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Midsize Sedans Comparison Thread
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Comments
I bet if anyone from honda, toyota and hyundai read this thread they would laugh, because it is childishly ridicolous sometimes, while those guys are worried about making good cars for customers and increase their sales
i'm going to try to be objective , and i think if everyone here can do the same then we won't get into these kinds of debates
When i say that the accord lacks exterior design harmony in alot of ways, i'm just saying it in a way that i figure most common people will think the same. Its also the same when i say the sonatas interior is tight but not as luxurious as the accords. I think that is as much 1 + 1 = 2
to start something new, does anyone know the advantages of a double wishbone rear set up, compared to a multilink rear setup or strut?
Not an exact correlation, but all mid-size cars, trying to provide interior & cargo sapce, plus drag coefficents are bound to took somewhat alike. A grille, headlight or tail light similarity is bound to happen once the basic shape of the car is decided. The differences are in the body shapes & body panels..but how much computer generated designed differences are likely .
This ain't 1955--1965 when some truly radical & beautiful designs hit the showrooms.
It also depends on the demand of it in the Used car maket. (I think)
And what price they sell their cars at. (discounts)
What the domestics are doing right now with employee discounts will really effect their cars resale values.
Do a study thru Edmund's comparing TMV & TCO. Look at the projected depreciation and subtract that from purchase price. You'll see that Sonata ('05) is right there with the Camcord. When you figure in the tme value of money the Hyundai is a better "investment", although no dereciating asset should be considered an
"investment."
Actually this to me and most others is a joke. I have always been able to get the "employee discount pricing" or better on these cars already. If fact, many car dealerships are also embarrassed, and advertise suc as "$1,000 below employee pricing" The funniest one though is the "Ford Family Plan" which includes only the cars/trucks that are not selling; who wnats to buy them anyway! Mustangs are not included and most dealers are trying to add $2,500 above MSRP to Mustang GTs. The new family sport sedan, the Dodge Charger is already selling $2,000-3,000 below MSRP; employee discount is around $1,500.
"It also depends on the demand of it in the Used car maket. (I think) " You are absolutely right, however relability is a major factor in keeping the demand high. The other factor is the amount of availalble cars versus demand. Limited models will receive a higher price. For example a 66 Shelby GT mustang will command more than a 6 cylinder automatic.
I do not believe the Sonata will be considered a limited model and long-term reliability is still unknown. The model is new now, looks good and is selling close to MSRP. Is that because of limited availability, newness or other? Wait 6 months and see how the price of the Sonata fairs; if it remains at close to MSRP then that is a good indicator. However if it drops off to invoice or even lower watch out!
YMMV,
MidCow
Forums , such as Edmund's, are a good place to discuss facts, opinions and feeelings about a car. But remember, it is somewhat akin to harvesting wheat, in order to get the grain you have to throw away a lot of chaff.
I am not sure I would go as far to say "..these people tend to curse other brands.", but I will agree there are a lot of people that are very passionate about their particular car model. And what else would you expect in a car enthusiast's forum.
Having said all that, I don't own a Hyundai, but the Sonata and several of their other recent models seem to be good car value. As I said earlier, they may be the "Honda/Toyota car company of this decade". Several will laugh at that thought, however they were not around or at least were not into cars when the Honda 600 was introduced.
Anyway, right now I am into Acura/Honda/Toyota/Lexus cars. I had some Oldsmobiles, Fords and Mercurys in the past and I have long given up on American reliability. My last American car was a 1990 Tuarus SHO 5-speed. It was a great car for 2 years , but then began to have significant relaiblity problems. But the real cincer was when I was in a Ford Taurus automatic on a vacation and the transmission began going out. When I arrived for a week on the beach at Destin, FA I took the car to a Ford delaer and rented a car. I told them I had a transmssion problem and they set up an appointment for Thursday for $1,000 to fix with rebuilt trans.. Thursday, they told me it was an engine problem because I didn't have ford plus. So they installed Frod plugs and ran diagnostics and $271 later they told me it was a transmission problme and it would cost $2,000 and they could fix it next week. Ford Customer sService would do nothing, so I trde it in for a new 1995 Toyota Avalon in a 2 hour window. Never bought another domestic since. Now Toyota is close to being on my non-car list after the terrible treatment over their Prius monopoly.
YMMV,
MidCow
These two cars are in the sights of every carmaker who wants to sell midsize cars in similar numbers.
As for the Sonata, sure, I feel rear end looks like an Accords, but better. This has been mentioned in many reviews too.
Accords and Camrys can be had for invoice or lower. Should we watch out about those cars too?
I know there is a lot of demand for Accords and Camry's in the used car market...
Hyundai is not forced to continue with their warranty, they choose to. Since they have increased the warranty, their claims have actually decreased about 35%. So they are building better quality cars now.
As far as long lines of Hyundais at the service department, naturally more Hyundai customers use the dealers service department. That is because it is free. Covered under warranty. No cost to you. No deductible etc.... When your transmission breaks on a Honda after 36,000 miles(which believe it or not does happen), chances are you are not going to take it back to the dealer because it will cost less elsewhere.
I'm not insinuating that Hyundai's are perfect and will never break, but they are very competitive in regards to quality. Perfect no, but find me any car that is.
Thanks for the response. I notice from your bio that you drive a 2005 Cadillac CTS, Isn't the CTS 6-speed Type V an awesome car.
I agree it looks like the Hyundai has gotten better, but just recently. I think oldjoe is right, the 10 year 100, 000 mile warranty is still a strong draw and is one of the major reasons that Hyundia is getting the foot traffic it is. Remeber when the Dodge/Chrysler drivetrains were failing often and they instituted the 7 year 70,000 powertrain warrant, well now is the last year for that. But heck, it took them some 10 years to recover.
If you tink the Hyundia 10 year 100,000 drive train is not needed now, try dropping it to 3 years 36,000 miles and see how many loyal or prospective Hyundai owners become Honda/Toyota proponents.
But old joe and others are right Hyundia is making great strides and they are pretty much equal to the 3 year old target they went for. The problem is it is not three years ago and Honda and Toyota have raised the standard.
If Hyundai really wanted to excel, they would buy a BMW 3 series and study, analyze, take-a-part until they fully understood the BMW suspension sysstem, then they would engineer a suspension system that had the same characteristics. Mazda, has taken an approach "Zoom Zoom" similarly with success.
Later,
MidCow
On the other hand, people who claim that the Sonata is the new benchmark for the Camcords to beat are being *way* too premature; I think it will take years of consistently reliable Hyundais before they have anything approaching Camcord resale values. Contrary to what an earlier poster stated, Hyundai's history of unreliable cars is not 20 years in the past; they were making Excels until '94, and I still had my '90 Excel ten years ago - so there are going to be quite a few former Hyundai owners with relatively recent bad reliability experiences. And I noticed that the CR reports auto issue listed the '00 Sonata, '03 Tiburon, and '04 XG 350 in their "used cars to avoid" list.
Because of their long history of reliability, Camcords are "no-brainers" for people looking for reliable cars, especially used ones. What I mean by "no-brainer" is that people know - even people who know next to nothing about automobiles - that Camcords (or, more generally Hondas and Toyotas) are reliable. I think that this fact alone accounts for the great resale value that these vehicles have.
The Mazda Protege was also an extremely reliable vehicle throughout its entire run ('90-'03); I believe it was at least as reliable as the Camcords. But it never became a no-brainer because: (1) it didn't have the camcord history; and (2) not all Mazda lines had that level of reliability. So if you bought a protege, you got a car just as reliable as a camcord (or a civic/corolla, which is the closer comparison), but you did not receive the same resale premium that the Honda/Toyotas received because Mazda did not have that reputation.
And that, basically, is the boat in which Hyundai finds themselves - they don't have anything approaching the level of reliability that Toy/Hon has; in fact, to the extent that they have a reliability rep, it's for bad reliability (although I'm sure that's fading, and I'm sure that many new car buyers don't remember the excel). And while Hyundai isn't close to being a no-brainer, they do have the next best thing - an excellent warranty. I suspect that that's enough to answer the reliability question in many people's minds - and it is absolutely the best move that Hyundai could have made to address reliability concerns.
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/Comparos/articleId=106434
And also the First Drive of the 06' Passat, which sounds like it will be the benchmark for all of these sedans.
http://www.edmunds.com/apps/vdpcontainers/do/vdp/articleId=106641/pageNumber=1
People who shop for the Passat are most likely going to cross-shop it with Lexus ES300, Acura TL or G35 (even 3 series)
But the thing Passat is missing against those sedans, is "luxury status"
pwimsey: Agree with you, well written.
lweiss posted this earlier: One explanation that I read about VW's bad decisions came from one of the business magazines- with the drop in the value of the dollar against the Euro during the past few years, they were desparate to increase profits in the US- so they went against their roots (cheap, fun to drive VW bugs and Jettas) and tried to go upmarket- with disasterous results.
The service department opens at 7AM & will do "while you wait service". There had to be at least a dozen people who were in the waiting area when I arrived for my appointment at 8:30. They all had left with their cars before mine was finished a little after 9AM. So I assume they also were in for routine service. Meanwhile, other people arived after me and none of them seemed upset, so I assumed they were in for scheduled service work. That could be wrong, but normally when people have a problem, they tend to show it.
Danf1, any info on how much your service dept does in scheduled service vs "problems?"
http://www.vw.com/passat/index.html
The 2.0t, the car that has all the available options starts about $1000 more and can get WELL over $30K once you add Option Pkgs (1 or 2) and other separate options.
But I got word from some salesmen over @ VWvotex.com that claim ONLY automatic verison of the Passat are being built at this time and that once the Manual verisons start rolling out (later this year), you'll be able to get similar pkging configurations.
Also, a 180 watt premium sound system is standard on the EX V6 6MT sedan.
This is the same stereo that is currently offered on the 6-speed V6 EX Coupe and it is pretty nice!
I notice the LED taillights were not mentioned, but sometimes that feature isn't always mentioned on car spec sheeets.
Cheers,
MidCow
Nothing against driving a stick, I lived for 8 years in Germany- but right now I dont need a stick in a family sedan.Thats just me ,I know a lot of people do like to drive stick, but maybe somebody has the numbers on manual Accords sold...
Honda by the way they package different models does not allow very many upgrades. The 180 watt is only available with the EX V6 6-speed manual ( sedan or coupe) . If you get the NAV it would be fairly hard to upgrade. If you get non-NAV you could upgrade speakers, amps and head units to a much better stereo. The only downside is that you would probably loose your steering wheel controls.
Concerning the Manual, Honda has one of the smoothest shifting slickest shifters available. And if you look at the V6 sedan the mpg ratings 21/30 are actually better than the automatic.
Now concerning other stereos. The Altima even with Bose has the absolute worst FM reception I have ever seen; I was set to get a 6-speed Altima SE-R but the steror was so bad. Mazda with Bose is okay, but didn't sound as good to me as the 120 watt Accord. VW Monsoon/Dynaudio is an excellent stereo, but then you run into reliaiblity and dealer service problems. Haven't heard the Sonata stereo so I can't comment except that I once had a Hyundai as a rental car and the stereo seemed okay. Acural TL and TSX get Bose and they sound very good, but not that much better than the Accord. My latest gauge mark of stereo is in my old 1993 5-speed manual Lexus ES-300. If a stereo is not at least as good as its original untouched factory stereo then I don't consider it sufficient.
Good Luck,
Cruis'n in 6th :shades: ,
MidCow
P.S.- My choice would be the 6-speed Honda. If you have to have an auto then the 120 watt stereo isn't that bad and you could upgrade the speakers
As for the horsepower of the '06 V6 going up while the fuel economy goes down--not exactly what we need right now, with gas prices inching up towards all-time highs in the U.S.
I regret buying a V6 Accord now
But its still fuel efficient. Maybe the 4cylinder is what i should have bought with the gas prices at all-time highs....
Side Curtain Airbags will most likely (99%) be standard on the 07 Camry.
And to ctalk- don't feel too bad about the accord V6- I traded my '03 I4 Accord that got consistant 33 hwy for an '04 Mazda6S V6, best it will get is 24 hwy. It's a lot more fun to drive, however- and at least they both run fine on good 'ol 87.
I never thought the redsox would ever beat then yankees let alone win it all and now this. Maybe hell has frozen over or something, but we certainly do have a new midsize car king for now.
Amazing car, so quiet and stylish, best car for the dollar
Not to scheme up any more useless arguments, but i want to gloat since i will purchase this car soon
ciao
That is correct. These engines are equipped with knock sensors which will automatically retard the ignition timing at the first sign of knocking (resulting in reduced power output), then advance the ignition until it reaches the normal timing interval. If you run regular, this process will occur more frequently than if you ran on premium.
The inline 4 is great, especially at this time (gas prices at a all time high) but it lacks the exhilarating thrust you get from the V6
The similarity is in the tail lights, mainly that the top half is red and the bottom half is white.
But there's nothing special about that design.
You know what, there have been so many cars now in history that you can always say that car X looks like car Y.
It's happened with EVERY single car that is released today. Someone in some forum brings up the "fact" that this car copied this car, yada yada yada.
Some people think the Sonata looks like the Accord.
Some people think it doesn't.
End of story
Anyway, now that Honda has changed the rear end of the Accord for '06, no one needs to say "Sonata looks like an Accord" any more. They can start talking about the cars Honda "copied" for its "new" rear end.
I am not a big fan of uprading anything on the new car, when I give 25k for a vehicle I do expect to receive good sound quality( does not have to be Mark Levinson or 12 speaker Dolby setup), and I do applaude Honda for making good packages with almost no options. I did have 04 Sonata on my trip to Chicago last year, and that thing was sounding horrible and weak-so maybe we did not have the same stereo( dont know if we had a same stereo-I dont want to sound like I am bashing Hynday, nothing against them).
backy--Do you really think blind loyal honda followers would say anything negative about honda?
But we all know, the Accord coupe got inspiration from the Mercedes-Benz rear taillight design...
But anyway the 2006 Sonata still looks like a 2003-04 Accord from the rear!
:P
Just kidding.
I remember Hyundai got in trouble a couple years ago. I wonder is Toyo and Honda will get a free ride on this one. Hyundai had to pay dearly for their mistake.