How Reliable Are New Buicks? Here's What Consumer Reports Says

Buick was on a roll through the first half of 2025, when sales jumped 29% — no other mainstream brand did better. It's not just a matter of old customers re-turning to the brand, as GM says 74% of the company's first-half sales went to first-time Buick buyers. Customers can also take heart from the fact that, even though tariffs may start dashing Buick's hopes and dreams, the brand has no current plans to raise prices.

There's even good news from Consumer Reports, at least relatively speaking. Now, overall, CR ranks Buick in ninth place among mainstream brands for 2025 and 17th compared to the industry as a whole. But zeroing in on today's topic, CR went on to report that Buick also puts up surprisingly high numbers when it comes to new car reliability ratings.

In fact, Buick was literally the number one U.S. auto brand in CR's recent ranking of average predicted reliability. It was essentially the top domestic brand in CR's overall ranking, too. The only U.S. brand ranked higher was, ironically, Chrysler – Chrysler insists it's still a car company, despite only selling a couple of versions of a single minivan.

Buick's individual models also had their share of positive results, with the Envista, Envision, and Enclave all earning CR's badge of recommendation. Only the Encore GX subcompact SUV missed the cut.

The four current Buick models finished at two distinct levels in the CR rankings. The Enclave and Envision finished within one point of each other for overall score — the Envista and Encore GX also received overall scores within one point of each other, but the first pair outranked the latter two by a noticeable margin.

The actual scoring details are proprietary to CR, but we can tell you that the Enclave – the first Buick with Super Cruise – took the top spot, both overall and for reliability. The Enclave finished seventh in its segment for average predicted reliability. However, when it comes to three-row midsize SUVs from domestic brands, the Enclave tied with the Chevrolet Traverse for the top spot overall.

The Buick Envision faced tougher competition in the compact SUV category, which includes the Subaru Forester and Forester Hybrid, which were both extremely close to earning perfect predicted reliability scores from CR. The Envision was well off that pace, checking in at 19th place in its segment for predicted reliability and fourth in terms of models from the domestic brands. However, CR counts multiple versions of the same model separately, like the Forester and the Forester Hybrid. As a result, the top nine spots for average predicted reliability in the subcompact SUV class featured only three nameplates, including five variants of the Toyota RAV4 and two of the Mazda CX-5.

The Envista is the third of Buick's CR-recommended vehicles, and predicted reliability is an important part of that success. Here, once again, the Envista follows the Buick playbook with a reliability performance that tops all domestic competitors in the small sedan/hatchback category while falling well short of the numbers put up by foreign competitors.

One quick disclaimer is needed, however: Although CR considers the Envista to be part of the small sedans/hatchbacks group, that category encompasses not only cars like the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, and Hyundai Elantra, but also small crossovers such as the Kia Soul, Nissan Kicks, and Chevrolet Trax. In the end, the Envista's position as top-ranked domestic model was paired with a 17th-place finish overall for predicted average reliability. That general reliability is part of why we called the Buick Envista the affordable entry-level vehicle that we really need. 

CR took points from the Encore GX for being less refined than other subcompact SUVs in its class and offering a below-average rating for predicted customer satisfaction. The Encore GX also scored poorly in terms of predicted reliability. It tied with the Kia Seltos for the second-worst reliability score in the class, where only the Volkswagen Taos did worse. Regarding domestic brands in the same class, the Encore GX came in right behind the Ford Bronco Sport and far below the Chevrolet Trailblazer, which were the only two domestic competitors covered by CR.