I have a 2006 Kia Sportage that I am very happy with. I’m sure part of the reason is that I pronounce it spor-TAHJ rather than SPORT-udj. It only has 80K miles on it, but it’s been pretty trouble-free. I love the way it handles in crappy winter weather.
a handful of people posting in this thread aren’t representative of anything. I have a Dodge Neon with 150,000 miles on it but I’m not going to act like it means the Neon was a flawless car.
Only after it had done 157,000 miles, though.
Tell me, have you owned a Kia? Have you ever driven one?
Given that you say,
when my mother has owned VWs for 30 years without problems you’ll understand if I take your observations with just a pinch of salt.
It could also be because they want to lure first time Hyundai and Kia buyers from other, more well known (quality wise), brands.
That said, I think both of these companies are putting out good looking and reliable (from what I hear and read) products in recent years. I do not own one but would consider if it was time to look for a car.
Great, I hope you buy VWs forever. I hope everyone in this thread does.
There was a great episode of Autoline Afterhours recently with (and I copy and paste) Marc Trahan, Executive Vice President, Group Quality, VW of America. Here he explains that the reason why Europeans seem to think that VW actually makes good cars when everyone in America knows that they are awful is because Europeans lack the extensive array of quality and reliability surveys like Consumer Reports that Americans have access too. There is less actual demand for such knowledge as well - owning cars is more expensive in most parts of the world outside of North America, so the rate of car ownership is lower. It was a very polite way of saying that Americans are simply much more knowledgeable about these things, since many of them rely on their vehicles for their livelihoods and Europeans are just too ignorant to tell shit from shit, or maybe they’re just use to their British Leyland/Rover/Warsaw Pact standards of “reliability” that even VWs seem like a step up.
Popping in to say I haven’t abandoned the thread and am reading everything so thank you, especially to owners with personal anecdotes and people with mechanic experience with the cars.
I can’t access that link from here but that sounds like typically American arrogant bollocks. He’s obviously never heard of Which?, NCAP, Trading Standards, umpteen car magazines which run things like the JD Power survey, etc. Even Top Gear and 5th Gear. Oh, and this little thing called the Internet.
Can you narrow that very long broadcast down a wee bit? To the salient points? Particularly the bit that Europeans are too ignorant to tell “shit from shit”? Thanks!
I had a 2004 Hyundai Elantra that I drove for 80,000 miles and 7 years (until it got rear-ended and totaled). I’m pretty lackadaisical on oil changes and maintenance, but I never had any problems with it. (Replacing the anti-lock brakes around 60,000 miles was the most expensive, and that was just a few hundred.)
I’m driving a 2006 Elantra now, with about 50,000 miles on it. It’s <1 year old (for me), so no complaints yet!
My wife has a 2006 Sonata with about 66,000 miles on it (bought used in 2007), and we’ve had no problems with it.
My mom had a 2001 Santa Fe. She drove it for about 10 years and 160,000 miles, and finally gave it up because it was having engine problems.
I drove a 2012 Kia Optima the other day and was blown away by it. Five years ago I would have told you I’d never be caught dead driving a Kia. Now, we are considering it. We also really like the Hyundai Veloster. Both have amazingly long warranties and I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase one now. I still wouldn’t consider one that was more than 2 or 3 years old though. Keep in mind that the original warranty of 10 years/100K miles on the powertrain reverts to a 5/60K for a second owner. (At least that was true several years ago when I was selling cars.)
Seriously, how upset can you be if the transmission in a front wheel drive car (any FWD car) ONLY lasts a bit over 150,000 miles? :rolleyes:
FTR, the maintenance schedule on Hyundai calls for a transmission service every 60,000 miles. We don 't know if either of those services were done. Missing one or both of those services would shorten the life of the trans.
As far as your link about Sonata and tracking issues goes, look at the date. July 2011. Since then Hyundai has a fix for the issue, and as we are repairing the cars, this is becoming less of an issue each day.
BTW for anyone keeping score, Lexus had the same issue when the LS400s was introduced. I know, the Lexus dealer was sending me brand new LS400 to do alignments on. I could do a perfect alignment, and the car still pulled left. Lexus would then send out a matched set of mounted shaved tires labeled with which corner they were to be installed on. Made me wonder what was going to happen in 30,000 miles or so when the tires wore out.
I’m a service manager at the largest selling Hyundai dealership in California. We sell more new cars here in a month than my previous dealer sold in a year. Do I have to replace transmissions? Sure, but you know what? In absolute numbers, I do less transmission replacements here than I did at Volvo.
When I came over here I was amazed at just how little actual repair work we do compared to how many oil changes and services we do.
Oh, also about the warranty the 10/100 is for the original purchaser only, unless the car is a certified pre-owned from a Hyundai dealer, then the 10/100 also goes to the second owner.
Hope this helps, NAF1138, if I can answer any other questions, feel free to ask.
Just to note that, in 1998, those weren’t “the first Hyundais”, by quite a bit.
Hyundai’s first car sold in the U.S., the Excel, first appeared here in 1986 (and they’d been making cars in Korea for 20 years at that point).
My wife (well, at that time, she was my girlfriend) bought a Hyundai Sonata in 1990. She liked that it was “a lot of car for the money” (as far as size and features, it was comparable to a Honda Accord of that era, but priced more like a Civic). But, it suffered from the quality problems that Hyundais of that era had (bad design of the head gasket, transmission issues, lots of little fit-and-finish problems).
She had it for 7 years, but by the time it was about 5 years old (and had about 70K miles), we no longer considered it to be a trustworthy car for long trips, and it became the car that I drove to the train every day.
Everything that I’ve read in recent years indicates that, even if Hyundais aren’t quite up to the reliability level of a Honda or Toyota, they don’t have the quality issues that plagued them in their early years in the U.S.
I rented a Kia Forte over winter break, and I don’t know if this transfers to the other models, but the back view in the car is really bad. The back seats create a hump that blocks your view, thus the back window is only a fraction the size of a Honda (my regular car.)
If you do a lot of backing out of driveways, or parking lots, you might want to avoid getting a Kia.
As the guy who had the tranny replaced, I’ll also note that I would buy one again. I’m a guy who will drive a car for over a decade and just takes the occasional repair as a cost of owning a car. I’m not a guy who reacts to a $2K repair as the end of the world, I don’t consider my car assets - they provide utility, and that utility has a cost.
The accent is only worth about $1500, and that is optimistic. But the estimated utility of the car, even considering a $2500 repair, is favorable compared to the cost of a replacement car. If it lasts more that about 30 months, then it’s a good deal for me. So far, it looks to be a good deal for me, as the rest of the car has held up beautifully.
Now, let’s compare that to the worst car I’ve owned. It was a 1982 Pontiac 6000LE. It was a shitmobile. At no point during the time I owned that car would a major repair like a replacement transmission have been a good decision- the rest of the car was so shitty that it was likely that another system would fail and make it a financial loser. The torque converter failed under warranty at about 13,000 miles. (Nothing against GM, they make fantastic cars these days - but I’m in absolute awe when I see that model of car on the road today - the 6000, the Chevy Celebrity, and whatever the Buick and Olds version were - they are very rare these days, for good reason). The blown head gasket on the 2.8l v-6 killed that car. It was a common failure.
The Fords are Rangers, the first car I ever bought new was a 91 Ranger XLT. I still drive it, and have no worries driving it far distances. 337,000 miles on it so far, a few major repairs (the manual tranny needs new input shaft bearings every 125K miles, but hey it needs a clutch then too). It’s a ratty looking truck these days - and my favorite.
Anyway, I guess my point is that the Hyundai is a good enough car that I have a level of confidence that it’s worth repairing. If you keep cars long enough then you know what that is worth. You won’t always be right, but you should be right enough of the time to make it a positive expectation for you.
We love our 2006 Kia Rio. It initially felt a little"go-karty" after the '97 Eagle Vision it replaced, but it is a much better car.
With a second kid, our only complaint is that it is getting too small - we will replace it with a Kia Soul pretty soon.
ETA: The Kia is holding up much better than the Eagle, which was already starting to feel like a beater by year seven.
I have a 2002 Accent with about 105,000 miles and what I would consider no major problems. I’ve had the front and rear brakes each replaced once, the timing belt replaced on schedule, new battery once, and I’m on my third set of tires (I run snows about 3-4 months a year). I stick to the maintenance schedule for oil, air filter, wipers, and plugs. For repairs I had the front tie rods replaced a year ago and I replaced the exhaust myself around the same time because it was starting to rust. That’s the only repair where I kind of thought it should have lasted longer (my particular model/year has a reputation for the flex pipe and other exhaust joints rusting out) but I also probably could have gotten by with just replacing/repairing part of it but decided to do the whole thing. The suspension is starting to bounce a bit with age and, like a lot of earlier Hyundais, it’s not the quietest ride and has some quirks, like my wonky dash light. I will probably replace it with another Accent or maybe an Elantra in a year or two because around that time I’ll want something with 4 doors. I’m really impressed with these new models–great gas mileage, looks, etc. Every other person I know who has a Hyundai (a couple sonatas, elantras, Santa Fe) loves it.
FWIW I discussed this thread with a friend of mine who is a service manager at a high line European car line. His opinion is that next to Lexus Hyundai is currently building the most trouble free car out there.
I will say my one compalint about my Elantra is that it has noticeable blind spots. I’m tall and can look around them but if I was three inches shorter it’d be irritating as hell.
This is an ongoing peeve of mine with cars - why do car manufacturers think we don’t need to see out of the side and back windows of cars these days?
ETA: More on topic, when I was looking for a small, reliable car in 2005, I tried to buy a Hyundai Elantra, but ended up with a Toyota Corolla because the Hyundai dealerships in Calgary can be real idiots. By all my yardsticks, the Elantras were just fine in 2005.
Probably a tradeoff with aerodynamics and better mileage.