I took my VW Jetta TDI in for its 10,000 mile check up, tire rotation and oil/fluid change. VW provides that service free of charge and the dealer said it would take several hours. I didn't want to wait, so he offered to pay for an Enterprise car rental so I could go home. I took him up on the offer and 5 minutes later a Hyundai Sonata shows up.
Great service by the VW dealer
Given that the Jetta is a nice economy car it was interesting to be able to do a comparison to another nice looking economy car.
I have to say the Sonata LOOKS like a really nice car. The paint job was excellent, it was painted a metallic medium blue-grey color that had a lot of depth and nice shine. It appeared even, and I'd have been happy to have that paint job on any car.
On the inside was a different story. The whole interior looked "cheap." Not really sure how to describe it any other way. The car had only 2500 miles on it when I got it so it was very new. The cloth interior appeared worn out already. The nap of the velour had been crushed down in the seating areas. The dash was plastic, which is pretty normal, but the plastic appeared to be a very low grade plastic. The 'look' of the interior wreaked of "cheap" but while it looks flimsy it was still well appointed and had lots of convenience features.
The drivers window was an automatic window, one touch and it goes all the way up/down. The other windows did not have this feature. On the bright side, the rear windows went ALL THE WAY down, which is unusual as many cars they only go down about 60% of the way.
The radio was very nice. AM/FM/CD and XM Satellite. It also had an input for an iPod as well as for a generic MP3 player. I didn't spend enough time with the car to explore all the features, but it sure seemed to be full featured. Inside the armrest were inputs for the iPod and/or MP3 player. The iPod input is a simple 3.5mm jack, it requires the iPod to be controlled by the driver directly, which could be awkward while driving.
The trunk of the Hyundai is HUGE. For a car this size it was very impressive. The only complaint I have is that there was no hand grasp to grab it when you want to close it. The trunk floor is flat and deep. The trunk itself opens wide and is easy to load.
The steering wheel on the Hyundai has a nice tilt feature that allows just the steering wheel to tilt independently from the telescope feature. I liked that a lot, it made for very comfortable positioning and it is the way I think all tilt wheels should work.
The engine of the Hyundai was best described as jumpy from a start. It did not seem to be very smooth as it accelerated and there was a noticeable lurch at the start. The engine clearly strains under effort. I did not have it long enough to determine fuel economy.
Handling, ride and braking. I know, I had a rental, I could have "driven it like I stole it" but I'm just not like that. I only drove the car about 60 or 70 total miles, never pushed it too hard through corners or tried any braking tests, so to be fair I will not judge either of these other than to say it was a pleasant economy car ride.
FINAL OPINIONS, the VW Jetta is amazingly better than the Hyundai from the standpoint of most of my observations. To be fair, the VW also costs more than the Hyundai, despite the fact that both of these cars qualify as compact economy sedans. So given a few thousand dollars more in base prices, one would expect the VW to be nicer. But I honestly think the VW is worth many thousand dollars more in value than the Hyundai because of the nicer materials and the added details. Now that said, the Hyundai seemed like a reasonable car at a low price, if I was in need of a really low cost car for transportation the Hyundai might be worthy of consideration but given the appearance of some of the materials I would worry that the car would hold up long term.
Great service by the VW dealer
Given that the Jetta is a nice economy car it was interesting to be able to do a comparison to another nice looking economy car. I have to say the Sonata LOOKS like a really nice car. The paint job was excellent, it was painted a metallic medium blue-grey color that had a lot of depth and nice shine. It appeared even, and I'd have been happy to have that paint job on any car.
By comparison to my Jetta, the paint on the Hyundai is nicer, but it may not be a fair comparison because I did not order metallic paint on the Jetta. Still, the Hyundai paint was beautiful.
On the inside was a different story. The whole interior looked "cheap." Not really sure how to describe it any other way. The car had only 2500 miles on it when I got it so it was very new. The cloth interior appeared worn out already. The nap of the velour had been crushed down in the seating areas. The dash was plastic, which is pretty normal, but the plastic appeared to be a very low grade plastic. The 'look' of the interior wreaked of "cheap" but while it looks flimsy it was still well appointed and had lots of convenience features.
By comparison, the interior of my Jetta, while also plastic, looks to be of MUCH HIGHER quality and the details of the Jetta interior make it look much more sophisticated. My Jetta seats are leather and vinyl and it would not be fair to compare them to the Hyundai.
The drivers window was an automatic window, one touch and it goes all the way up/down. The other windows did not have this feature. On the bright side, the rear windows went ALL THE WAY down, which is unusual as many cars they only go down about 60% of the way.
By comparison, my Jetta's automatic window buttons control both front windows and the rear windows don't go all the way down.
The radio was very nice. AM/FM/CD and XM Satellite. It also had an input for an iPod as well as for a generic MP3 player. I didn't spend enough time with the car to explore all the features, but it sure seemed to be full featured. Inside the armrest were inputs for the iPod and/or MP3 player. The iPod input is a simple 3.5mm jack, it requires the iPod to be controlled by the driver directly, which could be awkward while driving.
By comparison the Jetta's radio is an AM/FM and SIRIUS Satellite radio. It has an input for the iPod but not a generic MP3 player (that is optional). The iPod input fully controls the iPod through the radio head unit and also via the buttons on the steering wheel. The iPod in the Jetta sits inside the glove box and the connector also recharges the iPod in addition to controlling its functions. In addition, the radio also has a CD and DVD player, it plays movies ONLY when the car is parked. It also has an internal hard drive so you can load music onto the hard drive and play your favorite albums from hard drive. It also has a SD Card adapter so you can plug your SD card directly into the slot on the dash and play music from your SD card.
The trunk of the Hyundai is HUGE. For a car this size it was very impressive. The only complaint I have is that there was no hand grasp to grab it when you want to close it. The trunk floor is flat and deep. The trunk itself opens wide and is easy to load.
By contrast the Jetta trunk seemed smaller, but not much smaller. The Jetta has a 12 volt outlet on the side, as well as a hard sided pocket for storage of small items. It also has grasp points on the interior of the lid to make it easier to close. It also has an emergency escape latch that glows in the dark incase you get drunk and lock yourself in the trunk?
The steering wheel on the Hyundai has a nice tilt feature that allows just the steering wheel to tilt independently from the telescope feature. I liked that a lot, it made for very comfortable positioning and it is the way I think all tilt wheels should work.
By comparison the Jetta steering wheel does not have an independent tilt and the tilt is accomplished by the pivot of the whole column, this method is not as good as the system on the Hyundai.
The engine of the Hyundai was best described as jumpy from a start. It did not seem to be very smooth as it accelerated and there was a noticeable lurch at the start. The engine clearly strains under effort. I did not have it long enough to determine fuel economy.
By comparison the Jetta engine I have is the Turbo Diesel and it has amazing low end torque and pulls incredibly smoothly, never feeling like it strains, but rather just delivers smooth even power. Fuel economy on my daily driving of rural and suburban roads averages right about 40mpgs.
Handling, ride and braking. I know, I had a rental, I could have "driven it like I stole it" but I'm just not like that. I only drove the car about 60 or 70 total miles, never pushed it too hard through corners or tried any braking tests, so to be fair I will not judge either of these other than to say it was a pleasant economy car ride.
FINAL OPINIONS, the VW Jetta is amazingly better than the Hyundai from the standpoint of most of my observations. To be fair, the VW also costs more than the Hyundai, despite the fact that both of these cars qualify as compact economy sedans. So given a few thousand dollars more in base prices, one would expect the VW to be nicer. But I honestly think the VW is worth many thousand dollars more in value than the Hyundai because of the nicer materials and the added details. Now that said, the Hyundai seemed like a reasonable car at a low price, if I was in need of a really low cost car for transportation the Hyundai might be worthy of consideration but given the appearance of some of the materials I would worry that the car would hold up long term.
