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2024 GMC Acadia And Chevy Traverse, 2025 Buick Enclave All Share Same Doors: Here’s Why

There are several similarities between the 2024 GMC Acadia, 2024 Chevy Traverse, and 2025 Buick Enclave. All three crossovers ride on the GM C1 platform, all three debut an all-new third generation for their respective nameplates, and all three cradle the turbocharged 2.5L I4 LK0 gasoline engine. But the similarities don’t stop there – in fact, all three crossovers also share the same doors. Now, GM Authority is diving into the reasons why the 2024 GMC Acadia, 2024 Chevy Traverse, and 2025 Buick Enclave share doors.

Interestingly, these three crossovers don’t just share some of their doors – they share all four of them. But why?

GM product planners and engineers explained to GM Authority that, from the perspective of engineering and cost, shared doors make for a huge boost in efficiency. Get under the skin, and there are quite a few mechanisms and a ton of engineering work that goes into creating a modern automotive door. The door is composed of numerous components, such as seals, glass, and various safety pieces. With regard to safety specifically, car doors incorporate impact-absorbing steel components, so if an engineering team can develop the same safety components and apply them across several models, it can save a significant amount of money.

What’s more, the exterior sheet metal of the door makes up a good portion of the structure. By comparison, the sides of a car body (quarter panels) and the hood have no real inner structure, while the door outer portion, or what you’re looking at when you see a door, is a structural part of the car. With that in mind, it helps GM enormously to share these across vehicles, much more so than other body components.

While you may not be able to unsee it, the shared doors between the 2024 GMC Acadia, 2024 Chevy Traverse, and 2025 Buick Enclave are not necessarily something anyone could identify with a quick glance, adding to the justification for GM to share these components. Indeed, shared doors enhance manufacturing efficiency, reduce costs, and streamline the production process, ultimately making the cars more profitable. That makes a whole lot of sense if you’re running a car company.

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Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

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Comments

  1. If you think these 3 look alike, check out the new Equinox and Terrain. Almost exactly the same.

    Did GM not learn its lesson from the ’80s and ’90s when brand engineering really hurt them?

    Reply
    1. That’s definitely not true. The 80s cars were barely differentiated. I never realized the Acadia/Traverse/Enclave shared doors. They look completely different from one another (overall) inside and out. GM definitely learned and that really started, in my opinion, with the ‘92 Bonneville/88/Park Ave triplets.

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    2. When VW does it with Audi and Porsche nobody bats an eye (and they most definitely do it as the base Cayenne used the same engine as the Touareg). But god forbid GM does it and “How dare they! Tar and feather them!”

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    3. Who buys a vehicle only for how the doors look these days? Great to see GM using smart engineering to gain scale on components that cost lots but don’t overly influence the buyer! Back in the late 90s, GM had the Grand Am and the Alero that were supposedly the same vehicle family with same power options. But the Alero had an engine cradle that was 1/2 inch more than the Grand Am, which of course necessitated different dies and added different assembly fixtures and machinery, resulting in unneeded and costly complexity!

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      1. I wish gm used smart engineering to benefit the customer. Anyone can be efficient in manufacturing by engineering out cost and saving the $5 or $100 per transmission or engine that would enable it to last to 200k miles. My 99 Bonnie was the last gm (sorry GM at that time) to make that milestone. Kia and Stellantis are very “efficient” in this manner. Not a great benchmark.

        I have had an engine and three transmissions on three separate gm vehicles, all well under 100k miles. All post-BK clean sheet designs. All well maintained because I want them to last. One of them required the services of an attorney to have the warranty be honored to any amount. For the first time in my life, I bought a non-GM vehicle. I’ll get to see if my new IS 350 makes 200k miles without major issues. The CT4&5 were not even a consideration.

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      2. Why pay to make different door if you can use the same doors on various platforms and still.make the vehicle different,Tesla uses the same taillamps one on the small sedan and suv

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  2. Here we go again.

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  3. “Well, from the perspective of engineering and cost, shared doors make for a huge boost in efficiency.”

    What are you really saving when you’re selling the same vehicle three different ways? When each needs to be separately tested, marketed, and supported, AND all three end up competing with each-other??

    Appears any lesson of what bankrupted GM the first time has been completely forgotten.

    Reply
  4. How is this news? That’s what platform sharing is. I imagine the general structure is the same but as long as their is significant differentiation between the brands that’s all that matters. Its not that bad nowadays. However, I look at the Honda Prologue and can’t unsee the GM in that car. Or like what they did to the final Saab 9-5 where it was a blatant Buick Lacrosse.

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  5. I told you!

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  6. I personally understand the coat cutting and how it makes sense to share doors I must say that I love the way all three look and also I doubt any of this is new look at the Tahoe, Yukon,and Escalade,they share parts as well,my biggest problem is the engine I just don’t like the no V6 option,I understand they needed to have an engine to meet stricked emission but I still think the could have offered it for now and fase it out later!

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    1. Who cares how many cylinders? All that matters is power, efficiency and reliability. Right?

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      1. I can agree with you at some point however that 4cyl. turbo may cost more to maintain and may not be as reliable as the 3.6 or as quiet my 2018 Enclave is smooth,quiet and reliable power is adefor it’s size but that 4cyle turbo I’m not so sure.

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      2. Maybe to you; but to me it’s reliability and power. And there’s nothing like the smoothness, power, and reliability of a naturally-aspirated V8. Start throwing turbos, all sorts of electronic controls, and 9-speed automatic transmissions into the mix, and those are all more points of potential failure. That’s one reason why I have not bought a new GM vehicle since 2008. And why GM does a GREAT business just selling LS V8 crate motors.

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  7. The rear doors have the same pointed shape above the wheel opening as the previous model Traverse. This pointed panel left dings in my Eqinox paint when kids swong doors open in garage. My 24 Buick Enclave has a curved edge in this area and does not damage paint.

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  8. General Motors is doing it again Re- Badging as they did in the past. Where did that get them,, bankruptcy..

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  9. With new MSRPs CONSTANTLY rising, this is a piss poor excuse for the door sharing. If they want Buick to appear PREMIUM, then it shouldn’t share ANYTHING with a GMC or Chevy that we can see. Scratch that… that motor in it is a joke. Smh Thanks for killing Pontiac for this.

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    1. For the 100th time, it wasn’t Buick vs Pontiac to survive. Like it or not, they judged each brand on its own merits.

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      1. Perhaps, but I’ll bet it WAS Buick vs Oldsmobile. I understand why Buick “won”, since Buick is supposedly the more “luxury” brand, but I was always an Olds fan, because they were like higher/better trim level vehicles than their Chevrolet counterparts… without being all that much more in price. It was always worth the “upgrade” for me. I never cared for Buick because it seemed they always did things “differently”… and I was never convinced it was “better”. To this day, I likely never will own a Buick.

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  10. July 1st. still waiting on Enclave production.

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    1. It is much easier to count the number of times GM has actually met an announced date than to count the number of times they have not.

      Elon Musk is far and away the champion in that regard, however.

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  11. All three lack a decent design anyways! GM has lost the “style” aspect of design and everything is just engineering. Hence the reason they’re stealing the design languages of other companies!

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  12. This is what journalism is now, stating the obvious like it’s news. Next article “Silverado and Sierra share many of the same parts” or how about “Little known fact, GM put a 350 in everything for 30 years…”

    Reply
  13. Right; nothing to see here. No different than the full-size B-body cars of 1991-1996. There also, it was the doors. The front doors were the “only” shared external body part across Chevrolet Caprice Sedan & Wagon, Chevrolet Impala SS, Buick Roadmaster Sedan & Wagon, and the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser Wagon (only the Olds ended production with 1992 model year). Obviously the interior trim of the doors were different across the models. (I actually learned something while researching before posting this: I really thought the 1993-1996 Cadillac Fleetwood was also built on that B-Body platform, but I learned that no, there was a “new” D-Body platform that was created JUST for Cadillac. Further confusion, since BOTH the B-Body and the D-Body cars were produced at Arlington during those years!)

    Reply
    1. If memory serves me correctly, the D-Body designation for the 1993-1996 Cadillac Fleetwood and Fleetwood Brougham models was for the extended trunk are and the extended frame it needed over the B-Body Caprice and Roadmaster sedans.

      Reply

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