Hyundai Sonata - Bells and Whistles

While driving the family around LA, several times my passengers have commented on how quiet the Sonata is. Besides the cluck cluck meow meow of three chatty women in a car together, wind and road noise are low. And when stopped at traffic lights, the engine is very quiet.

Hyundai Sonata seat belt

However, when you do something the car disapproves of, the bells start ringing. I stopped at a supermarket to run in for a second and left the car running so my passengers could remain in the cool air conditioning...

As soon as I removed my seat belt, the bells starting going off. They kept ringing on and off the entire time I was in the store. My passengers finally buckled my seat belt to shut the Sonata up. You would think this feature would know when the car was in "park" or when there isn't someone sitting in the seat. The Sonata can sense passenger weight to turn the airbags on/off, why can't it use the same technology for the seat belt warning chime?

All in all, the Sonata has been a very pleasant car for our road trips. When we added the weight of a 200 lb. man to our trips, however, acceleration was noticeably slower and a little noisier. I also had to allow for more braking distance when trying to bring the car to a halt with the weight of four adults onboard.

Hyundai Sonata - fuel mileage

A quick note about fuel economy: I filled the tank today and with all the city driving, we're only averaging 18.8 mpg.

Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor

Categories: 2006 Hyundai Sonata LX