Hyundai's New Hatch; European Style with Practical Value.
I've owned my 2018 Hyundai Elantra GT for about a year as of this review posted. Overall, I am pleased with this vehicle and what it has to offer; I love the European design of this car, very sleek and stylish that you don't find in most compact ecomony cars. The powertrain under my car is the 2.0L engine putting out 161hp, 150lb-ft torque paired with the six-speed automatic. Although the acceleration is more than adequate to merge out into highway traffic, I find the braking performance of this vehicle to be on the softer side. Hopefully this feeble braking concern is on my vehicle only, but I have addressed the concern to my local dealer.
There is plenty cargo storage for family functions and other loading opportunity. Both the driver and front passenger will have ample legroom but rear passengers unfortunately suffer legroom space unless there is a compromise of moving the front seats forward to meet rear passenger's legroom demand. I have the fully-loaded base model GT that comes with the 8" touchscreeen w/ Blue LInk communications including Navigation but all models come with Android Auto/Apple Carplay. I also have the Qi-Wireless charger, seven speaker Infinity audio system with Subwoofer, dual-zone climate, heated/ventilated seats, panoramic sunroof, and auto-dimming rear visor. Safe to say, I would highly recommend you get the Tech package with your base model. You'll thank yourself for that investment.
There are a few minor gripes I must address about the GT. Besides from the few items I've mentioned earlier, this car sits on a low stance so getting in and out of the vehicle requires some careful movement. I'm about 6' tall and I have to carefully adjust my body in and out the car or I'll hit my head. Another minor gripe is the interior's hard plastic. It's virtually everywhere and coming from an luxury brand to this car I will have to adjust. To be fair, I understand that brings down the cost of this vehicle and plastic is very easy to clean and cheap to replace so again, a minor gripe. Lastly and for some weird reason, you cannot fully raise the windshield wiper arms. I spoke with a Hyundai service tech and he informed me that was a recent design language Hyundai did for the 2016 and above models. I find that to be quite annoying because where I live it does sleet and snow during the winter months so you can see where I'm going with this.
Otherwise, to conclude It's a solid car and I'm happy to use it as my daily driver. It's practical, fun, inexpensive, and reliable. I would highly recommend that you go to your local Hyundai dealer and give this a test drive. If you love it like I do, get the keys and own it today!
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Verified Owner
