1967 435hp Corvette (restored), a 1963 Split Window Fuelie (restored), a 2010 Z06 (showroom), and a 2012? ZR1................WOOOOOOOOW !!!!

This guy is super anal about all his vehicles and had every service record for the Enclave. I looked it over and under with a fine tooth comb, took it for a test drive and was able to get him down $1,500 on his already low asking price. It's a one owner wife's car and his kids are starting to drive so he's swamped in cars and this needs to go.

As I left NJ to drive back to SC it started to snow, as I got around Cecil County MD I hit an ice, snow, slush combo. Cars were spinning out, flipping over and horrible driving conditions for the next 6 or so hours. The weather report said it would be worse as night wore on so I was intent on heading south to warmer conditions. Yeah, it was warmer but torrential rain.
Stopped at a road side rest in N.Carolina and only got an hours sleep. Now it's starting to snow here. Back on reod and it's time to haul azz home. Next I hit Fog and you couldn't see 200ft. By the time I got back to SC it was 9am Wed. and the Enclave looked like I went on a Skiing trip, what a mess. Was to tired to even think about washing it so I stopped at a local car wash and it came out the other end looking New again.

Wife loves her (new to us Enclave) so now it's time for OLE MOON to rest up for his next 12hr+ road trip (Norwalk in May).

So here is our 2011 Buick Enclave CXL-1 AWD.................

 

Looks good!

 

Nice Buick, it looks brand new :TU:

When I was in your street, I saw this Corvette in one of the garages :bglasses:

 

Very nice, how many miles on it?

 

That's my neighbor Bob, it's a 1975.

 

Just turned 60K ! Every one I looked at down south had over 100K.

 

Nice buy, looks G8, enjoy...

 

That's a great color on the Enclave - "Gold Mist". I have an '07 Saturn Outlook XRE AWD fully loaded in the same color. Solid car with no issues and just turned 70k. Really smooth ride that is quieter and has more pickup than my wife's Lexus RX330.

 

You did good! I have had two Enclaves, a new 2009 and then traded it in for a new 2012 and may do the same at the end of the summer for a new 2015. Back in 2009 after having the GMC suburban I decided to get something smaller with better mileage. The Enclave is my daily driver and I tow a small utility trailer with it on the weekends hauling a variety of stuff. It has all the room I need and serves as my pickup truck most of the time. Mine is the white pearl with light grey interior and loaded. Your wife should be singing your praises for a long time.

Enjoy

 

Any trans history? Those things are famous for eating wave plates. $$$

 

2008-2009 were the bad ones, 2010s and newer are OK.

 

My 09 has already done this once, and feels like it is starting to again. That is why I bought an extended warranty on mine. Retail for the last repair at the dealership would have been $4k....

 

Real nice Mooney. Best of luck with it!

 

Did you check to see if that's one of the ones made in communist China?










.....just busting....:spank::laugh:

Nice score Moon:TU:

 

$45,585 Brand New

Lansing MI USA :TU:

 

Thank you for buying AMERICAN!!!

 

^^^lol!

The wave plates in the 6T70 transmission were the epitome of GM quality (or lack there-of) in the late 2000's. When Ford and GM designed and built these transmissions in a joint venture, Ford engineers did not like the design of GM's version of the 3-5-R wave plate and had their own, more robust design. GM, meh, it will be fine. Guess whose broke and whose didn't? Now GM has an updated version of their 3-5-R wave plate, but it is of little consequence to the owners of the failed ones that are out of warranty. We did 3 this winter, and they start at $3500 and go up from there, all because of a poorly-designed $5 part. There is no prevention, except for removing the transmission before implosion and having the update done. That is still 3/4 of the cost of the implosion because you'd be foolish not to overhaul the entire trans while it's out because of the labor intensive nature of the job.

 

what in it xould possibly amount to $3,500 ? or is it 34 hrs @ $100/hr and a couple of Bene's in parts ?

Moon - very nice ride, congrats. Curious to here what kind of mileage you average .. I've heard around town 15 is considered good o No:

 

Very nice,Ron,lots of luck with it.Bruno.

 

Shocked and getting 19 around town and I averaged 22.5 mpg on the 600+ mile trip home at 70-75 mph and it's an AWD.
We love it !!!