2009 Hyundai Accent Review

2009 Hyundai Accent Review Hi, I’m David Thomas of Cars.com. What we have here is a 2009 Hyundai Accent. Now, the 2010’s are just in dealer’s lots now, you’re making a good deal in this 2009. And guess what, there’s only a few differences between the two. We’re going to walk you through what those are, and what makes this a good buy. The 2009 actually has very good gas mileage. It’s 27 miles per gallon city, 33 miles per gallon highway. It’s identical to what the Honda Fit gets. For our 2010, without many changes under the hood, it’s going to get 28 miles per gallon city and 36 miles per gallon highway so big improvement. It’s right up there at the Toyota yards and that’s a big deal for Honda. A lot of people think economy cars and they think lousy ride in handling. The Accent actually is quite comfortable on the road in terms of road feel. It’s not too bumpy, it’s not too tight. So, if you’re driving something like a Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris, you feel a lot more bumps than you do in this car which is really nice. One thing that isn’t so nice is the manual shifter. And if you want to save a thousand dollars, you are going to go with the manual but it’s really clunky. And when I say clunky, it has a literal clunk in the middle of the shift patterns. So, when you go from one gear to the other, you'll feel noticeable clunk in between. It’s really disconcerting and you can’t really shift fast enough anyway in this car to get rid of it. I might want to go with the automatic even though it’s a thousand dollars. A test on most economy cars out there and I’ve got to say the Hyundai Accent’s interior is close to the bottom of the barrel. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It’s just not as nice as some newer models that are out there. Some things are especially flimsy like there’s little holder here. You don’t see plastic like this on any car anymore. Same with this eyeglass holder, it’s so flimsy. It doesn’t close all the time. You have to really kind of shove it shut. The other thing I found really disappointing are the seats. I have a commute that’s about 40 miles a day and by the end of that commute, your back is actually hurting. So, definitely you get a long test drive and make sure they’re comfortable for you. The car rear is actually pretty large and almost 16 cubic feet so it’s bigger than Toyota Yaris, well not being quite as big as a Honda Fit, Nissan Verson and some others. But you can tell here, it’s pretty deep but it’s not too wide. So, you can’t fit a full golf bag across that has kind of be propped up. But if you fold the seats down and they fold pretty easily, you can fit one or two golf bags that way. I went shopping all weekend in this thing filled up with tons of groceries and other cargo and it did a great job. If you’re looking for an economical ride, a Hyundai Accent is one of the few that still comes up with roll up windows and no stereo. And for 2009, a car like that cost under $10,000.00. However, our tester here with power windows and a CD player and that’s about all the options it had is over $15,000.00. The competition like the Honda Fit comes standard with more features and about the same price if not a little less. So, do your shopping, do your research because the Accent might not be as economical as you think. For more car-related news, go to cars.com or our blog, kickingtires.net.