2012 Hyundai Elantra GL

I'm going to try to get as many reviews done by today as I can.

Introduction: The Hyundai Elantra began in 1990 always as intended as a compact competitor to cars like the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. For much of the beginning it had very little name recognition. It wasn't until the 3rd generation Elantra did it start becoming more known as a potential alternative to other compact cars pushing out cars in the segment falling out of favour. The Elantra is now in its 5th generation new for the 2011 model year.

Now these days when it comes to Korean cars, the newer the better. After driving the Sonata and other new Hyundais and Kias, I had high hopes that the Elantra will be a lot better than the old 4th generation. My conclusion will be based on of course the pricing and whether this car is capable of taking down my current favourite in the segment the Mazda 3.

Performance: The Hyundai Elantra is given only one engine for the North American market, their 1.8L engine. This engine unlike newer Hyundai engines is a standard multi-port injection engine so it doesn't have direction injection. It produces 148 hp and 131 lb ft of torque. Its acceleration takes it from 0-100 km/h in about 9.5 seconds which is faster than most in the class. This engine is a rather quiet and refined unit making it rather nice on any sort of drive. Even the power numbers don't accurately describe how the car always feels like it has some grunt even at highway speeds. The fuel economy numbers are also pretty good, so long as you didn't buy into their 40 mpg promotion ads which in essence they were lying. For this class, this is a rather nice engine because it does all the practical stuff very well while at the same time not entirely sacrificing things like acceleration and speed as they've done on the Corolla and Civic. This is a nice engine and with equally nice 6-speed automatic.

My Score: 10/10 - It does everything that's asked of it, its good all around. Just don't believe the 40 mpg lies.


Handling: This was one of my biggest criticisms of the old Elantra in that it didn't handle that well nor was it much fun. Hyundai has completely revamped how the Elantra handles now. The steering is still electric power steering but its been given more feel and is now much better at giving an accurate turn. However it still has the downside of EPS in that it still feels artificially boosted, so far only the Scion FR-S does best here. On the corners the Elantra was pretty composed and as usual when pushed you encounter understeer. Ride comfort is pretty spectacular for something this size, certainly one of the better cars in the class. Overall the car handles rather well, while its no driver's car its something even a driving enthusiast wouldn't be all upset about.

My Score: 9/10 - Apart from my gripe about steering feel, I can't find much fault in the handling.

Interior: This interior is a massive change over the old Elantra. Gone are the bland, boring and cheap looking knobs and in with some much nicer buttons, display and a rather interesting climate control knob. Hyundai has definitely taken styling into the equation which is something Japanese automakers haven't really done. The center console has been given curves and just sticks out whereas most German and Japanese interiors are far from interesting. The Elantra is on par with everyone else in most of the materials used, most of it however is better than average and only a few spots of hard plastic where I'd prefer soft. The seat is very comfortable even with manual adjustments. The car is relatively well equipped even for a lower trim model with Hyundai giving most of the options people want like power doors/locks, cruise and so on. Visibility is decent although the rear windscreen view is rather small. So far I've found the build quality on these new Elantras to be very good, not an issue of loose trim or misaligned panels. The current North American Elantras are built in Montgomery, Georgia, United States.

My Score: 9/10 - Near faultless interior given the price point.

Styling: The new Elantra has been given Hyundai's new swoop design languages giving it a more smooth aerodynamic look. All the other items like the headlights and tail lights are styled to flow with the car, and for the most part the car looks rather good. While it doesn't have the same aggressive look as say the Mitsubishi Lancer it also doesn't look as friendly as the Mazda 3, its kind of an odd mix of both. This is a much better design than the previous design which was sort of a Corolla copy, now the Elantra has been given a more unique look and while you can see a family resemblance its not a Sonata or Accent copy. I wouldn't go as far as to call it beautiful but its good looking.

My Score: 8/10 - The new design language works well, it doesn't go extreme enough to push for a higher score.

Value for money: Here's the interesting part of the Elantra, this is usually the best category for the Korean cars since the beginning, and even though Korean cars have increased in price this is still an area where they're strongest. The difference now is instead of considering them as the budget version of popular cars, they're now in essence the standard of what some of the other automakers should live up to. The base car isn't all that great because it lacks a few useful features like A/C. In this current trim level, Hyundai asks for roughly $19K but you're given nearly everything you would ask for in a car like this. In fact going up the next level gives you extras like sunroof and rear heated seats, nice but not necessary. Based on this, I'd have a hard time arguing against the value of this car. Many automakers leave a lot of stuff out of the mid trim level to in essence convince you to pay full price, but Hyundai decided this was the trim level they'd rather focus on and you benefit greatly by only paying a bit more.

My Score: 9/10 - I'd be superb if this was the base trim level but even so at $19K there's not much else to ask for without going overboard.

Conclusion: Now that I've gone through everything about this car I can easily say this is one of the best cars in the segment. If you're in the market for a car in the compact class this is an easy one to consider. Better yet, if you wanted a Corolla buy the Elantra instead because the Elantra is better in every single way, much the same can be said about the Civic where again the Elantra is better in nearly every way. Now, when it comes to choosing this over my favourite car the Mazda 3, interior wise the Elantra is better but driving I'd still give the edge to the Mazda and with the new SkyActiv engine the Mazda is still very competitive. As an all rounder the Elantra is very good, the Mazda however is that bit more driver focused. You can't go wrong with either but I think the Elantra offers more and therefore it'd be my choice for the segment's winner.

Overall: 45/50 - An excellent compact car, its not perfect but what is?

2007 Hyundai Elantra

Oh boy, I'm behind. The last two weeks have been very busy due to the holidays and I mostly just went to bed for much of the week. I don't think I'll be able to make daily updates with the way things are going, I'll try for weekly instead.


Introduction: The Elantra went for a redesign for the 2007 model year into its fourth generation. The car's primary target once again was the Corolla and Civic. Hyundai attempted to increase the size of the car, but left out the hatchback option in North America until recently with the new 2009 Elantra Touring.

If you remembered my last review of the old Elantra I didn't really like it. I drove this version shortly after that one with low expectations. To start, I didn't like the way it looks.


Performance: The fourth generation Elantra uses Hyundai's Beta II engine which was no change from the last generation this engine produces 138 hp and 136 lb.ft of torque. Once again the manual transmission is the best option to go for to get the most of its power being at least 2 seconds quicker than the auto which does 0-100 km/h in about 10 seconds. The changes in performance are basically nil from the last generation. The drone is not as bad this time around due to a marginally better interior.

My Score: 5/10 - Like last time, a decent engine but nothing special.

Handling: I don't know what Hyundai was doing here, while the changes to the handling have been very minimal the steering feel of the Elantra has changed for the worse. Last time the wheel was light but I never got the sense that it was over boosted but rather somewhat numb. This time around the wheel is very light and the feel is completely missing. During the winter the lack of any feel meant this car was very easy to slide without warning. Hyundai wanted to outdo Toyota with the lack of steering feel...too bad for Hyundai, Toyota was able to do much worse.

My Score: 2/10 - Worse than last time, the steering feel is absent this time around


Interior: The last Elantra interior was very generic, that didn't change so much this time around either. The difference however is the materials are a bit better than last time and unlike last time there is a little bit more styling involved as well. The stereo still remained the same bad pre-2009 unit which was rubbish. The interior is bigger this time around however and is more spacious than before. The build quality on this version is better, despite coming from the same factory as before. On a whole this Elantra does have an improvement when it comes to the interior.

My Score: 6/10 - Still generic, but with better materials, better build quality and more space

Styling: No no no no no. This is a very bad attempt at styling, copying an already generic car to further dilute the market with cars that look nearly identical. Its clear that the person styling this Elantra took a Corolla and traced it. They didn't even really bother to make this car look unique.

My Score: 0/10 - There just isn't any styling here and thus a zero, the Elantra Touring is a significantly better example of what this car should have looked like.

Value for money: Once again the Elantra comes very well equipped compared to the likes of the Corolla and Civic. The power is comparable, the space is a smidgen larger and the price is much lower than those two vehicles. This is a generic car and for this sort of money, you couldn't blame someone for buying it.

My Score: 8/10 - Despite me not liking a lot of this car, the amount of value this car has still is impressive for its price.

Overall: 21/50 - The score is worse this time around just for the plain fact that Hyundai did nothing about the styling thinking tracing is a better idea and made the steering feel go away. The better interior just wasn't enough to bump its score to average.

2006 Hyundai Elantra Review

Today I will do 2 reviews, this time of a car that I've driven some time ago. The 2006 Hyundai Elantra.

Introduction: The 2006 Hyundai Elantra is a compact car designed to compete against the more common Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. Hyundai has always been made fun of for their earlier admittedly low quality vehicles, the 1st Elantra included. This did not deter Hyundai as they strive to be taken seriously as a large automaker. I'm kind of a loss about the description of the Elantras in general since the Koreans just made cars of all sizes specifically to compete, not innovate. Onto the review then.

The 2006 Elantra was one of the first vehicles I got to drive at my job. My expectations of the car were admittedly low, I've never really taken the Korean cars very seriously. The example I was shown...was in awful looking colour called "Sage Green", its still being used today. I certainly felt just by looking at this car that Honda and Toyota could forget about having Korean competetion catching up.

Performance: All of the North American Hyundai Elantras come with a 2.0L DOHC 4-cylinder engine producing 138 hp and 136 lb. ft of torque which is actually better than what Toyota's 1.8L engine offered. The engine is shared with Mitsubishi meaning this is a joint venture engine. This allowed the Elantra to accelerate from 0-100 in 10 seconds with an automatic transmission, the manual being about to 9 seconds. Having driven this car, the engine while resonably powerful is very unrefined and noisy. I don't mind noise from engines but this car drones and starts sounding more and more awful each time. Power isn't very smooth like you would expect from a modern 4-cylinder. The 2006 Elantra does have some power, but the sacrifices required to get this power do not seem worth it.

My Score: 5/10 - The engine is alright as an a to b engine, but its not enjoyable in any way. The drones particularly were really annoying.

Handling: I didn't expect too much again since this is a regular car attempting to compete against regular cars. The 2006 Elantra had a fairly light wheel but unfortunately did not provide much feel when making turns. Attempting to make a corner in an Elantra is not very memorable and due to the uninvolving nature of the wheel was pretty boring. Hyundai did not put a lot attention to how the car handled or feel and it shows. This Elantra will not excite any enthusiast.

My Score: 3/10 - This wasn't the worst car when it comes to handling but the lack of feel and the lack of fun it gives means it fails in my mind. You do not deserve a good grade if you fail to put in the effort.

Interior: The interior of the Elantra is nothing to brag about. All in all it is pretty generic, many of the interiors of the cars are depressing grey. The chimes that the Elantra has are quite annoying, I remember them so well and they're something I couldn't stand. The stereo was a pre-2008 Hyundai unit...meaning it is crap. The sound quality of the stereo is low, the buttons are very small and last but not least the most annoying feature if your listening the radio waiting for somebody with the car off and then decide to start the car...the stereo resets the volume to a low setting...what a stupid idea. The car was built in South Korea...from what I can see the Koreans only do a good job if they believe the product is good...the build quality is so-so meaning they believed the car was so-so.

My Score: 4/10 - Generic interior, so-so build quality and a terrible stereo. This I think is a very fair score.

Styling: The Korean car companies have never been very good at styling cars. There's always something somebody can spot that the Koreans copied. Currently this was the phase when the Koreans were copying European and the Elantra took a few front cues from the British company MG. Unfortunately they added some Korean bits and thus the car looks angry but ugly at the same time. Its not appealing in any angle be it sedan or hatchback. The picture I displayed is the one I remember, the Sage Green Hyundai Elantra...yuck.

My Score: 2/10 - A failed copy job, with an option for a awful colour

Value for Money: Here is something the Koreans do particularly well in. In the past it was the Japanese who offered extra equipment often propelling the cost of their cars but ending up cheaper than a full loaded car. The Koreans offer lots of equipment at a low price undercutting everybody. The 2006 Elantra comes with a lot of the expected standard options which makes them better equipped than the Civics and Corollas. Hyundai also had a weak reputation in 2006 still meaning they were often cheaper as a whole compared to their American competition with a declining reputation and were offering less. As a low cost compact car, the Elantra looked great in the brochure spec sheet.

My Score: 8/10 - Great value for a low price. Its a pity it took them 2 more years to get everything right.

Overall: 22/50 - A reasonable effort but Hyundai, while its clear this car was not a good vehicle the most importing thing was Hyundai knew this. My low marks for this car is partly due to how much better Hyundais could be.