Livability

The Buick Verano is comfortable up in the front row, with good seats and plenty of space for driver and passenger. A higher roofline here helps make things feel more spacious. In the back though, the Verano feels cramped and squishy alongside the Acura. The seatbacks in the rear also feel awkward and uncomfortable. The middle seat in the Buick is downright unusable with a high floor hump robbing footspace, narrow seat and hard seatback.

The ILX front seats are a little less supportive and squishy than the Verano, but the back allows a lot more room for passengers, and an actual middle seat human beings could use. The outboard seats are supportive and comfortable and leg room is far more generous.

Behind the seats, the Verano’s 396 L trunk trumps the 348 of the ILX immediately. The fight only gets more uneven when you notice the Buick’s 60/40 split fold rear seat and cavernous opening between the trunk and passenger compartment which can be used to dramatically expand your load-carrying ability.

The ILX has no split fold, and the pass-through is comparatively tiny thanks to a lot of body bracing between the trunk and the back seat.

Round Four: Buick.

Gizmos and Gadgets

At first glance, Acura is the winner here. Two large screens in the dash and adaptive cruise control jump out immediately and signal the Acura’s intention to take it to Buick in terms of feature content. Add the litany of AcuraWatch safety features including Collision Mitigation Braking, Forward Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning, Lane Keeping Assist, and most impressively – Road Departure Mitigation. Road departure mitigation works by reading the edge of the road, and braking and steering to prevent you crashing off the edge of a cliff or into a tree.

But Buick has some tricks of its own. Sure, the cruise control is the normal, non-radar version but you still get all the passive systems like Forward Collision Alert, Lane Departure Warning, Blind Zone Alert and Rear Cross-Traffic Alert. The big feather in Buick’s cap? GM’s 4G LTE wireless connection in every car, which turns the Verano into a mobile wifi hotspot. And sure Acura has AcuraLink, but it’s no match for OnStar.

When it comes to features then, this is an even match and your preference for connectivity or active driving aids will steer your decision.

Except the Acura infotainment and entertainment system is clunky, ugly and horrible to use out on the road. It is slow to respond, unintuitive and has Windows 3.1-inspired aesthetics.

Buick Intellilink is a little convoluted due to the depth of features in it, but is far easier to use than Acura’s system, which requires multiple presses of a touchscreen just to tune a new SiriusXM station.

Round Five: Buick

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