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Was at the Doctor's office and they had a 2009 Consumer Reports new car issue and one of the cars highly recommended in the issue was the Hyundai Elantra. I mention this for all the Korean car haters who regularly cited Consumer Reports. For hatchback lovers, the Elantra Touring is actually a better looking car than the standard Elantra. It's a wagon version of the Elantra.
Consumer Reports magazine released its list of top new- and used-vehicle picks for 2009.
Best small sedan: Hyundai Elantra SE
Consumer Reports says, "The Elantra SE is a comfortable, roomy small car that provides plenty of features for the money. Only the SE version comes with standard electronic stability control, which is absent on many other small cars."
I have learned not to mess with Hyundai owners. It's not that I'm a convert to the brand or anything. I just know they'll come get me. After the car is more "accepted" the defensive nature of the owners will subside. It's all good. I'm sure the early Honda and Toyota owners in the states caught tons of hell and had to be defensive. I remember the older folks called them "rice burners" for the longest. :-)
I'm pretty defensive of the brand and I'm not even a current owner! I've seen some ignorant/racist people call any Asian make a rice burner, this includes Honda/Toyota. I don't like the Elantra because it doesn't fit the class of vehicle I look for but I understand it as a very competitive product in its field.
I've seen some ignorant/racist people call any Asian make a rice burner, this includes Honda/Toyota.
The ones I call "rice burners" are the Too fast too furious wannabees, the ones that have the ridiculous jacked up spoilers, fart can exhausts, lame stickers, mismatching gfx, etc. I know some American cars are like this (Cavaliers, Neons, etc), but the majority are imports. If that makes me seem racist than so be it.
I'm pretty defensive of the brand and I'm not even a current owner! I've seen some ignorant/racist people call any Asian make a rice burner, this includes Honda/Toyota. I don't like the Elantra because it doesn't fit the class of vehicle I look for but I understand it as a very competitive product in its field.
There is nothing ignorant or racist about calling them rice burners, it's a common, excepted nick name used by everyone, including asians. If it's a stock car, it's a rice burner, if it's a hot rod, it's a rice rocket.
I don't know anyone within my circles that would call a stock car a rice burner and I hang out with a good deal of Asian's/Pacific Islanders. It is racist and not accepted around anyone I know in northern California.
Yeah, it is a geographic thing. I didn't mean to strike a nerve by recounting the old farts calling imports "rice burners" back in the 70s. I know that term can be offensive. I was told the term originated from lingering anti-Japanese sentiments, post WWII.
My point is that Hyundai or any "new" brand is going to catch hell among car people for a while. It will take a while for them to be accepted as good cars -- just like the Japanese cars had to deal with back in the day.....
I rented a Hyundai Elantra and drove it across the state a couple of times. It was awful. I don't think they've heard of sound deadening, the seats were hard, the armrests in unusable locations, and the whole thing seemed tinny. If it were cheaper, I could understand. But there are better cars out there for the money.
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