Hyundai Elantra 1.6

I purchased an Elantra 1.6si Hatchback new about 18 months ago, when this particular specification was due to be discontinued. As a result the "on the road" price had been reduced from £10,995 to £7,500.

It represented good value at this price as it has Air Conditioning, Electric Windows, a CD Player and 4 x airbags as standard - and with a 5 year/100,000 mile warranty included its not hard to see why I purchased it rather than a 2/3 year old Mondeo/Vectra.

Apart from the tracking being incorrectly adjusted when new there have been absolutely no problems with the car itself, and have now covered around 12,000 miles. The first service proved to be slightly more expensive than expected at £160, I have owned similar sized vehicles and have paid £90-£130 for a first service.

From a performance point of view, the engine is the best feature - whilst the car is actually slightly larger than the mondeo/vectra it does not struggle with the 1.6 engine which pulls well from low revs and gives smooth acceleration up to the red-line, and proves to be fairly quick also -I believe 0-60mph is around 11 seconds. it also gives good in-gear acceleration. Its real weak point is the level of grip when cornering, which is made worse by the lack of feedback through the steering wheel. You do feel yourself being cautious in the wet, as although it may be possible to corner at speed, the lack of feel does not inspire confidence to actually try it!
The steering also becomes lighter as you increase speed, but unfortunately above around 60 mph at begins to get a little too light, and on a high speed motorway journey it can feel as though you are "hanging on"

Inside it is certainly roomy - both myself and my wife are tall, and with the front seats all the way back there is still a reasonable amount of room
for an adult behind. We are also expecting our first child soon, so have had to do battle with baby seats for the first time - it was considerably easier to put into the Elantra than into my wife's Megane, it also helps having the full three point belt in the centre of the back seat.

The build quality represents the price you pay for this type of vehicle. The plastics are of an acceptable quality but over time the rattles have begun to appear and it does not feel as though the interior will last as long as the 100,000 mile warranty!

The boot is large, and with the seats folded down we actually took our old two seater sofa to the dump (once I had cut the top off!)

To conclude I would say the car represents good value for money with reasonable equipment levels, acceptable performance if you can live with the handling and excellent reliability. A word of warning however, the car suffers from very heavy depreciation. I spoke to a dealer recently who took a car in part exchange which was the same specification as mine, and was 18 months old with 7,000 miles on the clock. He will be selling it on his forecourt for £4,995 which means he probably paid less than £4,000 for it - not good news if the customer had paid the full £10,995 when new. This could be a good reason to buy a used one!