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Comments
I'm 6 feet and fit in the back okay. It depends on body structure, not just height.
* CR has been vocal in the past about "suspension noise" on the Sonata and some other Hyundais. Not one word about that in their review. That is good news.
* It seems the interior is still plenty roomy, with good visibility, despite the coupe-ish profile. That was a concern for me. So again, good news.
It will be interesting to see what the press thinks of the SE. MT was very positive on the 2009 SE and ranked it 2nd in the mid-sized family sedan class, just behind the much more expensive turbo Passat. With Passat-like power and other improvements, and no other new cars in the class since that review except the Legacy and Kizashi, I would expect MT to put the 2011 Sonata SE at the top of the mid-sized family car class... maybe even their 2011 COTY?? (Not so crazy a thought.. the Genesis sedan was runner-up in the 2009 MT COTY to the Nissan GT-R supercar.)
If i had the choice between this, a Honda Accord and a Camry - I's take this new Sonata all day long.
Hyundai hit it out of the park with this new Sonata. They are going to take a lot of business away from Honda and Toyota - mostly Toyota with all their drama and problems.
Along with the Genesis, these are 2 very nice looking cars that will take Hyundai to new levels.
Linky
Tops in ALG Residual Value Index
When I was searching for the SE, I found another SE at Lake Norman Hyundai (Black)-Didn't want Black-Looking for Polar White. Most Dealers in Charlotte area only received 1 or 2 SE's.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2011-hyundai-sonata-gls-tops-popular-com- petitors-including-premium-brands-in-alg-residual-value-index-83845712.html
I don't see how anyone can peg the resale value of a new model that's just beginning to appear in showrooms. Until meaningful numbers of the latest Sonata turn up in the used car market 2 or 3 years from now, it makes no more sense to talk about its resale value than it does to forecast the weather for the Labor Day weekend.
Please don't take this as an anti-Sonata remark. It most emphatically is not. This is true of any new model, no matter who makes it.
This is why I don't consider resale value when I'm shopping for a car. It's not like 0 to 60 times, ride & handling, seating comfort or rear visibility - all of which can be determined by test drives or reading reports in auto mags. Projected resale value is just a seat-of-the pants guess as to what the car might be worth 3 or 5 years down the road - nothing more.
Real-world resale values are more certain, but this opinion by ALG on Sonata's projected resale value is a big step for Hyundai, IMO, since resale value is perhaps the one remaining big "knock" on the company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INBnV2kZx34
about a car length slower than camry 2.5L I4
As for the Sonata, as someone said before the initial power off the line was a bit less than the Camry because of the gear ratios, but once the Sonata got into real world driving situations (3rd and 4th gears) the Camry was annihilated. This means that most times you use power (for things like ripping from lane to lane and passing people on the wrong side of the road like a maniac) .. it will be there and plenty of it. I can't wait to get one
Also, the Sonata was ahead the whole time in this race, it just looks bad because of the angle. Check out this video from directly beside the Sonata -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjY5Hz0FHts&feature=related">link title
thanks!
Also, I couldn't tell anything about wheel spin and TCS interference. The audio we heard was, I think, the camera car and not the racing vehicles.
Anyway, this is the wrong race. The race to watch is the 6 cyl Camry v. 6 cyl Accord v. Turbo I4 Sonata.
That's what ALG's clients got for their money. And it was true, more or less, as long as gas prices stayed below $2/gallon.
Here's my absolutely free prediction: Hyundai resale values will trend upward, partly because there are fewer buyers who remember or care about Hyundai's troublesome early entries in the U.S. market & partly because Toyota, which has dominated this market segment since the dawn of creation, has stepped into a really deep hole. That can only help Hyundai.
Anyway, I really hope this car pans out. It might be what I'm looking for. I like the Accord and Altima, and would take a peak at the Mazda 6 as well, but this one is looking great on paper. Right mix of style, comfort and hopefully some balls (for it's class).
Plus, you say that ALG's prediction is baloney and then you turn around and give the reasons why their prediction is probably correct.
In short... it's not all about 0-60 times and drag racing. The Sonata and its ilk are mid-sized family cars, not sports cars.
When gas goes to $4 again, everbody wants 35 MPG on the HWY.
This segment is about value and overall pacakge in a 20 something price range. And 200hp is enough to compete, although not neck snapping fast.
Loaded V6 Camrys and Accords get just over 30k and it starts to get in a higher price range
And that's fine -- as long as you realize that any such projection, no matter what the source, is just that: a WAG. Nothing more.
Plus, you say that ALG's prediction is baloney and then you turn around and give the reasons why their prediction is probably correct.
No, I didn't say that "ALG's prediction is baloney" - only that there's not much to this business of predicting resale value. As you said yourself, it's just a WAG. Anyone can play this game. I just did it. You can, too.
But my real point is this: no serious car buyer should base his decision on something as intangible & unpredictable as projected resale value - no matter car he's considering.
Ask yourself this: would you give up seating comfort or good ergonomics or superior ride & handling or styling that you liked just because you read - or someone told you - that another car had superior resale value? Of course not. So how much does projected resale value really matter to you? Probably not very much.
At most, you might use it as a tie-breaker. If you reached a point in the shopping process where you found that even after extensive research & repeated test drives, you simply couldn't decide between 2 equally appealing cars, then - just before you resorted to a coin toss - you might pick the car with the higher projected resale value.
But how often does that happen? Just about never, I'd say, & I've been buying cars for more than 35 years. Usually, projected resale value is something that you point to as justification for your decision later on, when you're telling your friends about your new car at a neighborhood party. It's almost never a meaningful factor in the actual decision-making process.
In my case, I never pay attention to it - mainly because we keep our cars for at least 8 to 10 years. (I don't buy a new car until I have the money in the bank to pay for it. I don't do car loans.) By the time I'm ready to get rid of a car, I've pretty much used it up.