Faults:

Not much has gone wrong with it.

Opening the trunk is a bit weird to figure out; something like keep the car locked, then use the key, while turning the key to the passenger side, open using the handle?? Strange, one time I swore the trunk was jammed or broken shut, as I tried nearly every possible variable to get it to open.

That and the electricals, especially the windshield wipers. When using the intermittent/slow setting, they literally stop midway thru the wipe?! So on misty or light rain, it's either turn the wipers on a faster setting (which annoys me), or turn the on & off on your own.

Little things. Turn the key & it goes though, which is what I was looking for.

General Comments:

I like this car A LOT. It's quite small, but great on gas, & for city parking.

I rarely need people in the back seat; if you do, aside from little kids, this car may not be for you.

Seems very reliable so far. Things other people post (oxygen sensors, timing belts etc) happen on any car. One note, be aware the timing belt does need to be changed at 60,000 miles on this car. Be advised if you buy one, to ask if it was changed yet; if not, factor that into your price. Not really all that big a deal.

Luckily the one I purchased (used) has great snow tires on it. The car handles really well in the snow, for what it is. Although it's really small, and really light, so strong winds can literally feel like the car is about to blow away, so it may not be a great storm car.

Trunk space is small but adequate, and the back seats fold down pretty easily 60/40.

All in all though, I like this car a lot; small, slow but sporty. Not too comfortable for long trips, but it'll get you there OK. The radio I have has a cool EQ feature of 5 presets (Jazz, Classic, Rock), so rather than messing with treble & bass on your own, usually one of those settings work best for different stations or CDs.

Faults:

At least two oxygen sensors went bad, each requiring a trip to the dealer's waiting room. Good times! Not a huge deal though.

The handle you pull up when you wanted the back seat to go down broke off, even though it wasn't jerked on or anything, along with some internal mechanism inside the back seat. Plastic, could be any brand of car. Covered under warranty.

Possibly not the fault of Hyundai or the dealership, but the passenger rear tire was flat a day after driving this car home after buying. Was just sitting in the driveway, hadn't driven anywhere yet. They actually did agree to replace it, so was happy about that, but the new replacement tire didn't match the other three (different brand). Guess to most others this doesn't matter, but it did to me, at least inside my head :)

When stopped, once you stepped on the gas again to pull into the street, every once in a while the car would sort of stall, and only move very slowly. Didn't matter if you were flooring it or what, it wasn't going to go any faster than 10 miles per hour. Then, after less than a minute, it was back to normal. Slightly worrisome since sometimes you need to pull out quickly when it's a busy street. I never reported this to the dealer, but should have. This only happened three or four times, but didn't want to go through the hassle of "we couldn't reproduce the problem..."

General Comments:

This was a nice looking car, sort of cute in the way a VW Bug is cute. Also, Hyundai, at least in 2007, had a very good warranty. We bought ours new in late 2007 for a discounted price since it had 240+ miles on it already -- we assumed the dealership used it to run errands, but aren't sure. From memory, I think we ended up paying $14,250 for this car, which was a good price. This was the top of the line SE model, with many bells and whistles. Sticker price was 17+.

Even though this was the Accent SE, there was NO cruise control, which we found very strange. Who even makes a car these days that doesn't have cruise control, at least as an option? Yet on the Accent cruise control could not be had for any amount of money. Simply not available. In 1974 my parents bought a brand new four-door Ford Gran Torino and got optional cruise control on it (along with an AM-FM radio as opposed to just AM)! And trust me when I say that the Gran Torino, while a decent car in its day, was hardly the top of the line car that Ford put out. Meanwhile, 33 years later...

Other then the occasional stalling issue, this car was easy and fun to drive. Except for the lack of cruise control, the Accent SE was surprisingly well appointed with standard features, and had a very decent stereo too. A bit of a bumpy and tight ride on the SE, but I like it that way myself. The seats were slightly hard, but nothing outrageous, and the AC worked great.

The gas mileage in the SE with automatic was not especially good, given that this was a compact car with a small engine. Around town I got about 24 MPG, and on the highway maybe 27 MPG, 28 on a good day. In a larger car this would be great mileage, but in this tiny car it was definitely below par.

Overall I did like this car. It definitely did have its charms, and was just barely peppy enough to make it fun. We ended up needing a larger car, but would have been happy to keep it too if it was possible.