With so much emphasis put on sport sedans, their big wheels, short sidewalls, and impressive slalom speeds approaching, and in some cases, eclipsing those of outright sports cars, I found more than a little comfort driving the Hyundai Azera home last night. Sometimes, a pillowy ride is just the right thing. Remember when a cushy, all-smothering ride was once the thing that separated a good car from a cheap car? Tastes do change, but maybe we took a wrong turn.
Once in a while my back likes to play tricks on me and stops bending. That's one of the reasons I like seat heaters so much.
All this week when I woke up in the morning, my back has been nice and inflexible. But the 5-level seat heaters in the Azera really help...
I just spent a week with our Long Term Azera, capped off with a road trip from Long Beach to Las Vegas. It's a very good highway car. The engine is smooth and willing which makes hills and passing a breeze.
The stereo is also very good but there's no AUX jack - I had to use a cassette adaptor to listen to my iPod...
Here's a simple device that made grocery hauling (not shown) better this weekend. It kept my milk from floating around in the trunk.
Why don't all cars have one of these?
Josh Jacquot, Senior road test editor @ 16,347 miles
About 83.7 percent of reviews and road tests concerning a new Hyundai starts out with something to the effect of "Hyundais used to be garbage back in the 1980s, but have gotten progressively better ever since. This [insert model name] is yet another example of exponential improvement." Much has been said on this blog hailing the Azera's interior design and quality, but after driving it back-to-back with the all-new Veracruz SUV, I must say that yet another improvement has taken place.
The Veracruz's materials are even better and the overall design more stylish -- I particularly like our test car's Black/Saddle two-tone interior. Maybe it's because I drove a 2000 VW Jetta VR6 for six years, but I'm also a big fan of the Veracruz's cobalt blue dash lights (that are also found in the Santa Fe and Elantra). The Azera's lighting is a color mix-and-match, with the center stack in particular harkening back to the last generation of Toyota and Lexus (much like the rest of the Azera).
James Riswick, Associate Editor @ 15,609 miles
Our Azera Limited recently visited Cormier Hyundai in Carson for its 15,000-mile prescribed maintenance.
After an hour in the waiting room the Azera was ready. We paid $57.44 for fresh oil, a new oil filter and new air filter. Cormier also performed a tire rotation at our request...
During my visit to the car wash today, I asked the guys if they could take a look at the Azera's stained driver seat. They went to work on it with their industrial-strength cleaner and got about half of the gunk off.
The value of long-term vehicle testing was reaffirmed during my weekend with the Azera. I was impressed by the '06 model that was part of our full road test -- and although our '07 shares most of its virtues, I've noticed some quality issues that weren't apparent during a single week of testing.
-For starters, our long-term Azera has some very obvious dash/door panel misalignments...
Although my tastes have veered toward higher-strung cars lately, somehow the type-B Hyundai Azera never disappoints me. When I got into it last night, I was coming off a stint in a modified Mazdaspeed 3 (story coming soon), probably the meanest front-driver on the market and a car that would try to devour the Azera whole if given the chance. Yet, I was immediately content in the Azera.
I've decided it must be because although this car isn't without flaws, the people who built it took pains to ensure that its various components functioned harmoniously...
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