Originally posted by Hydramatic:
The 500 is underpowered. Period. I'd buy the Toyota or the Hyundai Azera. If given a choice, however, I'd stick with the Buick Lucerne. There's just something about having a V8 that gets me.



The Five Hundreds gets beat up on a lot for not having enough power. 99% of the time from people who've neither driven the car nor the competition and are doing nothing more than armchair racing full-size fogey sedans.

The Five Hundred with the 6-Speed Auto, despite having 50 less horses than the 300 (Limited, not the 'C') runs almost the same 1/4-mile time. Despite having 80 less horses than the Avalon, it's only 1 second slower in the 1/4-mile -- hardly worth calling "underpowered" in a market segment where the thing will never dream of seeing a track. For day-to-day driving by the people who would buy such cars you can't even tell the difference.

When paired up with the CVT, the Five Hundred is actually faster than almost all of its' competition, and runs a very respectable (considering it weighs some 3800lbs) 7.4 0-60 time. That's the same as a V6 Mazda6 ATX runs -- a car that weighs 600lbs less and has an additional 20hp.

I do believe that makes it even faster than the V8 Lucerne that you're vaunting.

2003 Mazda6s 3.0L MTX Webpage 2004 Mazda3s 2.3L ATX