Took a trip to Minneapolis area this past weekend to visit family and ended up in a 2020 (!?!?) Hyundai Elantra SEL from Alamo - this was the last body style before Hyundai designers went nuts with the body creasing and the catfish face. I was shocked they still had 2020's in the fleet but this is not the first time with a 2+ year rental since the new car shortage so I guess its going to be a thing, this one had an eye popping 50k miles on it.
Good:
- Well built. Even with 50k hard rental miles on it not a squeak, rattle, odd noise or really anything broken or really even worn out, it still really looked new outside a few exterior scratches and scrapes.
- Great features. Dual zone auto climate, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, all the safety nannies (it would keep itself in the lane but was not self driving), auto headlights. One odd miss was it still had regular old keys with fobs - no keyless access or start.
- Fantastic fuel economy. For the final year of this generation Elantra they put in their version of the CVT (Hyundai calls it IVT) - IIRC the base 2.0 engine with IVT is rated at 33/41 and I could easily see it getting those numbers. Car was indicating 33.8 MPG when I filled up and my hand calculated was 31.8 MPG - this was a mix of probably 50/40/10 (hwy/rural/urban) driving but there was about 45 minutes of idling tossed in that did not help the overall average.
- Decent CVT. This Hyundai CVT works very well and doesn't have any rubberband effect at all that I noticed. The only bad is it was far more responsive (quicker to rev) than Nissan Xtronic boxes so any heavy throttle the engine revved to the moon pretty much immediately, Nissan Xtronic at least kinda delays the rev to the moon so you have a little more time to modulate. Hyundai - it was ¾ throttle to hop on freeway and bam you shoot from 2k to 5k RPM before you can lift a little off the pedal.
Bad:
- Oh that 2.0 Nu engine. Good power and great fuel economy but dang is it noisy and does not sound very refined. I may have some revisionist history but I don't recall the Elantra's competitors sounding that loud and unrefined.
- Questionable engine reliability. Not going to lie the Hyundai/Kia ongoing engine failure saga crossed my mind a couple times as we were driving in more remote areas.
Overall:
- I would grab it as a rental again - next time maybe I'll get the new body style. The ?? on Hyundai/Kia powertrains stops me dead in my tracks from ever consider one to park in my driveway.
Good:
- Well built. Even with 50k hard rental miles on it not a squeak, rattle, odd noise or really anything broken or really even worn out, it still really looked new outside a few exterior scratches and scrapes.
- Great features. Dual zone auto climate, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, all the safety nannies (it would keep itself in the lane but was not self driving), auto headlights. One odd miss was it still had regular old keys with fobs - no keyless access or start.
- Fantastic fuel economy. For the final year of this generation Elantra they put in their version of the CVT (Hyundai calls it IVT) - IIRC the base 2.0 engine with IVT is rated at 33/41 and I could easily see it getting those numbers. Car was indicating 33.8 MPG when I filled up and my hand calculated was 31.8 MPG - this was a mix of probably 50/40/10 (hwy/rural/urban) driving but there was about 45 minutes of idling tossed in that did not help the overall average.
- Decent CVT. This Hyundai CVT works very well and doesn't have any rubberband effect at all that I noticed. The only bad is it was far more responsive (quicker to rev) than Nissan Xtronic boxes so any heavy throttle the engine revved to the moon pretty much immediately, Nissan Xtronic at least kinda delays the rev to the moon so you have a little more time to modulate. Hyundai - it was ¾ throttle to hop on freeway and bam you shoot from 2k to 5k RPM before you can lift a little off the pedal.
Bad:
- Oh that 2.0 Nu engine. Good power and great fuel economy but dang is it noisy and does not sound very refined. I may have some revisionist history but I don't recall the Elantra's competitors sounding that loud and unrefined.
- Questionable engine reliability. Not going to lie the Hyundai/Kia ongoing engine failure saga crossed my mind a couple times as we were driving in more remote areas.
Overall:
- I would grab it as a rental again - next time maybe I'll get the new body style. The ?? on Hyundai/Kia powertrains stops me dead in my tracks from ever consider one to park in my driveway.
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