Cars.com's Joe Wiesenfelder takes a look at the 2009 Hyundai Genesis. It competes with the Lincoln MKS and Toyota Avalon.
Transcript
(upbeat rock music) Hi, I'm Joe Wiesenfelder with cars.com. I just drove a very interesting animal, a Hyundai Genesis luxury car. It comes in V8 and V6 versions. Now the thing that's most interesting about this car is $33,000, $38,000.
I'm sitting inside a 4.6, which is the trim level name named after the V8 engine, which has 4.6 liters. It has 375 horsepower. It's extremely quick, six speed, automatic transmission. Just about the, what you would expect in a luxury car in this class. The materials are very nice. There's real aluminum and the cases where it's not real, it actually looks really high quality. Stuff like the center console has the right sound to it. It's not just the look and feel. It's the sound inside. You'll find a connector for an actual iPod brand iPod and it's standard equipment. The other guys might make you pay more for this. And in addition to this connector, you can plug in a USB flash drive a cheapo piece like that full of hundreds of songs against standard equipment. A lot of the other expected features in a luxury car, cooled seats are available on this particular version. You've got a powered sunshade over the rear window and also an optional navigation system, which is tied into the premium stereo by a company called lexicon that's been doing this stuff for a long time in the home theater field. It has one of these multi-function controller knobs. And though I'm not crazy about that usually, I do like touchscreen. It's a pretty easy to use, and it has stuff like real-time traffic information and stuff like that on the maps. Now, here are the backseat is one of the things that makes it a little bit closer to a full-size luxury car. Even though it's priced to compete with the midsize, I've got lots and lots of leg room. The front seat here is all the way back. In terms of the width of the car, you could put three people back here pretty easily. Now, as you might expect, a large car has a large trunk, which is good. Unfortunately, the backseat does not fold flat. There is a pass through in the center. Unfortunately, this is pretty common among large cars though you can buy a large car with folding back seats. So here's the interesting part. I'm now in a Genesis 3.8, which stands for the 3.8 liter V6 engine. Now it doesn't have quite as many standard features as the 4.6. It has a lot. It still has leather standard, even though it's not the same leather, it's not premium leather. And in this car, there is a leather wrapped dashboard, which is an option on this one, but still the regular 3.8. Very nice. Well-equipped heated seats, not cooled. You get that in the other one, you can get the premium stereo in this one, too. I'm having a hard time finding things that are wrong with it, really. This text here is not real elegant. It's kind of bright. I'm stretching. I'm I'll be honest. Now the V6 engine in my opinion is plenty powerful enough. Now, what do you think of this 17 city 25 highway. Does that seem pretty good? Well, that's actually the V8. This one is 18, 27. You don't get that in a lot of cars, even in this class that costs considerably more and maybe even go slower. Even though there's no Hyundai H on the grill here, this is still a Hyundai. The company thought about having a new brand to sell luxury cars, but there's more to a brand than just putting a name on a car. You've got to have a whole dealer network and all that stuff. It's not exactly an easy thing to do. I got to tell you for what you get for the money here. I don't care if they call this thing an Oldsmobile, a Yugo, I'd still buy it. <v Announcer>For additional information on this car or any other go to cars.com and our blog kicking tires.
