Hyundai puts accent on value Entry-level car is neither a gem nor a dud Saturday, July 4, 1998
BY ALAN VONDERHAAR
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Hyundai has learned a lot in its 12 years in the United States (has it really been that long? whew).
| Accent |
It got a bloody nose when its earliest offerings didn't stand up to American conditions, but, as Honda and Toyota did decades earlier, the South Korean manufacturer proved a quick study.
I came to this test of the company's entry-level subcompact fully prepared to cut some slack, not because of the firm's relative inexperience, but because the car they offered cost about half of what the typical vehicle does today. I found they don't need any concessions.
Hyundai now has about 500 stores, coast to coast. Its model lineup, from the bottom, goes Accent (which 2 years ago replaced the unlamented Excel), Elantra, Sonata, with the snazzy Tiburon coupe standing off to the side. The Elantra is a subcompact, like the Accent, but a little more luxurious in a Buick:Chevrolet kind of relationship.
The Accent is furnished in three coupe (hatchback) levels: L, GS and Gsi, and a sedan, the straightforwardly-named Accent Four-Door. It was the lattermost that I tested.
XXLT folks like me are not a good match for subcompact cars, but I was surprised at how accommodating the Accent was. Once I got past the hurdle of having to limbo to duck under the 55-inch roofline, I found that with the driver's seat pushed all the way back and tilted a bit off vertical, I was ready for a few hundred miles. Neither headroom nor legroom was inadequate. Such custom-fitting, of course, rendered the rear seat strictly a one-person (and a small one at that) perch.
The hatchbacks' rear seats fold down to expand upon their 16.1-cubic-foot cargo area, but the sedan's rear bench is fixed. The tight 10-cubic-foot trunk is at least secure, and the alleged rear seating area could hold lots of gear.
The interior is nicely done in contrasting shades and textures of plastic, by no means cheap looking, but not fitted with quite the care one expects these days, even in this class, where Corollas and Civics set the standard.
The Accent has been given an exterior freshening for the Œ98 model year, with new front and rear bumpers, tail lamps, bodyside moldings and wheel covers. To my eyes, it seemed rather generic, but not necessarily cheap-looking, save for the nameplate, which is done in decals rather than a piece of chromed metal or plastic. The sedan alone got a new hood and decklid this year, along with halogen headlamps.
All Accents come with Hyundai's own "Alpha" engine, the first one it developed in-house, as opposed to licensed from Mitsubishi. It is a 12-valve (two intake ports), single-overhead-cam four displacing 1.5 liters. It has an iron block and aluminum head.
Output is an understressed 92 hp at 5,500 rpm and 97 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000. Despite having a 10:1 compression ratio, it ran fine on the recommended regular unleaded. Throttle response was quick and eager, a function of that high comp ratio and close coupling.
With a curb weight of about 2,300 pounds and that kind of horsepower, the driver's principal satisfaction will come from eking out big mileage numbers from every gallon of fuel, and her biggest thrills will come on freeway on-ramps. The tester had an automatic transmission, and I couldn't crack 14 seconds in 0-60 dashes undertaken without the benefit of winding up the engine against the brakes (as the overgrown boys at the car mags like to do), an unduly stressful maneuver somebody making the payments would be well advised to avoid.
As for mileage, the EPA estimates 27 city, 35 highway with the four-speed automatic, and a mere 1 mpg better with the standard five-speed manual. I measured 30.1 during my stewardship, even with propulsive driving and lots of full-blast air conditioner use.
The Accent's wheelbase is a mere 94.5 inches, but the car didn't exhibit any undue pitching motion, as short-wheelbase platforms are wont. Overall ride quality was just fair, distinctly inferior to what one gets from (the more expensive) Honda and Toyota equivalents. Both harshness and high-frequency vibration were culprits. I found myself wincing at expansion joints, rolling along a concrete freeway at 55 mph.
In some measure, the teeny tires are responsible for the sub-par ride, although I didn't feel that they were a major limiting factor in handling. Only the GL coupe can be had with 14-inch wheels. The rest of the family limps along on 13s. The base car has pitiful 155/80s, while the rest have the 175/70s with which the tester was shod. I was somewhat surprised at how grippy they were, although the front and rear stabilizer bars helped control roll and I did not ask for any exertions unreasonable for the class. The car wouldn't be likely to get a novice driver in trouble, and that's an important point to remember with an entry-level machine.
The four-speed automatic transmission did its job well, or rather, as well as it could with somewhat inept choices for the internal ratios. I thought second was unduly high, causing the engine to drop below its modest torque peak on moderate-stress upshifts and to zoom alarmingly when downshifting from second to first. Top gear is a very long-legged 0.685:1 overdrive ratio, which makes for frequent downshifts around town and even on the highway, if you want to overtake anyone at all quickly.
The Accent , even the humblest series, comes with an AM/FM/cassette stereo system. If you close your eyes real hard, you still won't imagine yourself sitting in Music Hall, but the rig showed decent tuner sensitivity and distortion was within normal limits for a low-end unit.
The Accent has dual front air bags which I presume are of the high-powered, first-generation type, since they don't brag about them. Brakes are power-assisted discs/drums, with antilock optionally available on all but the base car. The test car did not have antilock. Stopping distances from high speed were reasonable, with no undue tendency to lock up. Some fade was detectable after several high-rate stops from 70, but little enough not to be worrisome. The front brakes were fairly quick to lock on wet surfaces when I simulated a panic-stop stomp. For most folks, the antilock option would be worth getting.
The non-Freon air conditioner was quite impressive. It quickly cooled the interior of the dark green car I had after it had heat-soaked in 90-degree temperatures, and it was a good match for Cincinnati's wilting humidity, too.
Consumer Reports does not have enough data on the Accent to assign reliability ratings. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, however, did crash-test it, and gave it a three-star rating for driver protection and four stars for the front passenger (on a scale of five), same as the Nissan Sentra. It was better than some cars in the class, which was led by Saturn, which got five driver stars, four passenger stars.
Base price on the sedan with automatic transmission is $11,054. The tester had air conditioning ($994), carpeted floor mats ($60) and mud flaps ($55). With freight, total price on the test machine was $12,163.
Absent feedback of the sort Consumers Union provides, reliability is an unknown with the Accent, but the price is right, and the low-mileage specimen I had was a respectable ride.
Alan Vonderhaar welcomes email at avonderhaar@enquirer.com and snail mail c/o The Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati OH 45202.
