Besides the fuck up with the immobilizer and constant oil maintenance, why are they looked down upon?
They eat oil like crazy and need more oil maintenance and changes, but if you take care of your car, it should last.
What other issues should I really know of? They seem to have more interior options and slightly more powerful engines than other similar cars for a much cheaper price. I just have never seen many recommendations here for the cars…
I think you basically listed all the reasons in your post. In theory, the new Hyundai/Kia vehicles don’t have the same oil burning issues of the past gens, but until enough time has passed without major problems, people aren’t going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, the lack of immobilizer and theft issue of non-push start vehicles didn’t do them any favors. I think everyone just assumes that eventually, some new problem will pop up related to the new generation of Hyundais and Kias. As an owner of a 2021 Elantra, I certainly hope they are wrong.
They have a terrible history with engines and the build quality tends to be rather poor. I’ll occasionally throw out Hyundais, with the caveats that 1) any American-built Hyundai should probably be avoided, the Alabama child labor plant seems to be the source of a lot of their problems, and 2) the hybrid drivetrains are much more reliable than the conventional ones [possibly because iirc they’re all built in Korea].
The theta 2 engines don’t just eat oil, they seize up and catch on fire. And even if it was ‘just’ burning oil, that’s not just a slight inconvenience. Oil burning leads to using up your catalytic converter which is 1k+ to replace nowadays, and generally leads to high engine wear so you’ll be putting an engine in it sooner or later.
Lack of predictability. Toyota, Honda or some reliable brands has been historically proven their quality. Korean cars don’t have the same assurance. Engine failure since 2010/11 was around a decade long issue. You wouldn’t recommend Nissan because of their CTV.
I have a friend ho had a 2014 Tucson. He was very meticulous with maintenance and did all of them according to schedule, yet the engine seized at around 95k miles. Lucky for him due to his maintenance record Hyundai replaced the engine with no cost, but he did sell the SUV as soon as he got it back.
I drove a 2001 Accent and then a 2010 Accent for a total of about 15 years, covering most of my 20’s and the first half of my 30’s. Reading this thread is making me rethink much of what I grew to think of as “normal” for maintenance and reliability. By 60-70k miles, the 2001 burned oil, had lost its catalytic converter, and was having transmission problems, while the 2010 had lost its starter and needed some suspension work.
I basically won’t touch a used car with more than 20-25k miles.
As a guy who grew up in the 90s, Hyundai made small, cheap and overall terrible cars back then. They’ve clearly improved dramatically over the decades but it’s hard to shake that reputation for a lot of buyers who are over 40.
Most car advice you get is based on 5-10 year old information, people are slow to adopt new ways of thinking and nobody knows how new cars will hold up long term. Hyundai cars are much nicer now than they were 5-10 years ago, that’s for sure. Are they more durable and reliable? I don’t know, ask me in 5-10 years.
Hyundai’s and kia’s have really closed the competition with Toyota and Honda in the last 5 years. I used to live in an affluent mid west suburb and most of my neighbors replaced their pilot’s/explorer’s and Highlander’s with a telluride. Their most popular cars give a number of convenience features at a low cost.
That being said, these makers have a historically shady reputation of selling sub par products, and their dealer networks almost entirely consisted of bad apples that are discarded by Toyota/Honda etc. Combine these 2 and that’s why they are almost never recommended.