Overview & Reviews

A relative newcomer to the American marketplace, Hyundai is a Korean automaker with a product line that has improved greatly over the past decade. Hyundai cars and SUVs provide a high level of content for an affordable price, and are currently backed by one of the industry's longest warranties.

In 1947, Chung Ju Yung founded the Hyundai Civil Engineering Company. Mere months later, the outfit was bombed in the Korean War. However, the company regained its footing to distinguish itself as one of Korea's leading construction enterprises during the 1950s.

By the late 1960s, Chung had turned his attention to the automobile industry. The Korean government at that time believed that it made more sense to import vehicles than produce them domestically, and had made its opinion known. Still, Chung opted to follow his own convictions, and in 1967, he founded the Hyundai Motor Company.

The company quickly established an alliance with one of the industry's oldest automakers, signing a two-year contract with Ford in 1968 to share assembly technology. Hyundai's first car, the Cortina, was created from that partnership. The manufacturer's first car to be designed and built in Korea was the compact Pony (although the car was based on Japanese technology courtesy of Mitsubishi). The vehicle made its debut in 1974, and the following year Hyundai began exporting it to overseas markets.

Hyundai entered the U.S. market in 1986 with the introduction of its subcompact Excel. The car was an immediate hit, with its supreme affordability being a primary selling point. More than 100,000 Excels were sold stateside in the first seven months. By 1988, Hyundai had begun to produce cars using its own technology. The midsize Sonata was the first fruit borne of this endeavor.

Unfortunately, Hyundai's nascent image was soon tarnished by the poor durability and reliability of its vehicles. Sales tanked. However, rather than abandon the American market in the '90s, Hyundai chose to invest heavily in new product designs and improvements in overall quality and reliability. In 1998, Hyundai also purchased Kia, another Korean automaker, to expand its business and economies of scale.

It all started to pay off by the start of the new millennium, with the 2001 Elantra in particular showing massive improvements in overall quality, reliability and performance. Other models followed suit and the desirability of Hyundai cars increased sharply. Providing an extraordinarily long warranty period didn't hurt either.

Today's lineup is indicative of Hyundai's complete turnaround. Hyundai has a vehicle for nearly every segment, including the economical Accent subcompact, the popular Elantra compact, the midsize Sonata sedan (also available as a hybrid), sporty Genesis and Veloster coupes and a couple of stylish SUVs. Hyundai has also expanded into the entry-level and premium-level luxury sedan markets with its Genesis and Equus sedans. Having gone from being the butt of late-night TV jokes in the 1980s to a well-respected manufacturer of quality vehicles, Hyundai has created a very inspiring rags-to-riches story.

User Reviews:

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  Unsafe - 2001 Hyundai Elantra
  By larryd - March 29 - 9:03 pm

  My 2001 Elantra required repairs that should not have been required in a vehicle this Young. Several items are severe safety hazards and Hyundai refused to acknowledge that it was a problem. Serious issues included a rusted out lower control arm which sent the vehicle to the other side of the road as the front wheel went slamming back into the wheel well. Also a melted door harness which Hyundai had a tsb stating it was improperly sealed. In spite of that fact, Hyundai refused to fix mine because the mileage exceeded 100k. Other uncommon repairs were required and are too numerous to list

• 

  A comfortable lemon. - 2001 Hyundai XG300
  By Thad - March 23 - 10:06 am

  I like driving the car. Its comfortable, big, once I put some firmer shocks on, it handles respectably. It fits my family and the interior quality seems nice. Other than that, I have nothing good to say about this car. In the 8 months I have owned it I have replaced an alternator, all four shocks, a master airflow sensor. For a car that has 70k miles, this thing is falling apart. I would just consider this a fluke but other owners are reporting the same problems. The shudder going in and out of 4th gear (when gradually accelerating), the alternator, check engine lights. Every replacement part on this car is extremely expensive.

• 

  Junk! - 2003 Hyundai Tiburon
  By jamiedsmith - March 16 - 4:11 am

  My Tiburon was a 2003 GT (2.7L V6) with the 6 speed manual transmission. The dual mass flywheel is a major design flaw that Hyundai refuses to acknowledge. I drove my car for four years and 40K miles and replaced the clutch and flywheel twice. Hyundai would not warranty because they consider this repair to be related to abuse. Ive driven cars with manual transmissions my whole life without ever having a problem! Im currently a part of the class action lawsuit against Hyundai for this issue. The plastic levers that let the seats fold forward were also constantly breaking. The lock actuators, outside and inside door handles, and window motors had to be replaced as well.

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  Good looking and fun, with many build quality issues - 2012 Hyundai Genesis Coupe
  By beamers - March 16 - 3:26 am

  I own a v6 GT (25k miles), and opted to go that route after driving the incredibly rigid track edition. The GT suspension is still quite stiff, but bearable. I like driving the car, its fast, responsive, and sounds good. Its also quite a good looking car, but interior build quality has left a bad taste. Ive had issues with my sun roof already, my drivers seat track had to be replaced, steering wheel leather peeled off, and the electronic brake switch has died 3 times ( which kills the push button start ) the dashboard has quite a few rattles, and the rear speaker rattles quite alot. After all that im still left with interior issues Ive had to fix on my own.

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  Not bad, but could be better - 2002 Hyundai Accent
  By Stephanie - March 15 - 2:49 pm

  Bought car BRAND NEW in Oct 2001. At 99k miles had to have transmission re- built ($2500) Not covered under warranty due to loss of transmission maintenance papers (apartment flooded). Only other problems were, window actuator broke and window would get stuck down & at about 2 years old the spark plug wires melted and caused the car to slip and had to have towed to dealer to have fixed. Multiple trips to dealer due to check engine light on for no reason and had an A Pillar recall(had fixed). Car could be better, since transmission started going and still even after being re- built it shifts hard between 2nd & 3rd. Had to have dash panel background replaced, was disintegrating.107,500 miles now

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  Had enough of it - 2006 Hyundai Azera
  By azera - March 14 - 3:41 pm

  Like other reviewers have said, all I ever hear from the service dept. is "that is normal". The transmission in this car is terrible. It never knows what gear to be in. It has slipped on many occasions especially after getting off a highway onto city streets. The service dept. even told me that if my wife drives different than me than the car will not learn how to shift properly!! Who would make a car like that? My wife will not even drive it any more, she hates the transmission that much. Too bad because most everything else is good. Getting rid of it soon.

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  Drive it like you would on your test drive! - 2016 Hyundai TUCSON
  By Rusty_Blades - March 9 - 5:27 am

  On your test drive do all the things you would during your normal driving... punch it, test all the modes, parallel park it. I wish i would have done that as it has some strange things that it will do on its own.... from a dead stop the rpms will drop when you are on the brake and when you let off alittle bit the rpms will jump and the car will lurch forward on its own making it very hard to park in a tight spot....i have a small garage and have to inch in and it always almost hits my other car in front....i hope this is a fixable issue as it very annoying....has alot of turbo lag and seems confused as how to shift off the line or when you need to overtake someone on the freeway.....seems like i have to drive around the quarks that it has and so far have not be able to get used to them because it is so random....maybe its just the one i have but after reading the other reviews it seems that alot of other people are experiencing the same issues....other than that its a sexy style and has alot of potential....hopefully for me this will be fixable with Hyundai....because accelerating on its own is not safe!!....will update if it is fixable or not..... UPDATE... well after seeing the dealer and doing the Ecu update and talking to the tech....this is just the nature of the dual clutch transmission....think of it as if you were driving a stick and had to use a clutch...it does this automatically from a dead stop to a slow roll and will cause it to have a pause during a hard acceleration .....WISH they would have told me this during my test drive!!...which is hard to tell during normal driving until you have to park or coast really slow.....so we are going to have to just deal with it....ill be surely getting rid of this tucson as quickly as a option comes my way....good luck everybody....

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  SAME AS OTHERS COMPLAINTS - - 2016 Hyundai TUCSON
  By JNemo - March 6 - 12:27 am

  Unsafe Acceleration and transmission issues - My wife and I love the new redesign and amenities in this car however the DCT transmission is new for the Tucson. I am hopeful that a software recall is coming soon which would resolve these issues. My wife had a major scare with our 2 year old in the car when she tried to accelerate from a stop to make a turn at a busy intersection only to find the car would not even move. She got it in gear by switching it to manual and was able to go. If Hyundai does not resolve this soon, this could become a class action lawsuit especially if there are any fatalities because of these issues. I already contacted the Motor Company with my concerns but have not heard back as of yet. Update as of 1/30/16: The Motor Company has made contact and a rep along with a field engineer will meet us at the dealer on Monday 2/1. Update as of 3/5/16 The Motor Company has changed out the TCU (Transmission Control Unit). We are still having the same issues. The car has been with the dealer for 5 weeks now. The latest update is that they are putting in a new transmission. We had this car for 5 months now. Out of the 5 months, the car has been at the dealer for 7 weeks. We have been in a loaner car since.

• 

  Disappointed - 2007 Hyundai Entourage
  By mark b - March 2 - 4:07 pm

  After much research and test drives we chose the Entourage because of its comfort, long list of features but most of all, the safety rating for our 3 children. After only a short time we began having problems with front end knocking and vibrating. The brakes wobble, the rear end squeaks and the check enging light frequently comes on as does the air bag light. Ive lost count of the amount of times the van has been in the shop but the condition of the van is the same and getting worse. Its obvious now why there is 100k warranty. You definitely need it with this very undependable vehicle. The dealership is useless and the service department is awful.

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  Correct - 1999 Hyundai Sonata
  By Marie Jocelyne Lundi - February 24 - 11:17 am

  The driving of this car has been normal.It has been reliable wherever I wanted to go with.