For the week between selling my S3 and picking up the GS, I needed a rental car. Budget was kind enough to offer me a free upgrade, so I took temporary possession of a 2019 Hyundai Elantra with about 900 miles on the clock.
It’s basically the same as the previous Elantra, just with updated front and rear fascias. The back looks okay, but the front is pretty hideous to my eye. The old ones looked significantly better.
This little bugger was surprisingly well-equipped. No idea on the trim (maybe SEL?), but it had smallish alloy wheels, was in the grey color pictured above and had a pretty basic interior with plastic steering wheel. However, it came with Android Auto and Apple Carplay in a pretty large screen.
Also included was blind spot monitoring and lane keep assist. The blind spot worked as expected, but the lane keep was a bit finicky. It would only work on really well marked roads and seemed a little overly intrusive, so I just left it off for the most part.
It comes with a 147hp 2.0L four-cylinder according to Hyundai’s website and it’s honestly very gutless. Initial throttle response is really spritely, so you think you’re in for a bit of fun, but after that initial tip in, it’s basically a whole lot of noise and no go. Given all the rain we had, it was pretty easy to switch off the traction control and give it the beans to have a bit of wheelspin on launch.
Gas mileage is really good - think it was rated for 36 on the highway and I saw about that in mixed driving. It wouldn’t be too hard to get it over 40 on the highway, should you want to actually try.
The backseat was a decent size, easily swallowing my kiddo’s rear-facing car seat and the trunk was pretty large, handling a Costco run with aplomb.
I’d imagine you could probably get a similar model for about $15k after discounts/incentives/rebates and at that price it’s not a bad little car for a basic commuter.