Thursday 3 August 2006

Hyundai - Korean for "really dodgy crap"

I recently hired a Hyundai Elantra for a week. I got this model because it was cheap and it had four doors - important when you need to deal with horrible things like baby seats. I didn't want to have to climb into the backseat of a 3 door hatch via the front door in order to stuff a monkey into his banana seat.

It was cheap to hire, I'll give it that. It was also a cheap hunk of tin. Yes, it all fitted together nicely and nothing fell off and it didn't squeak and it had air-con and it accelarated reasonably well, but it was a tin can nonetheless. Pressing on the brake pedal was like treading on a very big sponge cake. I am glad I did not have to use the brakes in anger - I think the bloody awful can would have slewed all over the road like a cut snake. It just had a feeling of being, well, the sort of car I'd design if given control of a car design studio. I know naff- all about car engineering and design and suspension dynamics and all that - and that is how the car felt. It was the kind of car that 15 year old boys build. Wonky.

The freaky thing about it was when we refueled. It has a 2.0 litre motor, and we spent most of our driving out on the open road at 100 - 110km/h. It's fuel economy was not much better than my 4WD. The first refill was 38 litres after 360 km - 10.5 litres per 100 km. That is almost exactly the same that I get out of my lumpen-truck. I thought that this little two-bit scooter would have been quite economical, but it was a Green fraud. Small cars are not necessarily any better than big ones. And it's not like I was hooning around or anything.

Sheesh. Glad I don't own one.

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