Well, at least if you love cars it’s not because you’re an enthusiast, love driving dynamics, or performance. This is another car firmly in the A to B type. It is your own box with four wheels to get from A to B. Maybe you like interior? Maybe you like the features? Maybe you like the overall package and price? But as far as I can tell there is not anything particularly endearing about this car.
The transmission is a 6-speed automatic transmission with Shiftronic. It has four modes of operation: Eco, Normal, Sport, and Manual.Eco: In this mode it up shifts around 1.25k-1.5k and cruises around 1.25k. When you lift off it coasts well. The throttle response is very dead for a given amount of input. When floored the transmission up shifts around 4.5-5k. In Eco there is significantly more engine and transmission noise, it almost sounds like the engine is being lugged or borderline lugging.
Normal: In this mode it up shifts around 1.5-1.75k and cruises around 1.25-1.5k. When you lift off it coasts very well. The throttle response in relatively normalized, though I would not call it linear. When floored the transmission up shifts around 4.5-5k
Sport: In this mode it up shifts around 2.25-2.5k and cruises around 2.25k and will hold a lower gear for no good reason. When you lift off it does not coast very well. When starting from a stop the transmission will rev up and basically do a clutch dump making for a very jerky start even when giving the same amount of throttle depression (1/10th ish or less) as with Eco and Normal. When floored up shifts occur around 6-6.25k
Manual Mode: The transmission is slow to respond to up shift and down shift commands. When down shifting for a stop it does not really grab and slow progress until gear 2 or 1 which is often 2-3 gears lower than I thought original bite should be at. This heavily reminded me of a CVT transmission with a manual mode and how uncertain it was in terms of biting to decelerate the vehicle.
Engine: The engine is a 2.4 L inline 4-cylinder (2.4 L Theta GDi I4) producing 185 HP @ 6000 RPM and 178 lb-ft @ 4000 RPM. The compression ratio is a decent 11.3:1 with 4 valves per cylinder, DOHC, and D-CVVT (Hyundai’s version of variable valve timing). Relating back to the transmission I’d say the engine is fine in Normal or Sport mode. But when in Eco mode it sounds like it is close to lugging and at best is languid.
Fuel Economy: According to Hyundai their EPA city / highway / combined is 25 / 38 / 30. I experienced 30.118 and 29.171 on the two fuel tanks I tracked. The 30.118 was almost pure highway driving and is way short of the EPA 38 MPG estimate. Most of that tank was also in economy and using cruise control. For the two tanks I tracked I am most unimpressed with the fuel economy of this vehicle.
All of my measured fuel economy was on Eco and Normal transmission modes. The fuel tank is large at 18.5 gallons meaning relatively infrequent fuel stops. The 2015 Sonata shows an average MPG of 27.0 across 119 vehicles and 2,422 fuel ups on Fuelly.
Steering: You will be making many turns of the wheel especially at low speed cornering. Which, considering the body roll and lack of steering feel from either the seat or steering wheel, is likely the speed you’ll be taking turns at. This is in no way a quick ratio steering wrack. It is easy enough to park I suppose, just assume you’ll be turning the wheel lots. The steering is light to the point where it makes my wife’s Honda Prelude seem very heavy and communicative. Knowing that the Subaru BRZ is even heavier and more communicative means transitioning back is going to mean another period of adjustment for my arms similar to after having driven the Hyundai i20.
Any interstate on ramps, even of the wide sweeping variety, that you might take at highway speed show a strong tendency for the front end to feel like it is pushing out and tempting understeer. This was quite disappointing compared to the Hyundai i20 which we had in Israel which lent itself to momentum driving (maintaining as much speed as possible through corners and so on). The Hyundai Sonata very much wants you to brake and brake a lot for any corners.
Ride Quality and Noise: This car is neither noisy nor particularly quiet. I just have not found it exceptional either way. As previously mentioned though you will have more engine and transmission noise in Eco mode. All engine noise you hear is induction noise as the exhaust note is very quiet.
Seating Comfort: It looks like there is decent room in the rear seats. Though I can’t say if that would be true with a particularly tall driver.
The seats in this rental spec are very cushy, so much so it bothers me. You sink in a lot. Also there is no lumbar support, adjustable or otherwise, in the driver seat and this has bothered me quite a bit. I have yet to be truly comfortable no matter how much I fiddle with the driver seat. The seats are wide and designed for a much bigger driver than me. I would describe them as overly squishy and wallowy which does not help with the car’s already substantial body roll.
Instrument Cluster: There is a multi information screen that can give you tire pressure in each tire. Different trip computers. It can give you average MPG since last zeroing of a trip computer as well as an instantaneous efficiency rating between 0 and 50 MPG done as a sliding graphical bar. You can also have just the speed there. Personally I would have liked a digital speedometer and the average and instantaneous fuel efficiency but I could not get such a configuration.
Miscellaneous: The hood is on gas shocks which is wonderful. The trunk is on those long arms that intrude into the trunk space. If you were to fill this trunk to capacity you would be running into the crushing problem inherent in such a design. Why they did not do gas shocks on both hood and trunk is beyond me.
This car does have tap-turn. Which is not necessarily unique or novel but something I appreciate and am looking to upgrade on my Subaru BRZ.
I lived with this car for ~25 days which is likely longer than I should have. I am not going to miss it.
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