One Week With: 2017 Hyundai Elantra Limited Ultimate
Hitting way beyond its coverage
Long gone are the days when buying a compact sedan meant forgoing the creature comforts of larger, more expensive cars. Every time an entry in the class is redesigned, it brings with it greater and greater aspirations; the sedans are now so fiercely competitive that automakers strain to put their latest and greatest technologies into their most affordable cars. As a result, cars such as the all-new 2017 Hyundai Elantra boast a level of quality, refinement, and features that easily put to rest the notion that an affordable car needs to represent any sort of compromise.
As soon as you see the2017 Hyundai Elantra, which has grown not only in size but also in character compared to its predecessor, its sharp, taut lines strike you with a more modern look than its predecessor's swoopy curves. Fully loaded with the 17-inch wheels and LED lights of our Limited Ultimate test car, the Elantra looks even more convincingly mature. Our only reservation is that, as with the larger Sonata, the Elantra doesn't have a distinctive style of its own that speaks to the Hyundai brand. Maybe it's that Hyundai is still in the process of defining itself as it poaches more and more design talent from other manufacturers, but the Elantra feels like a compromise between the designs of other cars. We wish Hyundai had taken bolder design risks in the vein of cars such as theHonda CivicandMazda3.
On the road, the 2017 Hyundai Elantra continues to demonstrate how the automaker has improved a lot in a short time. Its 2.0-liter engine is a sweet, smooth mill that does a great job of fading into the background. It's a noticeable change from the engine in the 2016 Elantra we drove a few weeks earlier, which was perfectly peppy but buzzy and rattly. As is the case with most cars in this class, acceleration in the 2017 model isn't neck-breaking, but the Elantra's automatic transmission shifts promptly and smoothly, so we never found ourselves wanting for more oomph in a few days of suburban and highway driving. Fuel economy ratings are 28 mpg city and 37 mpg highway, which is impressive, but the best in the class now crack 40 mpg. The Mazda3, for example, has been rated at 41 mpg highway with its 2.0-liter four-cylinder since its redesign in 2013.
A similar smoothness comes through the chassis, which again is a welcome improvement over the sometimes brittle rides of earlier Elantras. The 2017 model deftly soaks up chatter and bumps from the roadway. Light, quick steering makes urban maneuvers simple, too, though the Elantra isn't quite as natural to steer as our new segment fave, the Civic.
