2009 Hyundai Accent vs. 2009 Nissan Versa Comparison

The phone rang at work: "Your mother had an accident this morning, totaled her car," my wife said. "A young girl pulled out of Trader Joe's and T-boned her. The car's a mess. She's definitely going to need another one."

Great! I thought. No, I mean, no, not great that she had an accident -- "She's okay, right?" My wife's lack of panic inferred she was fine. But "great" in the sense that that horrible car of hers had met a premature demise. She bought her wretched, power-steeringless, 2000 Ford Escort ZX2 impulsively, without even a test drive. Or me, a chance to warn her of its terribleness. "Didn't want to bother you," she said with an earnest look.

At her modest fixed income, we'll have to find a cheap replacement. But what? Should it be a very cheap new car or a little bit better used one? It just so happens that the day before this silver-lined event occurred, I had volunteered to write this piece comparing the two cheapest cars in the American market today. Suddenly it's not an abstract exercise.

The two cars in question are the base versions (or maybe they're the bargain-basement versions) of the Nissan Versa (the Sedan 1.6) and Hyundai Accent (the GS three-door). And their chase to the bottom of the barrel actually has been rather funny to watch. The Accent, by bent of its sheer lack of car-there, was the original occupant of this humble throne. Then Nissan, for some jealous reason, took an eraser to its Versa, replacing its standard 122-horsepower, 1.8-liter engine and six-speed manual with a 107-horse, 1.6-liter coupled to a five-speed and scotched just about every feature unnecessary to the most primitive vehicular motion-plummeting its price $1080 below the Accent's. Indignantly, Hyundai dialed the Accent's price $20 under the Versa's, which is where the battle has stalled. Anybody for unpainted?

With MSRPs of $9990 for the Versa and $9970 for the Accent, the pair is commonly touted as the only cars under $10,000. Well, we'd call them the two cars nearest above $10 grand, as with any car, their destination charges are nondelete options. Recomputed, the Nissan is actually $10,685 and the Hyundai, $10,665. And what you get is a phenomenon even Stephen Hawking has deemed impossible: time travel.

While the Versa and Accent provide 2009-vintage vehicle dynamics, their creature comforts recall the primitiveness of yesteryear. This is the automobile in the nude. Reach for the radio-and there isn't one. Hot outside? Roll the window down. Yes, kids, that around-around stick thingy lowers the window, because (as Sam Kinison might've put it) there's no A/C! And either locking or unlocking all the doors from the driver's seat requires sciatica-inducing contortions.

The consequences of driving a car without a radio are particularly strange. At first, you just find yourself thinking a lot. When there's nothing left to think about, you begin to obsess about the antics of the drivers around you. Let me tell you, today's road rage is nothing compared with the asphalt apocalypse it would be without mind-sedating NPR in your ear. Eventually you start to whistle quite a bit, and finally, pathetically, rolling the window down at stoplights to steal fleeting sounds from other cars' radios. I ask you, is $10,000 worth this? Sure, most Versa or Accent buyers will make beelines for Best Buy's car audio department, but tacking on A/C, power windows, etc. as options really defeats this whole exercise.

With an exception. Run your finger down the numbers column from the track testing. Versa's 0-to-60 time: 8.9 seconds; lateral acceleration: 0.76 g; stopping distance from 60 mph: 138 feet. The Accent's corresponding numbers are 8.7 seconds, 0.74 g...and 164 feet? Our test Versa was as close to the base version as Nissan's PR department could provide, one irregularity being that this one was fitted with the $250 ABS and EBD option. Now look at that discrepancy in stopping distances again. What kind of blind logic provides eight airbags, yet for another 250 bucks, takes 164 feet to stop?

On the road, the 110-horsepower Accent is the nimbler and more puppy-dog-fun choice, but unfortunately it's accompanied by the NVH subtlety of a lawn tractor. The Versa is a silent and silky limousine by comparison, but unfortunately it proceeds to twist the dial much too far the other way, descending so deeply into the belly of dullness that getting a radio installed -- pronto -- is critically urgent. The Accent and Versa are angling for two different audiences as well, the two-door Hyundai playing the role of the handily cheap student wheels, the four-door Nissan being the practical choice if there's a tyke to extract from a kid's seat or Aunt Marge to pick up from the Greyhound station. If it's a choice between noisy-and-nimble and boring-but-bearable, we'll take bearable.

Our photo shoot commenced, appropriately enough, at a clean and bright CarMax store in Buena Park, California. And to add a degree of suspense (!), we surrounded the Accent and Versa with four similarly priced used offerings plucked from the preowned emporium's rows of metal. These were meant to be the backdrop. But as the shoot progressed, the question they silently represented became an upstager: Are you maybe better off with a used car? To probe this further, we invited some experts on the issue, James Bell and Eric Anderson of our sister enterprise IntelliChoice, to run some numbers for us. Of the four, the closest price fit turned out to be a handsome little 2007 Ford Focus ZX4 S, which-switching from its CarMax price particulars to IntelliChoice's database to facilitate comparison-could be yours for a mere $9738 (its "Target Price" in IntelliChoice lingo). With 14,000 miles on the clock, it had already lost $2321 due to depreciation.

IntelliChoice's projected five-year cost of ownership for our used Focus versus the shiny new ones, breaks down like this: Assuming you'll put 70,000 miles on them, the Focus will depreciate an additional $5172 compared with the Accent's $3925 and the Versa's $3448. Its maintenance and repair total will be a little higher ($2491 versus $1797 and $1953), as will be its presumed fuel bill ($9185 versus $8697 and $8707). The tables turn when it comes to insurance, though, the Ford nicking you for $4604, a lot less than the Hyundai's $6682 and Nissan's $5813. Adding everything together, the used Focus's cost of ownership will be $23,278 -- whisper -- close to the Hyundai's $23,038 and Nissan's $21,870. Nearly a wash. Except that you're getting a car replete with features most people deem vitally necessary these days. All of us kept circling the Ford muttering versions of "You know, I think I'd rather have this one."

The sticking point is the warranty. A warranty's transferability to a second owner depends on the manufacturer, and in our CarMax Focus's case, what remains of the Ford's original warranty happens to be fully transferable. In other instances its transferability might be reduced (Hyundai and Kia's famous 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty contracts to the basic warranty's 5 years/60,000 miles for the second owner). And in some cases, there's no transferability at all. Which way to go in buying a used car comes down to your nerve at the roulette wheel. In descending order, the safest bet is factory-certified (the car's been professionally inspected, certified, and bestowed an extended warranty). Next comes certified-used via one of the big operations (such as CarMax, where you can purchase their own extended warranty), followed by the same without the added warranty, and trailed by good, old Honest Joe's down the street. Basically, the Versa and Accent are for people too fearful of used cars.

And what about used rental cars? Well, depending on whom you ask, they're either a smart insider's move, being meticulously maintained and "usually" carefully driven, or cars that have had 200 different butts in them, not all of which topped with carefully wired brains. It's a dice roll.

Which, for Mom's car problem (you remember Mom, right?), we chose to roll. As it happened, that offending driver's insurance company provided her a Kia Spectra rental, to which she took an inexplicable liking (are we really related?). This, in turn, led to a friendly Kevin Thompson, manager of a modest Thrifty car rental operation in Rosemead, whose nice little 2006 edition with 22,000 miles on the clock is now shuttling happy octogenarians to a local Norm's restaurant every Saturday afternoon. They're listening to its radio and CD player, raising and lowering its windows with switches, being cooled by A/C; and should some dolt pull out of Trader Joe's again without looking, there are a few more NHTSA stars to at least give them a fighting chance. All for fully $2500 less than the Versa and Accent.

1ST PLACENISSAN VERSA SEDAN 1.6Quiet, comfort, and a pair of doors to access a useable back seat give it four checkmarks more than the Hyundai Accent.

2ND PLACEHYUNDAI ACCENT GSIs a bit more fun to drive, but loud and coarse. In other words, perfect for students who like loud music (via an aftermarket radio).