8th Feb 2011, 22:33
After posting comment 18:51, I received a call from a good friend who wants to trade his 2009 Corolla due to concerns about reliability. He wants another small car. He doesn't want another Toyota or a Honda. I'm hesitant to recommend the new Ford Fiesta or Chevy Cruze because this is their first year, and that is when problems most often occur. I suggested he look at the Elantra. Does anyone have experience with Hyundai dealerships refusing to honor the warranty? I hate to recommend a car if the dealerships won't honor the warranty, and I have heard that many people have encountered this issue.
9th Feb 2011, 13:23
Wait, you won't buy anything foreign and yet you won't recommend anything domestic? Hmmmmmm. I would not hesitate to buy any foreign car in its first year of a new design. I have previously and have never had any issues.
Plus, what is foreign and what is domestic these days? GM has marketed many many cars that were actually imports. They still have cars in their lines that are imports like the Chevy Aveo and Buick Regal. Ford and Mazda have cross marketed many of their cars. Chrysler has been owned and still is owned by a foreign company in conjunction with their domestic company. They also cross marketed most of their better cars over the past 25 years with Mitsubishi.
9th Feb 2011, 14:29
Waiting a couple of years to see the reliability of any new car is smart. The Aveo was actually a best seller in its first year. A year later it appeared on a dozen ten worst cars lists. There are many more examples.
9th Feb 2011, 18:46
"Does anyone have experience with Hyundai dealerships refusing to honor the warranty?"
I own a 2007 Hyundai Elantra. I LOVE IT, it's been an excellent car that has given me no serious problems in the 100,000+ miles that I have owned it.
However, around 50,000 miles it required a new front sway bar link. My dealer (who was a pain to deal with during the purchase of the vehicle) refused to fix it under the 10 year 100,000 mile warranty because I "did not use them for vehicle service, and therefore it was assumed that no service was performed." In 50,000 miles I did absolutely no service to the vehicle? Yeah right. My son is a mechanic, so he performed all of the service for me (and he ended up replacing the sway bar link).
I love my car, and would not hesitate to buy another Hyundai based on how my car has been, but their warranty and dealer service would certainly make me think twice.
10th Feb 2011, 08:17
"My dealer (who was a pain to deal with during the purchase of the vehicle) refused to fix it under the 10 year 100,000 mile warranty because I "did not use them for vehicle service, and therefore it was assumed that no service was performed.""
I would have referred this to the main company. What does a sway bar have to do with servicing the vehicle? They were just PO'd because you didn't spend more money at their dealership. Unrelated warranty items should be covered no matter where the vehicle was serviced. You should have gone to a different Hyundai dealer and had the part replaced under warranty. I would never go back to that dealer again. I hope you wrote a nice long detailed letter to Hyundai at least, and CC'd the BBB and the service manager of the dealer. It is worth the time doing that as dealers shouldn't get away with this stuff. It costs them nothing to do warranty work, as it is covered by the factory.
10th Feb 2011, 18:38
Wait, you won't buy anything foreign and yet you won't recommend anything domestic"
Read the comment. I said I don't recommend the FIRST YEAR of any car. I'm actually trying to talk my friend into a Ford Fusion (the highest rated car on Earth), but he does not want such a large car. There are no small domestics that are not first year models. There are not that many really small, inexpensive domestics except the Cruze, Fiesta and soon-to-be released new Focus.
As for Hyundai, they do make great small cars, such as the Accent and Elantra. Unfortunately I constantly hear from Hyundai owners that their dealers refuse to honor the much-touted 10-year warranty. I hate to recommend a car to a good friend if he will not have a warranty that will actually be honored. In our area I hear that Hyundai dealers require that you have all your servicing done at a Hyundai dealer and buy all yours tires, batteries, oil etc. from them or they refuse to honor the warranty. If this is true, I can't in good confidence encourage someone to buy a Hyundai under those circumstances. Domestic car makers have no such policy. I'm not even sure it is legal.
11th Feb 2011, 12:35
"I'm actually trying to talk my friend into a Ford Fusion (the highest rated car on Earth) "
The highest rated car on Earth? By who's rankings... yours? Consumer Reports still ranks Toyota above Ford in overall quality even with their recall mess. J.D. Powers has no better scoring vehicle line then Lexus. So what world ratings system did you get your information from?
11th Feb 2011, 12:39
"Read the comment. I said I don't recommend the FIRST YEAR of any car."
And read my response... I went on to say I have had many imports that were first year cars, and would not hesitate recommending them to anyone as I have never had any issues with them (or any import for that matter). Why would I want to buy cars from companies that can't get it right on the first generation of a new design... or second?
11th Feb 2011, 19:14
Finally, someone else has said it. I've said many times on various reviews that Consumer Reports ranks Toyota and Honda far ahead of Ford and the domestics. Yet all I ever read is J.D. Power ranks Ford way, way, ahead of Toyota, who has plummeted to second last. Also, the Ford Fusion may be a decent car, but it's based on a Mazda platform. And waiting a year or two for any new car introduced is smart.
11th Feb 2011, 20:10
The rankings of 9 popular small crossover SUV's was published today. The top three were the Chevy Equinox, Dodge Journey and Kia Sportage (in that order). The RAV 4 came in DEAD LAST. So much for "getting it right". Toyota hasn't "gotten anything right" since the 80's.
12th Feb 2011, 11:02
Toyota isn't second to last. It actually ranks 21st out of 33 car makers. The Land Rover has the dubious honor of having the world's worst ranking. Ford and GM are rising in both build quality and resale. The current domestics will take a while to overcome the deeply entrenched bias of publications such as Consumer Reports (who publicly admitted that they made a mistake in giving a "recommended" rating to the some Toyota models without actually giving it a proper testing). J. D. Powers uses actual problems encountered by owners of the vehicles to determine its ratings. Ford came in with fewer problems than Honda, and far fewer than Toyota.
5th Feb 2011, 16:22
This car looks fantastic. It looks much better than the Corolla, Sentra, Civic, and Cruze.