Rental Car - 2013 Hyundai Elantra

"CalzoneGolem" (calzonegolem) 10/24/2013 at 12:03 • Filed to: None

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I traveled to the great state of VA home of 4 lane divided highways with 45 mph speed limit and the u-turn. My mission was 2 fold first : my wife had to go to some classes and second we would party like it was 1999 and we didn't have children.

It ended up starting to rain the night we got there and didn't stop until the morning we left. Also, I was sick as a dog. I had mucous coming out of my eyes, nose, mouth and ears. We soldiered on, visited the nation's capitol while it was closed and ate many locally sourced meats and vegetables. Apparently, in Reston VA people will not eat food unless it had been murdered locally.

We got a 2013 Hyundai Elantra with 12k miles and the worst color interior I could possibly imagine. It was so bad that my wife said she would no buy this car based entirely on the color of the interior.

I'm not sure this picture accurately portrays how horrible the brown was to behold.

Anyways it was a decent enough car and we had test driven the Kia version before we bought her Soul. Much like the Soul the peak power band is up in the 4k range. Much like the Soul the auto trans hates to let you get up into the 4k range without switching to manumatic.

The car felt nimble but the tires really let it down in the wet and the suspension was totally fine after 12k miles of rental abuse. There was basically no steering feel. This is pretty endemic of the Kias and Hyundais I've been in as of late.

Here is the only picture it took of the outside of the car. It was past midnight and I was going to the grocery store.

Not entirely sure how I ended up with an NJ rental in VA but whatevs.

m-b-w loves his SUBAROO > CalzoneGolem 10/24/2013 at 15:57

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Just saying, rental cars end up everywhere. My dad had a Chevy Traverse rental that broke down an hour after he rented it in the Suburbs of Philly. Enterprise gave him a Dodge Caravan with Ontairo plates and a speedometer in Kilometers.

M54B30 > CalzoneGolem 11/02/2013 at 00:59

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My E39 has the tan interior. I didn't like it at first, but an all black interior is just so dark , especially if it's like mine - black with 10% tint. My mother-in-law has the Sonata hybrid, but I prefer the Kia's styling better.

Simplecar > CalzoneGolem 11/02/2013 at 08:30

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Clearly my good sir hasn't been to my country. Here to succeed you must have beige colour as interior, and more beige = more premium. The VAG group doesn't even offer a black interior as an option. Ford's interpretation of beige is even worse than the pic you have put up. That said, I rather like this elantra. It is a nice car

CalzoneGolem > M54B30 11/02/2013 at 11:11

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I could live with that. It's that the dash is black and silver with that coffee ice cream brown under it that makes it so bad.

CalzoneGolem > Simplecar 11/02/2013 at 11:13

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It was pleasant to drive. Comfortable and composed. The only thing that let it down in my mind was the interior.

M54B30 > CalzoneGolem 11/02/2013 at 13:07

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Ah, I'm tracking now. A nice two tone dash is all anybody really needs. Seems Hyundai went a bit above and beyond and it doesn't pay off.

On a side note, the Optima has a much nicer two-tone dash