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A week in the 2009 Hyundai Elantra Touring: Day 2 (ride and handling)
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The 2009 Hyundai Elantra Touring near Soil Conservation Road.
The Beltsville Agricultural Research Center would never be accused of being an interesting place to drive around. It's mostly made up of empty fields and "no trespassing signs" that confine the public to streets with creative and classy names like "Animal Husbandry Road."
But it's only a few minutes from my base camp and its windy roads have little traffic, making it a very convenient place to put a few dozen miles on the 2009 Hyundai Elantra Touring that's spending the week with me, and get a feel for how this new Korean compact station wagon handles.
Based on a test drive of the Elantra sedan -- which finished a respectable third place of seven cars in a comparison of economical sedans -- I was expecting a smooth ride but no sporty moves, similar to a Toyota Corolla. But the Touring clearly has a more firmly-tuned suspension, and the its wider tires give it better grip.
Around curves in and around BARC, the Elantra Touring is well planted and demonstrates good body control. The engine is strong in higher gears and the standard 5-speed manual transmission's shifter surprisingly precise, too.
The steering would need to have more heft, more feedback, and more quickness if it wanted to match the Mazda3 as a truly fun compact car, but it's much closer than my drive in the sedan would have led me to believe.
However, what this means is the Elantra Touring also gives up some of the ride comfort of the Elantra sedan. The suspension didn't leave me with any sense of ride harshness or brittleness, the sound of the impacts was nicely muted, and the car seems to have few problems cruising on smooth pavement. But hit a bump -- or worse, a series of bumps -- and you'll certainly feel it more sharply than in the sedan.
The ride is still more comfortable than the sportier Mazda3's, however, and the Elantra Touring is quieter.
I reset the car's in-dash gas mileage computer before heading out today, to erase the effects of the fuel economy recorded by whichever auto journalists were driving this car in the 1,294 miles before I got it. My average for this drive, mostly at speeds between 35 and 55 miles per hour on back roads, quickly shot from the 24.4 miles per gallon the car had showed when I picked it up to over 30 mpg. It was reading 31.7 mpg when I re-parked it after 35 miles.
That mileage beats the car's EPA mileage estimate of 23 miles per gallon in the city and 31 on the highway, but I'm used to getting higher mileage when I drive economy cars. With any luck it will improve over time.
More to come on the Elantra Touring over the next few days. Stay tuned. And I invite you all to leave any questions you'd like me to be on special lookout for in the comments section below, or by e-mail at dc.car.examiner@gmail.com.
Day 1: introduction
Day 2: ride and handling
Day 3: cargo management
Day 5: seats, interior details, visibility
Odometer at beginning of test: 1,294 miles
Odometer as of this writing: 1,370 miles
Recorded gas mileage so far: 31.7 miles per gallon
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