New Hyundai Elantra-test, combustion, comfort, ugly elements, the price of autoblog-logo-mobile
I like it from the back and the front, although I would rarely be in the back seat of a car. I wouldn't stand on the side of the new Hyundai Elantra too often.
I don't know if taxi drivers have dreams or just systematically grow their stomachs and regularly remove vertebrae from their spine. If they have, the new Hyundai Elantra is probably already on the list. It has style and other advantages. The naturally aspirated engine with a capacity of 1.6 liters is already a real raisin in the world of direct injection, where the LPG installation often makes no sense. And the new Elantra brings it in an attractive body. I would buy those sedans.
The great return of the sedan
Mikołaj found several sedans outside the premium segment. One even has a naturally aspirated engine, but none of them have such presence as the Hyundai Elantra, which with black paint successfully escapes associations with a car for mushrooms and for mushrooms.
The front and rear are his biggest cars. On the one hand, an aggressive grill and headlights, on the other, an LED strip running across the hatch. This trunk even in the open position looks good. When you pick up a customer at night, he will understand that you have to pay a lot for driving such a car and he will not wonder if he went all the way to his destination.
Elantra is pleasant to approach, although it is better not to look at her from the sidelines. You can't fault the body line, but the impression is spoiled by the wheels. The tested copy had the largest available size, i.e. 17 inches, and the wheels are still too small for the silhouette of the car. 16's, which will probably be more popular, can make the Elantra look like a tram, and the Elantra's basic wheel size is 15 inches. Let's stick to the back and front better.
The interior fights for recognition
I've been bullying the gray plastic a bit, and rightly so, because it wastes the potential of this interior. With white leather upholstery on the seats, you can feel like you bought a premium car. The front ones can have ventilation, and the rear ones can be heated. It would be much better after removing the railing near the passenger seat. I suspect that in such circumstances of nature, most customers will swallow even this gray plastic. The main thing is that there is a newspaper holder in the back of the passenger seat.
The central screen with a diagonal of 10.25 inches (8 inches at no extra charge), flows smoothly into the door trim, it is soft where it is supposed to be soft and quite cozy. It's nice and so classic, with temperature control knobs and a small sunroof (PLN 5,000) instead of a large panoramic window. I would drive clients dressed in a suit, and my big belly would help roll out the automatic sliding front seat.
Passengers can also have abdominal swelling, but they should be short.
Classic entertainment in the back
SUV coupes, the ones with a cut-off roof, defended the headroom after the cut-off, because there was plenty to cut. I don't think it was in Elantra, because there is not much space. 20 minutes in such a taxi, I could stand in the back. As I am close to 190 cm tall, I would prefer to go on the road in the front, especially since there are no phone charging sockets in the back. However, let's not lose sight of the large legroom and newspaper holder. It's classic, paper entertainment at the expense of electronic.
You can shine in front of the client at the trunk. Maybe the opening button is too small and hard to reach in the dark, but you can use the lever near the driver's seat or the cool function. The car can recognize that we are moving along the vehicle (close to the door so as not to see the wheels) towards the trunk and will open it automatically.
In the middle, we have a quite friendly loading opening, for a sedan, of course. Unfortunately, the hinges go inside and they go in ugly, because they have protruding elements that catch the luggage, which additionally catches the speakers in the shelf. However, you can live with these 474 liters. I could load a baby stroller there as opposed to loading a baby in a car seat in the back seat. Due to the constant banging on the head, she might have a learning disability in the future and would become a second-class engineer who designed the sound system and the appearance of the clocks in front of the steering wheel.
Waiting for clock facelift
It says BOSE, do you know what that means? This means that despite the presence of tweeters, an amplifier and a central speaker (in the highest version of the equipment), the set still sounds average, and above 100 km / h it ceases to be audible without madness with the knob.
We can choose the appearance of digital clocks (ordinary analog ones with an on-board computer in the middle), but from the whole range of motifs, only rotating cubes are suitable for anything. The rest is an insult to cohesion, an aesthetically helpless mishmash of thin and thick lines that does not create any coherent form. We can already impatiently wait for the facelift of this Elantra and all Hyundai models with these clocks, waiting for them to rest in a graveyard for things designed without an ounce of taste. This is of course the so-called my subjective opinion and you can have a different (wrong) opinion about these gray digital cakes.
A second-class engineer is still an engineer, so the systems work well, but not excitingly. Following the traffic lane is not comfortable enough to want to use it on the highway. Similarly, the traffic system does not make life any easier, it just is. In fact, the automatic stop of the car to zero works and the restart also works, after pressing the button on the steering wheel or the accelerator pedal. However, it is hard for me to imagine that someone with this will actually drive every day and it will actually relieve them of the hardships of driving a taxi. Active cruise control would be enough, but it has the mandatory Stop&Go function (you don't have to use it), and the usual cruise control is not standard. However, these are secondary matters in a taxi.
Fuel consumption - Hyundai Elantra with CVT
With the continuously variable transmission, the Hyundai Elantra consumes less fuel (0.3-0.2 liters less), at least according to the catalogue. And it costs from PLN 5,100 to PLN 6,500 more, depending on the equipment version. If you choose a higher trim level than the basic one, it will be more expensive not to change gears.
Hyundai Elantra can be quite economical and with an automatic gearbox. At a speed of 120 km/h, it consumes 6 liters of petrol, the motorway will certainly squeeze a liter more. The result of between 6 and 7 liters also accompanies city driving, but without traffic jams. Short trips around the city, with frequent engine starts, are more like 10 liters, but don't be discouraged, a whole day in a taxi will be more like 7 than 10. You just have to drive gently, which we will be happy to do.
Is it worth paying extra for a CVT?
Hyundai Elantra has 10.6 seconds to hundreds when equipped with a manual transmission. The automatic only adds 0.1 seconds, but it steals any sense of acceleration. The CVT gearbox pretends to shift gears very deftly, but what it does best is the feeling of delay. This is not a car for a driver who runs on highways in the left lane every day, he would cry there with this box. For this dignified gliding around the city with a prudent treatment of the gas pedal, it is very ok. Despite the murder of dynamics, I still think that it is worth paying extra for the CVT, just as it is worth paying for the entire Elantra.
New Hyundai Elantra – price
The cheapest new Elantra costs PLN 81,900, the highest Executive version is PLN 120,400 and this is a good price. If you think the price is too high, configure the new Skoda Fabia with similar equipment.
Driving the new Elantra in the city is a comfort for the driver and passengers. The car is very comfortable and will satisfy lovers of dignified movement. Just like the 1.6 engine with a power of 123 HP (there is no other one) it will please lovers of LPG installations, and this is probably the same group of supporters.
I'd be a really happy taxi driver to drive an Elantra around town and a very unhappy sales rep with a left lane complex. The new Elantra Passat will not be wiped out of the market, it's not that size and motorway capabilities yet, but the hybrid Ioniq, as a smaller car and unfriendly to LPG, it probably already has its suitcases packed. If this is what a great saloon comeback is supposed to look like, then I'm begging for more.
