2016 Hyundai Elantra petrol long-term review, first report

    The new executive sedan has an easy-going character that’s best appreciated in the city.

    Published on Jan 03, 2017 10:23:00 AM

    58,080 Views

    The ride too has a nice soft edge to it, which quietly smoothens out Mumbai’s pockmarked roads. It’s a good thing that Hyundai has resisted the temptation to offer look-enhancing larger alloys with low-pro tyres and has instead stuck to 205/60 R16 rubber. The tall sidewalls provide crucial fortification against potholes, sharp edges and deep ruts.

    The Elantra’s cabin too, is a happy place to be in and a cool feature is well, the cooled seats. They work really well and even on the lowest of the three settings, you can feel a waft of chilled air gently caressing your back and thighs. Yes, it sounds a bit decadent, but in peak summer this feature would be a real boon, especially with black leather seats which become as hot as a stove when soaked for hours in the sun.

    The infotainment system too, is pretty comprehensive and works quite intuitively. But the icons to select ‘Home’ and ‘Back’ functions are a bit too small and that means taking my eye off the road to aim a finger at them. The LCD display between the dials has quite a few functions too, but it’s the trip computer that I end up playing with the most. I discovered the average fuel consumption meter is pretty accurate and closely matches the pump figures when tanking up. This leads me to the fuel efficiency of the Elantra, which has proved to be surprisingly frugal both in the city and on the highway. A city figure of 8.1kpl is decent by class standards, but it’s the 12.7kpl achieved with foot-to-the floor driving on the highway that impressed me more.

    Worried about long queues at the toll plazas on NH4, I decided to take the less-travelled NH17 route to Mahabaleshwar, which has no tolls at all. It’s a shorter route as well and the last 40km that snakes up the ghats to the hill station from Poladpur is a delectable mix of hairpins, curves and corners you can straight–line. Trouble is that for most of the year, the road surface on the ghat is patchy in parts, which makes it best suited to a high-riding SUV . However, the poor surfaces didn’t seem to faze the Elantra which skipped over the broken tarmac without much protest.

    The Elantra’s focus on overall comfort is pretty clear, but it’s blunted the overall dynamics of the car, which doesn’t lend itself to charging up a mountain road. The nose-heavy Elantra understeers quite easily and the soft setup makes transitioning from corner to corner a bit sloppy.

    Hyundai Cars

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