Hyundai Sonata
Hyundai
takes on mid-range sedans from Honda and Toyota
What's
New?
"Never judge a book by its cover" goes the hoary
old saying.
Hoary
old sayings tend to fall into two categories, either they're
total nonsense, or they're right half the time. Correctly
applying such a saying is therefore a coin toss. All else
being equal, those are reasonably lousy odds if you think
about it.
For
instance, you'd be pretty far off if you applied the above
example to the new Sonata. It looks nothing like its rather
eccentrically styled predecessor. Gone are the odd curves
and peculiar detailing, the new car is far tauter and considerably
more handsome, if conventionally so. More importantly however,
the Sonata's good looks don't hide any nasty surprises.
The
new Sonata marks a sea of change, or at least this is Hyundai's
hope, in terms of how customers perceive the brand. With
the Sonata, Hyundai aims to shed its budget car image and
take on the likes of the Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry.
The new car certainly looks the part of a Camry or Accord
rival, in fact the rear looks very close to the Accord's.
Open mimicry might be taking the aspirational thing a bit
too far but aesthetically, it's no bad thing.
It's
also very roomy, both in the front and the rear. Six-footers
should have no problems getting comfortable. Fit and finish
is typical of Hyundai cars of late, meaning that everything
is competently assembled and the materials used are a far
cry from the sandpapery bits of industrial grade plastic
that used to haphazardly adorn the Korean carmaker's interior
efforts. Now, you even get neat, Venetian blind style air-conditioning
vents too.
How
It Performs
The Sonata gets a double-wishbone suspension up front and
a sophisticated multi-link setup at the rear. It's unabashedly
comfort biased though and this shows in the excellent ride.
Refinement
is also superb, and progress even at three-figure speeds
is effortlessly unruffled. The previous Sonata was pretty
quiet too but in the new one, you get the sort of authoritative
noise and vibration filtering that you usually only find
in machinery costing over twice the Sonata's asking price.
Hyundai's
new 2.4-litre in-line four-cylinder engine is smooth and
quiet but you do get the impression that someone was being
overly generous with the stated power output. While 161bhp
is a respectable figure on paper, it somehow fails to translate
into any appreciable get-up-and-go on the road.
Steep
inclines can sometimes also leave the four-speed automatic
gearbox hunting for the right gear in an effort to make
up for the engine's apparent lack of torque. On some extreme
inclines, flooring the accelerator only provoked a slightly
louder hum from the engine with no attendant fast-forwarding
of the surrounding scenery. In part, the Sonata's refinement
is to blame for the lethargy - so hermetically does the
cabin insulate its occupants that all the cues that you
normally unconsciously respond to like noise and vibration
- are all expertly masked. In addition, we did test the
car in mountainous Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Singapore's
relative lack of challenging and hilly topography should
suit the engine much better.
How
It Stacks Up
Hyundai has always played the price card, with the Sonata,
its hand now includes smart looks and truly impressive refinement.
Local models will do without amenities like climate control
and multiple airbags, amenities that rivals like the Honda
Accord and Toyota Camry offer, but these niggles constitute
minor chinks in an otherwise impressively realised premium
package. Factor in the bargain basement price tag and the
Sonata's rivals have a lot to keep them up at night.
| Technical Specifications |
|
MODEL
Hyundai Sonata
ENGINE
Engine: 2,359cc 16V in-line four
Max Power: 161bhp @ 5,800rpm
Max Torque: 219Nm @ 4,250rpm
TRANSMISSION
4-speed automatic
TOP SPEED
202 kmh
0-100km/h
10.4s
|
