The IT Nerd

The 2018 Hyundai Accent GLS is supposedly a sub-compact car. But apparently nobody told the people at Hyundai who designed this vehicle that as they dropped in the engine that you see above into it. This is a 1.6L direct injected four cylinder engine which serves up 130 HP and 119 pound feet of torque. You can get it with a six speed manual, or in my case a relatively smooth shifting automatic transmission (that can be shifted manually, but I would not bother doing so) to deliver power to the front wheels. And it works insanely well to get this car up to speed quickly, as well as giving you the punch that you need to pass transport trucks and slower drivers on the highway with ease. In short, there’s more than enough torque off the line and through the rev range all the way up to roughly 4200 RPM. That was a surprise to me as many cars in this class force you to modify your driving style by hugging the right lane because you can’t quickly get up to highway speed, or not passing the car that is holding you up because the power isn’t in the engine to pull that maneuver off safely. That’s not the case here.

Now add to that that the Accent chassis is full of Hyundai’s in house high strength steel. It makes this car not only incredibly responsive and even bordering on sporty from a handling perspective, but it also feels incredibly solid when rolling down the road. But I will note that some may find it to be too jarring over really rough roads as is the case here in Toronto. Thus make sure your test drive includes some rough roads. But having said that, these are traits that I usually don’t associate with sub-compact vehicles as they usually feel like flexible pieces of tin.

The ride is generally quiet with the only noises that I noted being a touch of wind noise at highway speeds that wasn’t objectionable, as well as tire noise that were likely coming off the Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires that were on my test vehicle. Something that I was grateful for seeing as it snowed during the early part of the week that I had the Accent. If you test drive it with all seasons, I suspect that you’ll have no complaints. Road feel is surprisingly good for a sub-compact car as I was able to easily figure out what the car was doing underneath me. Pedal feel is good as well with the throttle being easy to modulate and the brake being firm by equally as easy to modulate. Steering is light at low speeds, but heavier at high speeds which I did like. And if you want to have some fun, there’s a button that enables sport mode which amps up the steering feel to being a touch heavier, and the shifting of the transmission to make it a bit more aggressive and hanging on to gears longer.

In terms of fuel economy, I am getting 8L per 100 KM’s which is pretty good given I’ve been doing a mix of city, and highway driving which includes driving in rush hour. I expect that to improve as the week goes on.

Tomorrow, I will look at the interior of the Hyundai Accent GLS which from my perspective is above what you would expect from a compact car. Tune in tomorrow to see why I feel that way.