While the Soul is getting a spa treatment we’ve gotten this Hyundai Elantra SE. One thing that really stands out to me about this car is how low to the ground it is. Of course I am comparing it to the Forester and Soul.
I drove the car home from the dealer. I feels a lot like the Soul. The 2.0 seems like a decent motor and this 6 speed autobox is one of the better ones around. In manual mode it’s pretty responsive and you can certainly drop a cog or two when you want to make some more noise or pass a dump truck.
This is a base model but it still has central locking, a/c, cruise, some kind of screen for a radio and a back up cam. My wife will not like this car because it does not have satellite radio.
There’s a button to switch it into sports mode. I’m not sure why you’d want this in your base Elantra but yeah. It makes the steering heavier which is nice but it makes the autobox hold gears forever and drop down at most throttle inputs.
All in all it’s a inoffensive vehicle. I wouldn’t go out of my way to own but if someone gave it to me it’d handle commuting duties fairly well. It did not like blasting down my dirt road and I bet it’d get beached super easily in the snow.