Hyundai Accent 2006 Review

OVERVIEW
After the heady days of selling a squillion Excels backed by a benchmark $13,990 starting price point through the mid 1990s, Hyundai's fortunes in the light car class had started to slide by the end of the decade. After nearly six years in the marketplace, the Excel's cheap motoring promise was also starting to show through with quality and durability issues aplenty.

So when Hyundai replaced its light car in 2000 with an all-new model, a new name was in order. The Accent was a vast improvement over the Excel and a bigger car to boot. It now straddled the light and small car classes, but Hyundai was asking for it to be bought on its merits rather than on price. The result was a midrange price point, but with the Excel image still clearly in the car-buying public's mind it never managed to emulate its predecessor’s sales success.

Through the Accent’s first six years, there was also a constant changing of the model lineup starting with three-door and five-door hatches and four-door sedan, then the five-door and sedan were dropped for a year when the smaller three and five-door Getz light car arrived, before the five-door Accent hatch returned in 2004.

Now for 2006, we have a new model Accent with a line-up that simply consists of a three-door hatch and four-door sedan. It’s a one spec, one engine, and two-transmission affair with prices of $15,990 for manual hatch and $17,490 for the sedan.

An automatic transmission adds $2000 and the only other factory option is metallic paint that costs $350. With the two models, Hyundai is hedging its bets trying to appeal to younger buyers with the three-door and older, more conservative buyers with the sedan. In its press briefing marketing blurb, the company outlined a target market for the lineup that could sit anywhere between 18 and 80.

It is also bigger inside and out than the old car. Length in the sedan has stretched by 45mm and both cars sit on a chassis that is 60mm longer in the wheelbase and 35mm wider in the track. Inside there is more space too thanks to an increase in height of 75mm and 15mm width increase.

For luggage storage, the sedan offers a bigger boot able to swallow 390 litres while both models are standard with a 60/40 split rear seat back that folds forward to increase cargo capacity. Along with the new body style, it is also stiffer and gains from a range of NVH reduction measures.

COMFORT
While the extra space inside the Accent is welcome in the comfort stakes, the seats are hard, flat and take some time to settle into. They are reasonably adjustable for tilt/height, fore/aft and backrest although the steering column is a vertical adjust only unit.

A decent ride comfort comes courtesy of the small car standard suspension setup with front MacPherson struts and a torsion beam rear axle.

For the price, the Accent is well endowed with creature comforts with a standard kit list that includes air conditioning, power windows and heated power mirrors, remote central locking and a good quality CD audio system that will also play MP3 and WMA files with steering wheel mounted controls.

SAFETY
With a big market of mums and dads (and mums and dads buying for their kids ) Hyundai has recognised the importance of safety in the buying decision and has recently given it a substantial boost with aids like ABS standard on much of its range.

And Accent is no different with active safety including ABS with electronic brakeforce distribution on four disc brakes where stopping power was previously provided by front discs and rear drums.

The airbag count is limited to two up front, the front seatbelts have pre-tensioners and load limiters, and come September, the car will also gain active head restraints for the front seats.

MECHANICAL
At the heart of the new Accent is an upgraded version of the venerable 1.6-litre Alpha engine that is now equipped with continuously variable valve timing providing a slight boost in maximum outputs. Maximum power is up 4kW on the old 1.6 to 82kW at 6000rpm and torque is increased by 2Nm to 145Nm at 4500rpm.

A lower fifth gear and final drive ratio for the five-speed manual also delivers a slight improvement in fuel economy despite the car having put on about 100kg.

The official fuel consumption figure on the combined cycle ADR 81/01 test for the manual sedan is 6.8lt/100km rising to 7.3lt/100km for the four-speed automatic hatch.

For the record, the hatch is actually 22kg heavier than the sedan.

Based on a price/engine comparison, those that come closest to the Accent hatch are Ford's German-built Fiesta and the Toyota Yaris. If you are after a similar sized hatch with five doors for the same money then the Mazda2, Suzuki Swift and Kia Rio (which shares much of its underpinnings with the Accent) are in the ballpark.

The market for the Accent sedan is likely to have an overwhelming preference for an auto transmission so you are looking at the $20,000 mark before on-road costs. Here the Accent is up against just two cars, the bigger Daewoo-sourced Holden Viva and the sedan version of the smaller Toyota Yaris.

Over what was a very short 80km-odd launch drive out of Auckland in New Zealand, the engine proved to be a willing and reasonably smooth performer offering a decent urge off the line and a good wide spread of torque.

Like most engines in this class, it likes to be revved to keep things on the boil and feels most lively over about 3000rpm. Keeping it there however, is not the easiest with the manual gearshift being quite rubbery and the clutch having a particularly high take-up point.

The auto we sampled offered smooth shifts and was responsive to throttle inputs without being too busy.

Apart from the hard seats making it difficult to get truly comfortable, the ride quality is good with the compliant suspension soaking up the worst of the Kiwi roads with ease. At the same time, the car exhibits reasonable poise in terms of its chassis with a well-controlled body that doesn't roll or pitch too much through corners. It doesn't sit completely flat but still feels reasonably solid on the road.

The biggest let down in the handling stakes, however, are the tyres with the Kumho boots too willing to lose traction resulting in understeer through corners at only slightly above average speeds. The steering too offers little other than the ability to turn the car, being vague and lifeless with a fair degree of play in the wheel on centre and a very slippery leather wrap.

It was a very brief introduction to the car and on first impressions it may better its Korean competition -- the Holden badged Daewoo products and those from sister firm Kia -- but on the road, it still can't match the Japanese or European entrants in the class.