Cars.com's Dave Thomas takes a look at the 2009 Hyundai Accent.
Transcript
(rock music) <v Announcer>Cars.com auto review. Hi, I'm Dave Thomas, with Cars.com. What we have here is a 2009 Hyundai Accent. Now the 2010s are just sitting in dealers lots now, and you might get a good deal on this 2009.
And guess what, there's only a few differences between the two. We're gonna walk you through what those are and what makes this a good buy. The 2009 actually has very good gas mileage. It's 27 miles-per-gallon city. 33 miles-per-gallon highway, it's identical to what the Honda Fit gets. With the 2010, without many changes under the hood, it's gonna get 28 miles-per-gallon city, and 36 miles-per-gallon highway. So big improvement, it's right up there with the Toyota Yaris, and that's a big deal for Hyundai. A lotta people think economy cars, and they think lousy ride and handling. The Accent actually is quite comfortable on the road in terms of road feel, it's not too bumpy, it's not too tight. So if you're driving something like a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris, you feel a lot more bumps than you do in this car, which is really nice. One thing that isn't so nice is the manual shifter. Now, if you wanna save a thousand dollars, you're gonna go with the manual. But it's really clunky, and when I say clunky, it has a literal clunk in the middle of the shift pattern. So when you go from one gear to the other, you'll feel a noticeable clunk in between. It's really disconcerning, and you can't really shift fast enough anyway in this car to get rid of it. You might wanna go with the automatic, even though it's a thousand dollars. I've tested most economy cars out there, and I gotta say the Hyundai Accent's interior's closer to the bottom of the barrel. It doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, it's just not as nice as some newer models that are out there. Some things that are especially flimsy, like this little holder here, you don't see plastic like this on any car anymore. Same with this eyeglass holder, it's so flimsy, it doesn't close all the time, you have to really kinda shove it shut. The other thing I found really disappointing are the seats. I have a commute that's about 40 miles a day, and by the end of that commute, your back is actually hurting. So definitely get a long test drive, make sure they're comfortable for you. The cargo area is actually pretty large at almost 16 cubic feet. So it's bigger than Toyota Yaris, while not being quite as big as a Honda Fit, Nissan Versa and some others. But as you can tell here, it's pretty deep, but it's not too wide. So you can't fit a full golf bag across, it has to kinda be propped up. But if you fold the seats down, and they fold pretty easily, you can fit one or two golf bags that way. I went shopping all weekend in this thing, filled up with tons of groceries and other cargo, and it did a great job. If you're looking for an economical ride, the Hyundai Accent's one of the few that still comes with roll-up windows and no stereo. And for 2009, a car like that cost under $10,000. However, our tester here with power windows and a CD player, and that's about all the options it had, these were $15,000. The competition like the Honda Fit, comes standard with more features at about the same price, if not a little less. So do your shopping, do your research, 'cause the Accent might not be as economical as you think. (upbeat music) <v Announcer>For more car related news, go to cars.com, or our blog, kickingtires.net.
