Kenny T

Reviewed a 2014 Hyundai Sport FWD on Mar 31, 2014

On friday I decided, after an exhausting search for a new car for the wifey, on a new 2014 Elantra Sport. My initial thoughts after the first 50 miles are that this is a car that can stick around in our family for a while. Excellent safety ratings, excellent gas mileage (we sold a Jeep Wrangler for this so ANYTHING is better) and a lot of fun for me to drive (when the misses gives me a chance. :) ) My first impression of this car went straight to the finish and body lines. It's obvious the Elantra is the little brother to the Sonata. The Sport package we selected is the most limited on color ranges so we opted for the Titan Gray with Gray/Black interior. When clean, this color is STUNNING. Very deep, dark color in the shade and when the sun strikes it, the color just pops. The finish work is well executed with no noticable overspray or edge drip to be found. As for the body itself, the lines are agressive and lean. I find the design to be well executed and quite attractive aside form the very front nose where the front licenseplate area seems a bit clumsy. After the lines of the body come the wheels. The stock wheel is above average in looks and the paired with each tim level as appropriate. This car has a lot of upgraded quality for an affordable price. I found the overall hands-on quality to be just as nice and solid as the Sonata (made in Georgia) even though it's final assembly is in Korea. The looks are that of a lean bicept, and the performance matches that in a powerful quick twitch fashion. Now, this car is no hotrod, but that little 2.0l four can get you going in a hurry. Since the car is still going through it's break-in period, I havent really put it through the gauntlet yet, but after driving it to the store a few times and taking it across town once, its quick for sure. The selectable automatic is great when you want a little more hands on driving and that "pin you to the seat feeling." The standard 6 speed auto is a great 'mate for this motor and the selectable shifting is a wonderful cost free addition. I think Hyundai did a great job with this drivet train and I'm anxiously awating our first road trip in this car. The interior is one of the major picking points for me in automobiles, and this one asthetically is nice, maybe. Again, comparing to the Sonata, it's very close in design although somewhat lacking in execution. The Sport package comes with bluetooth, rearview camera, satellite radio and a small internal storage headunit. The audio performance in this car is very average, if not poor (to be fair, I only used the bluetooth connection for media playback so far, so that could be the issue) and the satellite radio/media storage system is not very user friendly. The audio system paired easily with my iphone 5 and automatically synced my contacts for reference. The one major issue I have with the interior and cabin of this car seems to be the fact that every surface of this vehicle scratches/get's dirty very easily. We looked through three identical units on the sales floor and every single one of them had issues off the lot. We just picked the cleanest of the three and hoped that we could keep this car looking decent through the weekend. We have already planned to have the headliner cleaned professionally and scotchguarded for the future. Families with small children/dogs beware. I'm already leary of putting our two small dogs in the car. Only time will tell if it's a warranted concern. Overall, I'm excited about this car and am deeply reminded of our early 2000's Ford Focus we so loved. The build quality is great, the drivability is really great and it's very well equipped for the price. So far, we have no regrets about this purchase and we are looking forward to our future with it.