This, a rental, is the first Hyundai I’ve driven, and although it is the smallest of them I must admit to being pleasantly surprised. The styling, interior materials, and front seat adjustability are all better than I would expect in such an inexpensive car. Best of all, I didn’t feel embarrassed to drive it, unlike the Toyota Echo.

Hyundai Accent Reliability

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Styling and Accommodations

The Accent was restyled for 2000. Like other new Hyundai designs, this one possesses a chiseled quality that lends it the sort of sophistication usually found only in European brands. I personally find this touch of sophistication much more appealing than the overly plain, under-contoured blandness that typifies recent Honda designs and the ill-proportioned, strangely detailed weirdness that typifies recent Toyota designs. The Accent may be a touch slab-sided in the area below the rear side window, but that’s really picking nits.

The interior styling is similarly conservative in a good way. The layout if very functional, although the climate controls could be a bit higher and easier to reach. Touches of color in the durable-feeling seat fabric serve to lighten up the otherwise dark interior. Materials in general manage to avoid looking or feeling cheap, surprising since the same cannot be said about many cars costing two or even three times this much. This isn’t to say they look or feel luxurious. They don’t. They simply are what they are, functional and durable, without pretense. A solid Japanese compact such as a Civic DX comes to mind.

Kudos for the standard tachometer. Sure, it’s of limited use with an automatic, but I still personally like to know what the engine’s up to.

The front seat is a surprisingly nice place to be. It is agreeably firm and fairly supportive. I’m not sure it would prove comfortable on especially long trips, but around town it does well. Totally unexpected are easy-to-use manual adjustments for lumbar support and for seat height. The latter involves two knobs that separately adjust the front and rear of the seat, such that seat tilt is also adjustable. Since visibility is excellent over the low dash even with the seat in its lowest position, this ability to adjust the tilt of the seat is even more valuable than the ability to adjust its height. Take note, VW. If you want to adjust the tilt of the seat in a Jetta, you need to spend the big bucks for the GLX with its standard power seat.

In contrast, the best thing that can be said of the rear seat is that it folds down to expand the trunk capacity. This is a small car, and as a result space is tight in back. At 5’9” I barely fit behind a front seat adjusted for myself, and even then the seat cushion is too low for me to be comfortable. Both head and leg room are in short supply. Some child seats may not fit. Pre-teen children should do fine.

The trunk is decently sized and nicely shaped and, as I’ve already mentioned, can be expanded by folding down one or both rear seat sections. I wouldn’t buy a sedan without this feature—it’s very useful. BMW will charge you $475 for this feature on a 325, but it’s standard here.

On the road

Last year Hyundai upgraded the engine in the Accent sedan to a DOHC 1.6 liter making 105 horsepower. Even when paired with the four-speed automatic, as in the car I drove, acceleration is adequate. I never felt that the Accent had to struggle to keep up with traffic. Though significantly smaller than a 2000 Civic DX, the current Accent, at roughly 2300 lbs., weighs about the same and has an identically-sized engine that makes virtually the same amount of power. Do the math, and you get a car that should generate performance numbers much like those a 2000 Civic DX. Figure on getting to sixty in a bit over ten seconds with the automatic. Given that small Hyundais not too long ago required fourteen or more seconds for this task, this represents a significant improvement.

The transmission’s shifts are not always the smoothest, especially not when downshifting, but easily met my expectations for this class of car. The transmission does include a fourth, overdrive gear, something that until this year could not be said of that in the Dodge Neon. This helps performance, fuel economy, and noise on the highway.

The Accent needs all the help it can get in the last area. By far my largest problem with it was noise. The engine, though fairly powerful, makes a great deal of unrefined noise under acceleration and on the highway. Wind and road noise are also prominent. I suspect the Accent owes its low weight largely to a lack of sound insulation. True, no car in this class is going to resemble a Lexus in this area, but more could be done here. The noise level is the only thing about the Accent that screams “Cheap!”

I didn’t measure fuel economy. The EPA ratings are 25/35. I’d especially expect the city rating to be higher in such a small, light car. In the Accent’s defense, reviews I’ve read suggest it should get about 30 MPG in typical suburban driving.

Handling and ride resemble those of other subcompacts I’ve driven. Don’t push it too hard and the Accent feels quite nimble. The steering may even be too quick. At higher speeds, the quickness of the steering combined with a fair amount of lean to tell me that I didn’t want to push this car too hard. It don’t want to do that. Maybe this perceived instability was designed in to prevent young drivers from asking the car to do unsafe things. After all, with such small tires 175/70-13s) the Accent’s limits are not going to be high in any case. But I’ve driven other small cars that felt considerably more stable and just plain fun when pushed. A Civic does better here. But then a Civic is larger and much more expensive. And most people don’t care to drive as aggressively as I do anyway.

I wish I could say that the Accent’s handling shortcomings were a necessary price to pay for a plush ride, but I can’t. Maybe it’s almost inevitable given the short, 96 inch wheelbase, but the ride is busy on all but very smooth roads. Though I wouldn't quite describe the ride as harsh, few road imperfections are filtered out. A jitter here, a jitter there. Sure, many cars ride worse, but they also tend to handle better. As it is, the ride is acceptable in this class of car, but it’s not a strong point. Much like the amount of noise, the ride quality lets you know that you’re driving a cheap car.

Taking the handling and ride together, I suspect that upgraded shocks and a bit of suspension tuning combined with better tires could go a long way. The aftermarket should offer something here. Given that the ride is only going to be but so good in this size car, go for better handling.

Pricing

For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.

Last Words

The Accent surprises with sophisticated styling, the quality of its interior materials, and driver’s seat adjustability. Unfortunately, the amount of noise and the ride quality give away the true price of this car. If these were better, the Accent would be a no-brainer for anyone shopping this size car, especially given its low price and excellent warranty. (In case you’re the last person in the world who doesn’t know about Hyundai’s warranty, it covers the entire car for five years or 60,000 miles, and the powertrain for 10/100.) More expensive cars such as the Ford Focus and Honda Civic are certainly much better, but they’re also much more expensive. Evaluated against cars costing about the same, I must admit that the Accent is surprisingly good, much better than I expected.

Update: I have knocked a star off the Accent's rating because of concerns raised by an owner in another review. I noted originally that the handling didn't feel stable in aggressive driving. This other reviewer (who gave the Accent one star) felt that the car could be very hard to control in emergency maneuvers--for example, when the steering is jerked to avoid something in the road. My experience also suggests this, so I'm wary of highly recommending a car that could prove unsafe.

To learn more about my reliability research and sign up to participate in it, or to perform thorough, up-to-date new car price comparisons, visit www.truedelta.com. A link to this website and alphabetized links to my other vehicle reviews can be found on my profile page.
Amount Paid (US$): 11000
Model Year: 2002
Model and Options: GL sedan automatic