The Buick Encore GX has received a Top Safety Pick award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
GM’s subcompact crossover was first deemed a Top Safety Pick for the 2021 model year, and with no major changes made to its platform or safety systems, it’s not surprising to see it has once again received this distinction for the 2022 model year. It’s worth noting that the Top Safety Pick award differs from the coveted Top Safety Pick+ award, which is only handed out to vehicles that the IIHS considers to be the industry standard with regard to occupant and pedestrian safety.
The Buick Encore GX may have earned itself a Top Safety Pick+ award, like the closely related Chevy Trailblazer did, if it weren’t for its less-than-impressive headlight design. The IIHS gave the Encore GX’s standard halogen headlamps a rating of only ‘Marginal’, saying these lights provided inadequate lighting coverage on road curves and created some glare. The optional LED projector lights received a better rating of ‘Acceptable’, although they missed out on the best-possible rating of ‘Good’ due to the average beam coverage and a small amount of glare.
The Encore GX received the best-possible rating of ‘Good’ in all of the IIHS’ crashworthiness evaluations, but the IIHS observed some injuries to the passenger dummy’s feet in the small overlap front crash test, docking it some points. It also had a rating of ‘Acceptable’ for the ease of use of the LATCH child restraint system, saying the lower anchors for the seat were located too deep within the rear bench, making them difficult to access.
One place the Buick Encore GX excelled was with regard to its front crash prevention system – otherwise known as automatic emergency braking. The vehicle avoided a collision in the institute’s 12 mph test and nearly avoided it in the difficult 25 mph test, earning it an impressive rating of ‘Superior’.
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