2018 Buick ENCLAVE - Ratings, Complaints and Recalls

"the contact owns a 2018 buick enclave. the contact stated while driving approximately 35 mph, and at various speeds, while the brake pedal was depressed, there was an abnormally loud high-pitched grinding or squeaking sound coming from the brakes. the contact stated that the noise was loud enough that pedestrians would turn and look at his vehicle when he depressed the brake pedal. the contact stated no warning light was illuminated. the contact had taken the vehicle to a local dealer, where the sound was being emitted and could not repair the failure. the manufacturer had been informed of the failure. the failure mileage was approximately 60,000."

"while driving on very slick roads on a highway, i attempted to brake the vehicle in preparation to making a left hand turn. i could not stop the vehicle. the wheels kept pushing me forward. i could feel the abs pulsing but the vehicle would not stop. luckily, no one was ahead of me or i would have hit the vehicle. it felt like the car was overriding my attempts to stop it. i wasn't just sliding on slick roads; the vehicle was actively pushing me forward."

"the e-break warning came on twice after releasing the e-break when parked, the warning came on shortly after pulling from a shopping center parking lot. the e-break light was flashing with the 'service light' active and a display notification of emergency break issues. both of these two incidents happen after the last service update n19221631 was implemented back on 5/2020. the first one was present around september 2020 and the last one on 11/23/2020. i'm not sure if these two incidents happen due to the implementation of the service update but it seems coincidental that they happen shortly after the service update as this condition did not occurred before the service update. i do not drive my buick much with only about 11k miles currently so it is not obvious the problem is due to age and usage unless there is a defect with the e-break product."

"the electronic parking brake has turned on 5 times now. 3 times, the car was in park and the emergency brake had turned on and would not turn off. the brake was not activated by anyone. then it happened while driving. the vehicle was towed to a dealership. they worked on it and said it was fixed. this week while driving home from the grocery store the brake turned on again. the vehicle was again towed to the dealership."

"on 1/06/2020, while driving, the brakes locked up on my 2018 buick enclave.(mileage about 23,000) the vehicle has an electronic parking brake ,which was off. suddenly, the parking break light came on and service lights were illuminated. fortunately, i was able to navigate to the side of the road, call gm and the car was towed to a local dealer. several weeks earlier, upon starting, the parking brake light would not go off and the car would not move. after letting the car sit for a period of time, the light went off and i was able to drive the car. i went to the service department of a local dealer., explained what happened. they told me that i should come back in when it happened again, so they could read the code and noted they have not heard anything around the issue before and that no bulletins have been received from gm. as i understand, as of last evening, gm has not given them any direction. i believe this is a potentially serious safety issue and from an internet search, it appears others have encountered the same problem."

"random activation of parking brake while the car is in drive. most often occurs when on a slope and a low speed. multiple incidents have occurred since purchase it has continued to get worse. the vehicle has been in for service many times with no resolution. i opened a case with gm on 9/12/2019 but they have not returned my calls or emails since 10/3/19. there has been several instances of this issue and was documented in a forum post that parallels our issue https://www.enclaveforum.net/threads/2018-avenir-electronic-emergency-brake-fault.22631/ 1) parking brake coming on at highway speeds as wife transported my daughter and some of her friends to the mall. at a red light, close to the mall my daughter commented on a smell. they pulled in the parking spot at the mall, my wife noticed the smell as well and when she exited the vehicle, the smell was overwhelming. 2) 2nd major incident while my wife was in a drive thru and the e-brake engaged (again, while the car was in drive). she had to place the car in park and it took 1-2 min before the car would disengage the e-brake. this incident convinced us that the problem was not human error and took it to dealership for service. 3) sept 2019 - wife became stuck in parking lot when the e-brake engaged as she pulled in a parking spot (still in drive). she was aware that the e-brake had turned itself on but when she hopped in the car to leave, the e-brake was still engaged and wouldn't release. back to dealership where they cleared a code (first time a code was present) and re-flashed the e-brake control. 4) 12/1/19 incident while sitting at red light on a downward incline. once i released the brake to move, the car didn't move forward so i looked down at the dash to see the parking brake light on for a quick flash then it went off and the car started to move. car is back at the dealership."

"cold start, ac unit on, engine at high idle speed. put car in reverse to back out of the garage. stepped on the brake pedal and the car kept rolling. pumped the brake peddle and applied extreme pressure, car did not slow down. panicked that i would hit a wall, i dropped the car from reverse to drive. still on high idle, the car would not stop even with extreme pressure applied to the brake pedal. car continued forward and hit a cabinet in my garage causing considerable front-end damage. every thing happened so quickly, i couldn't understand what happened at the time. the only thing i could think of was that i must have done something wrong. restarted the car and all functions were fine. the damage did not affect the operation of the vehicle. i drove to the dealer and i'm waiting for an estimate to repair the damage."

"the brake issue raised its ugly head again. the vehicle has operated fine since the original incident even with the front-end damage. yesterday, one week after the original incident it occurred again. cold start leaving a restaurant turned out of parking lot on to side street. traffic was stopped at a light and i pulled into the left turn lane. going very slow, haven't even traveled 200 feet. put pressure on brake pedal to stop and no response, the car keeps rolling forward as i applied extreme brake pressure. at that point i hit the emergency parking brake button and the car stopped just as i hit the rear end of the car in front of me. thankfully there was no damage to his car. i restarted the car and we pulled off the road into a parking lot to exchange information. everything operated fine. left the scene and headed home. when the light changed, i turned left from the side street into traffic. heavy traffic, slow go. about 1 mile later the traffic slowed down to stop. once again, the brakes were not responding. i was able to hit the emergency brake and ditch to the side of the road. after traffic passed, i restarted and moved about thirty feet into the safety of a parking lot. at that point i called aaa and had the car towed home. i will have it towed into the dealer this morning."

"while driving the car the electronic parking brake turned on (without the driver commanding it), stopping the rear wheels from rotating freely, making it very difficult to drive the car. the car was in motion when this happened. this has happened 3 times, on the second time the dealer was able to see the problem and performed a "calibration" but the problem happened again about 1 month later (last night 7/23/19) and left the car stuck in the middle of an intersection, requiring a tow truck to move the vehicle - we took the car to the dealer. the car is currently at the dealer awaiting a diagnosis. i have also contacted gm reporting the problem but they are saying without seeing the problem they won't be able to do anything. this is a relatively new car, 2018, bought in march 2018 and has 24500 miles. pressing the parking brake release button did not release the parking brake when the problem happened, nor did the automatic brake release process work. there was an error message on the dashboard reporting "service parking brake""

"there are two issues: while backing up the car, especially down a hill, the brakes do not work/engage temporarily. eventually the brakes engage, but you travel further than you intend. the "service brake system" light appears also. this is an intermittent problem. the second braking issue is that the emergency brake will engage without the button being pressed. it just happens and it the emergency brake is difficult to turn off, the car may nee to be turned off on back on to fix. the "service emergency brakes" light appears. this has happened while backing up and in forward in normal driving conditions."