Buick, the linchpin around which General Motors built its empire, lately has been part of the problem rather than part of the solution for the struggling automaker.

	Buick's new Lucerne is a front-wheel-drive sedan with amenities such as heated and cooled seats, heated mirrors, and in some models, the first V-8 in a decade. Click photo for larger image. Related article GM's boss tries to reassure workers; shares rally

Like other GM makes, analysts say, Buick has been slow to respond to changes in market tastes, has kept cars on the market for too long without significant changes, and has a lingering consumer perception of quality control problems.

It also is beset with problems unique to Buick. Two of its most familiar models, the Century and the Regal, have been replaced by the new LaCrosse, and the same thing is occurring with the Park Avenue and the LeSabre, which are being replaced with the new Lucerne. "The brand is really in a state of flux right now," said Tom Libby, an analyst with J.D. Power & Associates.

It's a change Buick felt it had to make -- and a challenge on which it's pinning its future. Executives are counting on the Lucerne to account for 40 percent to 50 percent of the company's sales in coming years and, coupled with the new LaCrosse, to represent 80 percent of all Buick sales, said Margaret Brooks, Buick's marketing director.

The goal is to make the Buick name synonymous with "elegant, graceful and incredibly sophisticated," she said -- characteristics that marked Buicks during the brand's heyday, when the division's share of the domestic market stood at nearly 7 percent in 1982 and 1983. It actually sold the most cars in 1985 -- 941,611. But in a year that saw overall auto sales jump, that was only good enough for a 6.5 percent share.

Buick has been slipping ever since. So far this year, its share of the domestic market stands at 1.7 percent, with sales down 8.5 percent from a year ago, when it sold 266,881 vehicles through October.

It's a familiar story for GM. The world's largest automaker lost $1.6 billion in the third quarter, and nearly $4 billion through the year's first nine months, with a lineup that lacks pizzazz in the showroom and with a run-up in gas prices that's cut into sales of its profitable sport-utility vehicles.

To counter the sales slump, GM has been forced to offer steep incentives, including a popular employee pricing program most of the summer and, more recently, new discounts on most Chevrolet, GMC, Pontiac and Buick vehicles through Jan. 3.

Whether the new discounts and Buick's new models can turn around the brand's fortunes remains to be seen, but Mr. Libby, of J.D. Powers, isn't hopeful.

He doesn't think revitalizing the storied nameplate will be easy for a Buick name that struggles to appeal to younger buyers. "They have one of the oldest average ages in the industry," he said.

One of the particular challenges facing Buick is the lack of a "halo" car, a daringly styled vehicle that brings customers into showrooms where they are exposed to the more mainstream lineup.

Pontiac has its Solstice sports car. Chevy has its Corvette and, at the lower end, its new Cobalt. Cadillac has its XLR roadster. Even Saturn soon will unveil its Sky roadster.

Buick officials say that while they are concentrating their efforts on "bread and butter" sedans for now, they have not given up on the hunt for their "gotta-have" car. But Mr. Libby said that given Buick's image, a high-end luxury sedan would be much more appropriate than some sort of speedster.

"The problem for Buick is that if they do a high-end, high-priced, very luxurious sedan, that would be stepping into Cadillac territory," he said. "The problem is that Buick is caught between two boundaries. They don't want to do anything too high-performance, like Pontiac or Chevy; but they don't want to do anything that Cadillac would do either."

That, in a nutshell, is Buick's issue: Its brand identity is too unfocused.

It hasn't always been that way.

In its golden years, Buick was clearly a medium priced powerhouse for GM, making big sedans, hardtops and convertibles with those toothy chrome grilles, sweep spears and portholes.

Most consumers knew exactly what a Buick was -- the car you bought if you were successful but didn't want to be flashy. Cadillac filled that latter void. And there weren't the complications of foreign makes to worry about because there weren't many around.

But once Honda's Acura, Toyota's Lexus and Nissan's Infiniti showed up later in the '80s, the market changed. And the BMW 3 Series, which was priced smack up against some of the better known upscale domestic brands, became the darling of young professionals.

But don't count Buick out, analysts say.

Despite its troubles, Buick owners still connect with the brand.

"They have one of the highest loyalty ratings of all the brands in the industry," Mr. Libby said.

Buick's quality ratings also are consistently higher than all but a handful of makes. The Century and LeSabre, both now out of production, were the highest ranked premium midsize and full-size cars in initial quality, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2005 Initial Quality Survey.

GM's Oshawa, Ontario, plant, which produces the LaCrosse, earned the Gold Plant Quality award in North/South America in the survey. The entire Buick lineup ranked fourth among nameplates in initial quality in the J.D. Power survey.

Another asset Buick has is a strong dealership network, harking back to the days when Buick was a much larger brand and had a larger market share, Mr. Libby said.

A GM reorganization also will allow Buick dealerships to sell Pontiacs and GMC trucks, and GM plans to cut models that overlap or that don't fit the image they want to promote for each line.

"The dealers no longer have to survive just on Buicks alone, so it should really help their profitability," Mr. Libby said.

Another asset, analysts say, is that officials at GM and at Buick are now allowing the division to do what it does best: sell premium American luxury cars. The front-wheel-drive Lucerne comes with amenities such as heated and cooled seats, heated mirrors, and in some models, the first V-8 in a decade.

"The main thing they have to do is to define clearly what they are, and what Buick represents," Mr. Libby said. "As a friend said to me, a car driving down the street is a sign of sorts. It says something. I don't know what the Buick sign says. It has to be defined in a way that connects with the customer."