5 THINGS I LEARNED BEHIND WHEEL
I gave Hyundai’s new Santa Fe a bit of a rough ride in my last road test. Oh, it was not terrible, but it had no outstanding qualities. That’s certainly not the case with Hyundai’s new Sonata.
Not only does it stand out, but it just may well lead what was threatening to become a moribund family sedan marketplace. So, here the five attributes that may make the 2020 Sonata the best family sedan you can buy.
1 The thing is freaking gorgeous
The new Sonata really is new and bold. Along with the de-rigueur, sloped-back four-door coupe silhouette and some truly vibrant colouring, there’s an allnew chrome character line that extends all the way down both sides of the hood and into the headlights. Well done, Hyundai, for breathing a little life into a segment too many are giving up.
2 The interior is even more stylish
As soon as you sit in a mid-size Hyundai — and most certainly when you exit — you can see the same chromed character line in the front doors emulating the exterior character line, the door handle, in fact, emulating the front daytime running lights’ hooked continuation. It’s immediately obvious. Again, well done, Hyundai.
3 It’s Mercedes-like inside
In fact, the entire interior design is stupendous, perhaps even more worthy of praise than the exterior. From excellent materials to the tasteful two-tone decor, this is one Hyundai interior that screams luxury. The 10.25-inch infotainment screen is built nicely into the dash, rather than looking like an add-on designers only thought about at the last minute. Said touch screen manages pretty much everything, save for the climate control, and I found it quite useful. Many of the cabin’s physical switches are chromed little horizontal toggles that are obvious and easy to use without distracting your eyes from the road. To top it all off, the interior is also roomy and the seats comfortable.
My one complaint — and this is from an inveterate channel hopper — is that the radio’s tuning functions are way over to the right of the wide touch screen, too far for the driver’s convenience. There’s also no radio tuning knob. Come on, Hyundai. Give us a tuning knob. Nonetheless, it’s the best interior in this segment.
4 There are only four cylinders
Only two engines are offered on the 2020 Sonata, and both use four pistons. The base engine is a good old naturally aspirated inline four, this one with 2.5 litres of displacement. The upmarket engine, as is the norm these days, is a turbo, but it’s just a 1.6 L, not the 2.0-L, typical in this segment. As a result, they both sport about the same output — 191 horsepower for the 2.5, versus 180 for the 1.6.
You still want the little turbo, though, because it packs more torque — 195 pound-feet versus 181 lb-ft — and at a lower rpm. Mated to the eight-speed automatic transmission, it’s plenty peppy and pretty frugal, too; we averaged 6.7 L/100 kilometres at 125 km/h, travelling between Montreal and Toronto. Interestingly, both standard and optional engines offer exactly the same Transport Canada rated overall fuel economy — 7.7 L/100 km — and exactly the same rated fuel costs, at $2,002 per annum. The turbo offers a nice balance between performance and parsimony.
The one downside is that there’s a little more noise, vibration and harshness than usual. The 1.6-L turbo-four uses direct injection; high-pressure fuel injection is more efficient than port injection but it’s noisier, so there’s a little more harshness when you rev above 3,000 rpm.
5 It is packed with gee-whiz tech
The Sonata is loaded with various safety gizmos, not the least of which are adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, forward-collision warning, rear cross-traffic collision avoidance and driver-drowsiness detection. The neatest gimmick is the Blind-spot View Monitor, which has side cameras that watch overtaking cars in the lanes to your side.
The killer app, though, is Remote Smart Parking Assist, which will move your Sonata 10 metres forward or back, into or out of a parking space or garage. Buttons on the key fob let you control the system, which uses no fewer than 13 sonar sensors to monitor the car’s surroundings. The only downside is that it’s only available on the top-ofthe-line, $38,599 Ultimate trim. In fact, many of the goodies I’ve been lauding — besides Smart Park, there’s the 10.25-inch screen, the Highway Driving Assist, and wireless device charging — are only available on the Ultimate.
This is arguably the best car in the family sedan segment and gets my vote for the prettiest, inside and out. It’s a booming home run with all the superlatives I found missing in the Santa Fe.