So I went down to the parents' place out on the bay today and had to take out their new Sonata and see what it could do. On Thanksgiving, nobody on the local roads (they were all out hunting I think) and there are some great curvy roads and very straight roads with the local Sheriff unlikely to be out doing radar, and far too far away from civilization for the stateys :)
Anyhow. This is mom's new car. It is the N/A 4-cylinder and the middle model (not sure of the designation, not badged). Not the "sport edition" or whatever, but not the base stripper either.
Some thoughts, after pushing the car near its limits, lol (keep in mind I drove 3 hours there in my WRX, so that always gets me in a "sporty driving" mood).
Exterior: I like it. It looks much more expensive than it is. In pictures and in person. My only real complaint with her car's look is that it has the 16" wheels (they are, however, aluminum wheels, not steelies/hubcaps). So it doesn't look as slick/sporty as the sports edition one with the 17s in a wider size/more aggressive offset. The materials seem good and there is nothign particularly goofy/odd/unusual about any exterior fittings or trim.
Interior: Better than I expected. It has cloth seats which are pretty comfortable and supportive. The driver's seat is power and has a TON of adjustment range up, down, back, forward, base tilt, back tilt, lumbar, etc. Passenger seat is manual on this one. When driving hard I felt like the seat held me well (6'0, 170lbs). The gauge faces are pretty damn cool. They are recessed tach and speedo, and the gear selected is shown in a raised circular section in the middle of the speedo. Don't recall what was in the middle of the tach. between them is a display with a bunch of options....avg speed, avg mpg, current mpg, clock, and a few other interesting things. Selectable by a button on the steering wheel. Other gauges look good and all are easy to read and VERY expensive-looking in my opinion. Steering wheel is kind of big (but again, I'm used to the WRX) and has full buttons suites for audio, cruise, dash selection, bluetooth, and 1 or 2 other things. All seemed to be in logical positions and easy to reach without taking your hand off the wheel. I coudl go with them being a bit more raised so as to feel them better though. The wheel itself is nice looking with the spokes in good positions. Only complaint is that this model at least doesn't have a leather wrap on the wheel, and it had a "1980s econocar" feel to the texture.
Dash and door panels had "soft touch" materials, though not quite as nice as those on our 4Runner, as well as a brushed metal insert on the doors which looked pretty slick. Other interior materials seemed like good quality and there were zero rattles, even on a few rough gravel roads I took on :)
Storage is EXCELLENT. Glove box is big. There is a center console box between the seats with an upper and lower compartment that are both roomy. 2 cupholders in a good place center. The shifter is compact and is in a good position to easily use while resting your arm on the rest (assuming you're in the manual mode). IN the lower center dash there is a deep recess that can fit all kinds of stuff, has two cigarette/power ports, plus ports for USB, headphone jack, and one other I forget. There is also a nice sized coin tray that is deep enough so they won't fly out (like they do in my wrx).
Inside, there is NO wind noise even at 70+ mph. The only noise is road noise, which is not bad but could be better (though the roads there are kind of loud in any car, not super-smooth). It came with Kumho tires of some sort, just a touring all-season. Like I said, no rattles. The interior feels SOLID.
Now to the driving: Engine/Tranny: It's smooth and surprisingly powerful for a 4-cyl. I believe it's direct-injected and around 200hp, and gets mid-30s mpg highway (mom averages 29.5 in mixed, according to the trip computer). The car is considerably quicker off the line than I expected a car this size with a 4-banger to be. Mom's is a 5-speed automatic and the shifts aren't super-quick, but not too laggy either. If you're WOT accelerating, it doesn't short-shift like alot of automatics do. You can take it all the way to redline before it will shift, at least in the first 3 gears. There's also a manual mode. On the sport, it's via paddle shifters. On this one you notch the gear selector shifter to the left and can go up/down gears by pushing forward and back. It worked pretyt well with no shift delays or anything, even in WOT conditions. Has a nice feel to it too, the knob shape is comfortable to rest your hand on. The engine is pretty quiet but a bit raspy at wide-open.
Brakes: Excellent. The rotors and calipers are pretty beefy and the pedal feel is good. The car stops HARD. I'd say harder than my stock WRX did, for what it's worth.
Suspension: Ride is very good. Not super-cushy but absorbs everything, even on lousy gravel roads. It was almost torturous doing those same roads in the WRX (330# springs/bilsteins) when I left, lol. The car feels settled and no clunkiness over bigger bumps or anything like that. Just a firm comfortable-ness. Now as to to handling....body lean is actually surprisingly little. It really corners pretty flat and handling is predictable. It is crystal-clear that the 16" wheels and so-so tires hold this car back, because one you compensate for those, the car really handles nicely, though understeer is kind of heavy entering a hard 90* corner. I actually did get it to rotate a bit trail-braking (don't tell mom). Body lean, again, is less than I would think it would be. Maybe less than the stock WRX was, if you can believe it. Overall, I feel like it's a nicely-setup car and if wheels/tires were equal, it could easily outhandle my old 2000 Maxima (when stock), I think.
Complaints: - The steering is heavy and numb and I didn't like it much at all. Not responsive, though I'm sure alot of that has to do with the tires. It was fine when you were setup for a corner in advance, but quick moves elicited a sluggish response at any speed. Not sure if it's electric or hydraulic, but either way it's pretty mediocre. Again though, the WRX has a smaller wheel, summer wheels/tires, and steering rack poly bushings....so that may be why th SOnata feels so numb. - I could actully use a bit of engine or exhaust tone. It is super-quiet even at WOT except a kind of whine and rasp. A bit of tone ala-G35 would be a nice addition. In manual mode under moderate throttle, I could hardly hear where the rpms were at all. - Tires....are bleh.
All in all, I was extremely impressed for a ~$25k car. With better steering and tires, I would put it easily on par with 4-cyl Accord/Camry, if not better performance-wise.
Oh also...the upgrade audio/bluetooth/satellite radio/GPS work very well, ahve a great display screen, and good controls. The audio sounds pretty good for a stock system - better than the "upgrade" audio on either my 09 WRX or our 08 4Runner, by a good margin.
Didn't look in the trunk, but they bought it because it had a big trunk, so I'll take the 'rents word for it. In the engine bay, there is a TON of room to get to every part of the engine (the 4cyl doesn't take up much space in a bay that can fit a V6).
Ok, that's about it :)
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