Anyone who has ever spent time in a Buick or any other six-passenger GM sedan will feel right at home in the Century. Full-width seats front and rear hold six full-size adults on soft cushions covered in smooth, attractive cloth. All six will find head- and legroom to be more than adequate, and they will have easy access through four large, well-shaped doors.
Fancy trim is kept to a minimum, with only small wood-effect panels in the doors--holding power-window switches--contrasting with the interior's monochromatic appearance.
Buick buyers may be comfortable with the single-color interior scheme but having steering wheel, dashboard, door panels, seats and carpet finished off in what is as close as possible to the exact same hue may look strange to some transferring from other brands. But that's up to individual taste. In any event, the color-coordination has been handled skillfully.
The Century's cabin layout is indisputably excellent. All control buttons and switches are large, well-marked and properly located for easy use. Instruments are clear, too, though there are only three. The Century's intended customers are unlikely to care for much more information than speed, fuel level and engine water temperature anyway. Warning lights and chimes will alert them to any problems.
Though a midsize sedan when judged by pricing and dimensions, the Century feels more like a large luxury car from behind the wheel. Buick knows its customers aren't looking for the firmness of a German autobahn-burner. They want a Buick. And that's what they get.
Ride quality is the Century's outstanding feature. It is soft and compliant over any road surface. Bumps, dips or ridges on the pavement are seldom heard or felt; instead, there are smooth up-and-down movements that indicate, in a muted way, that the Century has been driven over something, with little indication as to the nature or size of the obstruction. Road and suspension noise are absent.
We'd prefer the Century had slightly stiffer springs and shock absorbers as we found the Dyna-Ride Century a bit too soft. The body rolls in corners and the suspension rocks after hitting dips in the road. It seems like a small amount of tightening wouldn't detract enough from the Century's ultra-smooth ride to bother Buick aficionados.
At the same time, some fine-tuning of the Magnasteer electronic power steering would be helpful. Low effort need not eliminate all steering feel as it did in our test car.
However, Buick knows what it is doing. The Century has been developed with a razor-sharp sense of what its customers want. Few, if any, owners will ever drive a Century down a canyon road at anything above a modest speed, and fewer still would want the car's steering to have sports car precision.
The bottom line is that the Century is quite pleasant to drive. The 3.1-liter V6 engine and 4-speed automatic transmission that come in all Century models deliver enough power to meet demands and they are smooth and quiet and deliver good fuel economy. The brakes also do a good job, though we felt the ABS system coming into play a bit earlier than expected during hard stops.