am i imagining things? is KIA and Hyundai stepping it up?

first and foremost, i am a car freak. i look at everything.

several times now, i see an interesting car profile drive by me, and i take a look. EGADS!! it is an effen Hyundai turbo sonata..or shit..some KIA optima!! wtf is going on here. i see alot of them on the road.

the koreans stepping it up or what? they have crazy long warranties.

 

hyundai is doing very well right now, making much higher quality cars than they used to, and some pretty cool stuff!

 

Hyundai-Kia is selling some models (most notably the Sonata) at capacity right now. In other words, they're selling every car they can make.

Hyundai is now what Toyota/Honda were in the 80s. For the few of us that remember those ancient days.

 

Yup, Hyundai has been getting serious about their product since 2000, had a brand new 2000 Elantra & the similarities & characteristics to the Honda were freaky, no longer is Hyundai the laughing stock & village idiot of cars, that thing handled great & was no slouch from light to light, pretty quick. Hyundai bought out Kia a few years ago.....

 

Just bought a used 2007 Hyundai Sonata with the leather and V6 in September '10 - wife and I love it so far.. great car at half the price of some other.. plus got 100k mile/10 year bumper to bumper warranty with it...

 

love the genesis

 

They have definitely improved... The look of them has especially improved. I, however, I am still too much of a die-hard Toyota fan. It is unfortunate that certain other companies don't seem to even be trying these days. Eh.

Here's a photo from a recent accident:

Korean vs. Japanese. The Korean car started on fire, the Toyota Avalon had a damaged bumper...

 

My wife was looking to buy a Turbo Sonata, and they are very nice and quick. But they weren't all that when you look at the price imo. When we first started looking we thought for the money we were getting a lot of car, but we wound up getting her a fully loaded Accord v6 for less than I could talk them down on the Sonata as they claimed they were selling so well that they had no room to budge. Which did us a favor as we a happier with the Honda. But the big drawback on the Sonata was a lot of negative reviews in the steering, look it up if interested. Alot were complaining about the cars pulling drastically to the left and scaring the hell out of the drivers and doing all they could to keep from wrecking. Well after 1 or 2 reviews like that, I didn't make much of it, but as I kept searching, I found more and more on this and it scared us away. I went back and test drove another one and this time took it out on the interstate and sure enough, it pulled to the left. Not like the reviews I had read, but enough that I had to keep a fairly firm hold on the wheel. We were done at that point. Aside from that one issue, I give them a big thumbs up though. Also in case you didn't know, Kia owns a part of Hyundai and the Sonata and Optima are based on the same platform.

 

I'm interested to see how they hold up in 5 years! We'll see!

 

That's my big questionmark as well. But that should be just in time to help me inform my decision when it comes time to shop a new daily driver...

 

My gf owns a 08 Hyundai good little car gets bad ass gas mileage. Waaaay better than my taco on 35's lol

 

I drove a 2008 Kia Spectra 4cyl 5 speed for two years before I traded it in on the Tacoma. Honestly, I loved that little car. So much fun to drive with the 5 speed and amazing MPG's. I dropped a K&N filter in it and switched it over to Mobil 1 full synthetic on the first oil change and went from 33 mpg hwy, to 35, then with the K&N filter it was so close to 36 but never could get it, never the less, 35mpg on the highway is damn nice.

The car was loaded for the price, got it for around $16,000 and it had lots of power options, windows, locks, pretty nice interior and a nice overall interior setup as far as where everything was located.

Only problem I had was with a rear door window seal. It leaked a lot of rain water inside and got into the rear floorboards. They fixed it, got all the water out, replaced what they needed to and that was that. It was done in a day.

Back in the day Kia's sucked but I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one today, or suggest one to a friend. Keep it up!

 

Hyundai was covered in my recent management 302 course. They are taking a page out of japans book and going for very high quality, copying alot of the japanese processes and whatnot. They quadrupled the size of thier quality control department.

 

Relevant though that may be to long term owners, the reason they're in their ascendancy right now is primarily a favorable exchange rate.

Again, just like in the 1980s a weak Yen meant that Toyota and Honda could sell a car with $20,000 of quality for $15,000, the South Koreans can now offer you a $30,000 car for $22,000 and still be profitable.

Their time, in economic terms, has simply arrived. Get ready to see a *LOT* more of them over the next decade.

 

For the record, Hyundai's 10 year 100k warranty is the real deal. We had a brand new 2000 Elantra, lost it in a roll over & bought a slightly used 2002 Elantra (11k) no issues at all till it had a speed sensor in the trans. go out at 160k, Hyundai covered 100% parts & labor even though technically it was out of warranty by a bunch, but apparently there was a TSB on this particular part, seems like they stood behind their product 100% also...

 

That true. I have seen some huge nice looking cars, and im like what is that?? And it turns out to be a Hyundai or Kia, And im like DAMN. But i guess we ll see how long they last.

 

Some of their new cars look really nice. I haven't ridden in any, but they definitely look good.

 

Wish they were doing compact pickup trucks for the US market. (Give me a few not so laughable options, make Toyota step their game up...)