All the sedan you need, at a fair price
Be it ever so humble, there’s no car like a small car for squirting through traffic, claiming impossibly tight parking spots and avoiding gas-station pit stops.
The fifth-generation Hyundai Accent delivers these and other benefits, while ensuring your bank account doesn’t suffer from overdrawn-itis.
The Accent has been Hyundai’s answer for modestly priced transportation for many years and the 2018 edition (a hatchback is also available) maintains that tradition. Accents make excellent first-time acquisitions for those starting out on life’s winding highway, as well as for commuters and around-town drivers who can easily do without piloting some overstuffed cruiser or a big and tall wagon.
Add to that the Accent’s robust five-year comprehensive warranty and it becomes a sound alternative to buying some used vehicle of uncertain provenance.
Having said that, the Accent is far from being a tortuous penalty box for adult-sized folk. The car’s surprisingly spacious passenger compartment places it solidly in the compact-car class (as opposed to the subcompact group). In fact, the Accent delivers as much or greater cabin and trunk volume than any similarly sized sedan. Entry and exit for rear-seat riders is comparable to larger cars, owing to a tall roofline and wide doors.
Visually, the new Accent looks so much like the slightly larger Elantra sedan that from not too great a distance you could easily confuse the two.
The Accent is only slightly longer than the 2017 version, while width has increased by close to three centimetres. That’s not a huge change, but every little bit helps.
As with the Kia Rio (also new for 2018, and a Hyundai subset), the Accent uses a new platform that’s less prone to bending and twisting for a more stable and quieter ride. The suspension has been retuned, and Hyundai claims the new variable-ratio steering rack is more precise.
There’s greater refinement, including a smart-looking dashboard and control panel that are both as straightforward as you can get. The base car’s minimalist five-inch display does leave the interior looking a bit barren, but an available seven-inch screen fills things out quite nicely.
The Accent’s 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine puts out 130 horsepower and 119 poundfeet of torque. That’s down somewhat from the previous model’s 138/121 rating. Hyundai says the redesigned engine is more refined and torquier in the lower rev range, and is also a bit thriftier. The combined city/highway fuel-consumption rating is 7.4 l/100 km, improved from 7.9 for 2017.
A six-speed automatic transmission is standard in the base Accent LE that lists for $18,950, including destination charges. It comes with air conditioning, sixway adjustable driver’s seat, split-folding rear seat, the fiveinch display, four-speaker audio plus the usual power-functioning features.
A six-speed manual transmission is standard with the GL, which also gets heated front seats and the seven-inch touchscreen.
At $22,700, the top-rung GLS automatic swaps out the SE’s 15-inch alloy wheels for 17-inchers and the rear drum brakes for discs, and it replaces the standard interior and exterior trim with better pieces. Also added are climate control, power sunroof, heated front seats, pushbutton start, fog lights and hands-free trunk opening.
Minimal active-safety technology (automatic emergency braking and forward-collision warning) is standard GLS fare, but it falls well short of what’s offered by most of the Accent’s chief rivals.
Ultimately, though, the Accent sedan’s ahead-of-the-curve size and its sophistication make it worthy of consideration.