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Hyundai Sonata: Good enough to win?
Hyundai's new sedan goes up against the most popular cars in America.
August 6, 2005: 9:24 AM EDT
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN/Money staff writer
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2006 Hyundai Sonota
2006 Hyundai Sonota

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - I'd been through the security routine at our parking garage plenty of times, so I reached down on the inside of the driver's door and released the trunk latch on the 2006 Hyundai Sonata before the guard even had to ask me to.

His reaction from behind the opened trunk lid froze me in my seat.

"Damn!" he said.

What was that for? I had just gotten the car and hadn't even looked in the trunk. Had someone put a duffel bag with exposed wiring in there? Perhaps the automotive journalist who had the car before me was a serial killer and the fleet guys hadn't cleared out his latest victim.

When I finally got around to the back of the car, I saw the reason for his understandable shock.

The Sonata's trunk really is a lot bigger than it looks from the outside.

At 16.3 cubic feet, it's about the same size as that of the Toyota Camry and considerably larger than the Honda Accord's.

The fight

Those cars, of course, are ones Hyundai figures you'll be looking at if you're looking at their Sonata. To win that fight, the Sonata needs to be just as good as those cars, or very close, but much cheaper.

The Sonata nearly makes it, too. If it were just a little better in a few areas, this car would be a slam dunk hit.

If you stand outside the car, look at its sharp lines, peer through the windows at the nice-looking trim on the dash and then take a glance at the window sticker, you'll probably say "Damn!" too. It sure looks like a fine ride for the money.

In the case of my test car, it was just a little under $21,000.

That includes important safety features, like side curtain airbags and electronic stability control, which you would expect to cost extra, if they were available at all, on a car at this price.

As far as the design goes, I think the Sonata holds its own against the Accord and Camry. I'm not sure, but I think I might even like its looks better than those of its major competitors.

The 3.3-liter V-6 engine in my test car provided ample power. (The Sonata's also available with a 4-cylinder engine starting at about $18,000.) There was never a time when I felt like I needed more. I don't know about the four-cylinder yet, but with the V-6 the Sonata feels light and fast.

The automatic transmission also has manual gear selection, another feature usually found on higher-priced cars, and it's one of the better ones I've tried. It's easy to use -- you can select manual mode and go back to automatic readily at any time -- and relatively quickly.

Rough spots

Hit a few bumps, or a patch of pocked pavement, and the source of some cost-savings becomes evident. Road noise is a real problem. Every "thwump," "bump" and "thadump" from the tires travels right up through the passenger cabin. Driving over some rough pavement on the highway, I had to raise my voice to converse with my passenger.

I had no complaints about the Sonata's handling most of the time. It drives just fine, especially for a relatively inexpensive car.

But when the road gets rough, while the ride remains comfortable, the sense of control gives way. The Sonata's suspension doesn't like too many inputs at once and when there are lots of bumps, the bumps win.

The brakes also grab low and quick, making it somewhat hard to control braking pressure. I got used to that after a while and just learned to take it easy on the stop pedal unless I really wanted to test out the seatbelts.

The interior was a mix of really nice stuff and a few ugly bits. The wood-like trim on my Hyundai GLS tester was quite attractive.

Parts of the dash, particularly around the radio, betray the high-value promise of the nice shifter and the leather-wrapped steering wheel. So do the cheap-looking pseudo-metallic door pulls.

Stereo and cruise control buttons on the steering wheel are a nice touch. They are also particularly well designed and easy to use. Other nice touches include a purse hook -- in Europe they call them "curry hooks," I'm told -- in the passenger side front floor well and a grab handle on the inside of the trunk lid so shorter people don't have to jump up to close it.

Quality concerns?

Hyundai has gotten excellent quality marks in recent J.D. Power and Consumer Reports surveys. But I had some concern about this car because it's the first built in Hyundai's new factory in Alabama. New car, new country, new factory. Seemed like a potential problem to me.

So I called David Champion who heads up auto testing at Consumer Reports to see what he thought.

"I doubt that they'd let that quality standing slip after they've worked so hard to get it," he said.

And there is that famous 10-year/100,000 mile warranty on the engine and transmission. He's not too worried about it. So, fine.

Overall score: The next time I see someone driving a brand-new Honda Accord, I'm not going to think, "Man, what a dope. He should have bought the Hyundai Sonata."

If you look at sticker prices, the Sonata's cost savings can be huge. But if you look at Edmunds.com's True Market Value, which is based on what people actually pay, the margin is much narrower. A similarly equipped 2006 Toyota Camry LE goes for about $2,000 more in the real world.

But the Sonata is sure worth a look, especially as time goes on and the TMV price starts to come down, widening that margin some more.

2006 Hyundai Sonata photos and details

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