Relentlessly average and painfully overpriced, the 2005 Buick LaCrosse is at once a huge improvement over the Century and Regal that it replaces and yet hopelessly outgunned by class standard bearers, making it a viable choice only for die-hard Buick buyers.

The sticker price for our CXS test model was $33,650. That’s not a typo. Clearly, General Motors is anticipating the need for huge rebates and incentives on the LaCrosse – that is the only way to explain such a number for a vehicle equipped with manual seat recliners and a stereo that emits sound quality on par with two Campbell’s tomato soup cans strung together with wire. But even with $5,000 in customer and dealer cash sitting on the LaCrosse’s hood, this car is no bargain.

Adding insult is the fact that the LaCrosse isn’t a new design from the rubber to the roof. Buick extensively updated the old Century/Regal platform and architecture, which originally debuted for the 1997 model year, to create this new model. So it’s not like the inflated price tag is required to pay for massive development costs.

Rather, the cash is needed to market the car. How can you have an ounce of respect for Aerosmith after watching the Buick LaCrosse advertisements that depict it as a glamorous luxury sedan with slot-car handling? Dream on, my ass. More fitting with reality was the bungled placement of the LaCrosse in this year’s hottest new TV show, “Desperate Housewives.” Mistake #1: The LaCrosse was in a scene with Eva Longoria, which virtually guaranteed that male viewers wouldn’t notice the car. Mistake #2: Eva’s character, a former model, was forced into and embarrassed about promoting the Buick because…well, the plot matters little. The point is that millions of viewers were left with the impression that selling a Buick LaCrosse is an unsavory position in which to be.

My personal gripes about the LaCrosse lay mainly in a lack of attention to detail, particularly on the inside of the car. At first, the new interior appears to be a work of art (for GM, anyway). The brushed aluminum sill plates, the soft-touch materials, the mesh headliner, the matte-finish plastics, the soft leather upholstery – it all looks first rate. Eventually, however, you must start using the LaCrosse, and you discover that the buttons require more pressure than necessary, that the controls are sized too small, that the headliner sags like a Twixster’s jeans, that your $34,000 Buick has fake wood inside, and that quality control could use improvement.

More frustrating was the design of the foot-actuated parking brake, which scarred the tops of my new Timberland work boots because it’s positioned in such a manner that the driver accidentally drags the top of his foot along the underside of the pedal. Thrice I did this in the four times I exited the car. But work boots are supposed to look ragged on the edges; had I been wearing a new pair of $500 Bruno Maglis, I might be a little more upset. But then, if I could afford $500 Bruno Maglis, I wouldn’t be driving a Buick. – Christian J. Wardlaw