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The 2004 Buick Rainier is the vehicle the famed golfer touts in
television commercials
2005 Buick LaCrosse CXS
Spreadsheet engineering is a practice performed in a number of industries, including automotive, in an effort to achieve product parity with the competition at the very least and ideally to trump the competitor at its own game. Essentially, it is a matter of creating categories based on the attributes of existing products that are considered to be players in the competitive set. Then the sum of these attributes is the basis for the product to be developed. Some people may think this sounds like the "House of Quality" that is created for a QFD initiative, but that's not quite the case. Rather than a house, it's more like a double-wide approach to product development.
According to the Competitive Comparison page on the Buick website (http://www.buick.com is the place to begin; under "Shopping Tools" select "Compare a vehicle;" then fill in the appropriate boxes for the LaCrosse CXS) competitors for the LaCrosse CXS, which is the top trim level for the model, are the Ford Five Hundred Limited and the Honda Accord V6. According to the information presented there (and perhaps it will be modified once this is posted, so if things aren’t as described, know that this was the state of affairs in late March), the Buick is the most expensive of the cars, coming it at $28,995 for base price and delivery; the Ford is the least expensive at $26, 920 (base and delivery); the Honda is in between, but closer to the Five Hundred at $27,365. What is odd about this comparison page is that there are inexplicable check marks next to some of the features/dimensions of the Buick. While one might imagine that the checks indicate categories where the Buick is superior, that's not the case. For example, in every exterior dimension listed the Five Hundred is bigger than the LaCrosse, yet the check marks indicate that the LaCrosse sweeps the segment. The LaCrosse is lighter than the Five Hundred—3,568 vs. 3,643 lb.—but the Accord is lighter still, at 3,360 lb.
So as you can see, spreadsheets aren't always advantageous.
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