Cars Release Date

Oh boy, Im behind. The last two weeks have been very busy due to the holidays and I mostly just went to bed for much of the week. I dont think Ill be able to make daily updates with the way things are going, Ill try for weekly instead.


Introduction: The Elantra went for a redesign for the 2007 model year into its fourth generation. The cars primary target once again was the Corolla and Civic. Hyundai attempted to increase the size of the car, but left out the hatchback option in North America until recently with the new 2009 Elantra Touring.

If you remembered my last review of the old Elantra I didnt really like it. I drove this version shortly after that one with low expectations. To start, I didnt like the way it looks.


Performance: The fourth generation Elantra uses Hyundais Beta II engine which was no change from the last generation this engine produces 138 hp and 136 lb.ft of torque. Once again the manual transmission is the best option to go for to get the most of its power being at least 2 seconds quicker than the auto which does 0-100 km/h in about 10 seconds. The changes in performance are basically nil from the last generation. The drone is not as bad this time around due to a marginally better interior.

My Score: 5/10 - Like last time, a decent engine but nothing special.

Handling: I dont know what Hyundai was doing here, while the changes to the handling have been very minimal the steering feel of the Elantra has changed for the worse. Last time the wheel was light but I never got the sense that it was over boosted but rather somewhat numb. This time around the wheel is very light and the feel is completely missing. During the winter the lack of any feel meant this car was very easy to slide without warning. Hyundai wanted to outdo Toyota with the lack of steering feel...too bad for Hyundai, Toyota was able to do much worse.

My Score: 2/10 - Worse than last time, the steering feel is absent this time around


Interior: The last Elantra interior was very generic, that didnt change so much this time around either. The difference however is the materials are a bit better than last time and unlike last time there is a little bit more styling involved as well. The stereo still remained the same bad pre-2009 unit which was rubbish. The interior is bigger this time around however and is more spacious than before. The build quality on this version is better, despite coming from the same factory as before. On a whole this Elantra does have an improvement when it comes to the interior.

My Score: 6/10 - Still generic, but with better materials, better build quality and more space

Styling: No no no no no. This is a very bad attempt at styling, copying an already generic car to further dilute the market with cars that look nearly identical. Its clear that the person styling this Elantra took a Corolla and traced it. They didnt even really bother to make this car look unique.

My Score: 0/10 - There just isnt any styling here and thus a zero, the Elantra Touring is a significantly better example of what this car should have looked like.

Value for money: Once again the Elantra comes very well equipped compared to the likes of the Corolla and Civic. The power is comparable, the space is a smidgen larger and the price is much lower than those two vehicles. This is a generic car and for this sort of money, you couldnt blame someone for buying it.

My Score: 8/10 - Despite me not liking a lot of this car, the amount of value this car has still is impressive for its price.

Overall: 21/50 - The score is worse this time around just for the plain fact that Hyundai did nothing about the styling thinking tracing is a better idea and made the steering feel go away. The better interior just wasnt enough to bump its score to average.

Sometimes you can tell how good or bad a car is just from the way it looks. Heres one that shouldnt be that difficult to guess.


Introduction: This car started out in 2004 and is known in South Korea as the Daewoo Kalos. GM decided it wanted this car and placed a Chevrolet badge for the international market and a Pontiac badge for the American market. For the Canadian market, GM still had control over Suzuki and decided to bring this along and put a Suzuki badge as well while bringing the other two rebadges. This resulted in the Chevrolet Aveo, the Pontaic G3 Wave and the Suzuki Swift+. All three of these cars are practically identical, only the grille had the biggest change aside from the badges. This would be GMs answer to the Toyota Echo, the Hyundai Accent and the Kia Rio.

Now when I first got news that I was going to have to drive this car, I didnt really know what it was. I never knew Suzuki actually had this car as a rebadge or even knew of its existence. I knew about the Aveo, but not the G3 Wave or this. I do remember the old Suzuki Swift that had the 3-cylinder, this seemed nothing like that. Most of these are sold as hatchbacks and this is what this review will focus on.


Performance: The Swift+ featured a 1.6L 4-cylinder engine for the North American market. This engine produced 103 hp and 107 lb.ft of torque making it the lowest hp producing engine since the demise of the Golf Mk IV with its 1.6L. The acceleration this engine can manage for this car is going from 0-100 km/h in 10.8 seconds. Not the worst accelerating car Ive driven. As for the engine its not a very good one, its very noisy and irritating. You can tell Daewoo was new to making cars due to how rough this engine puts out power with the noise and the fact you can feel the vibrations in the interior. The worst thing about this engine however is its not even efficient, the Chevrolet Cobalt with its bigger 2.2L engine manages slightly less fuel economy in the city but beats this Daewoo on the highway. What is GM thinking? What was Suzuki thinking? The old Swift at least was very fuel efficient, this Daewoo is inefficient yet still nowhere near exciting.

My Score: 2/10 - Unrefined, noisy and not fuel efficient...what good is it?

Handling: This is usually where small cars manage to get back some points if they failed on performance. This Daewoo...doesnt really get there sadly. The steering wheel is not as light as it is on a Toyota or Chrysler but crucially it doesnt produce a natural feel to the steering...it feels artificial and doesnt produce confidence when you try and corner for a small thrill. The body roll is very poor and with its very small wheels its less agile than its competitors.

My Score: 3/10 - They tried but failed, puny tires and the articificially inserted feel do not make this car any fun


Interior: This is where you start seeing why Daewoo failed in North America in the first place. Inside its just all black aside from some tin foil plastic which is as always pretty nasty to look at. The cup holder is very flimsy and very cheaply made, the door handles are also made of this flimsy cheap plastic, the seats use budget proportioned cloth and so on. I mentioned in the performance section that the engines vibrations can be felt inside, the steering wheel is often the piece that shakes as the car idles, showing how cheaply designed the engine is and how cheaply trimmed this interior is. Due to how black and unattractive the plastic is...its actually a pretty depressing place to be inside. While Daewoo managed to have interior space for moderate sized passengers they sacrificed the tailgate space. Last thing to mention, Daewoo mostly fit these with no power locks...there is no way for the driver to manual lock their door since the inside lock itself refuses to move and must use the key from outside the car. This may not seem like a problem at all but Ive seen these cars where the key hole actually collapsed and getting inside this car required entering from the passenger side and exiting the same way. I mentioned a key hole failing and this is another problem in this Daewoo because its not built very well. All these cars come shipped from GMs Daewoo factory in South Korea, so if youre not too knowledgeable about cars the salesman might con you into thinking this is American or Japanese.

My Score: 1/10 - Unattractive, very poor quality materials, flawed engineering, poor cargo room and not built very well.

Styling: This is normally where Chrysler regains some points...this Daewoo just doesnt. When you look at this car with its strange side profile, its dinky wheels and its not very attractive front end you can tell this car isnt going to be any good to begin with. With the surprisingly poor fuel economy I looked around to see how much drag it creates...well it produces a drag coefficient of 0.35 which is what luxury Japanese SUVs can manage. So basically you have this weird shape for no good reason.

My Score: 1/10 - Its bad when you can tell just from looking at the car that it will be bad, add for most people this will be a clown car.

Value for money: This is normally where Korean cars start to look good due to being very well equipped and fantastic value for your money. This Daewoo...doesnt, it may have the lowest MSRP of its time but when running costs are added its more expensive than its Korean rivals and clearly more expensive than the Toyota. Its more expensive due to how fuel inefficient it is but also due to the parts being sourced purely from South Korea it takes a long time for them to arrive. Accident damage or an out of stock part puts this car out of commission longer than cars made in Japan or Germany. Its not very well equipped either, unlike the Kia or Hyundai it has nothing as a standard feature. More importantly, its not very safe either it did spectacularly badly during its earlier crash tests, today its just scores just average which for a small car is worrisome.

My Score: 2/10 - Its got a low MSRP, unfortunately its burdened with no standard equipment, expensive running costs due to bad fuel economy, difficult to source parts and worst of all disappointing safety scores.

Overall: 9/50 - Its a very bad car, Im still perplexed at why GM even bothered when they clearly could do much better with a smaller Cobalt. This is part of the reason why GM had to declare bankruptcy, stupid decisions like selling this car outside of its home country.