Hooniverse Asks: What's Your Opinion of Korean Cars?

Hyundai Pony
There have been a number of articles written recently that aver that, in certain categories, the Korean car makers are beating the Japanese in quality and value. Now, you may find it realistic that the Koreans offer a better value, after all they certainly embraced the low-priced tier decades ago and seemed – unlike other challengers from Eastern Europe or South America, to make a viable go of it.
However, the Japanese have long been known as the purveyors of the highest quality rides on the planet. I mean, Toyota once advertised the Corolla as being able to have its hood welded shut, so little maintenance was required. Now that crown may have to be handed over. Here’s the thing, another factor in the whole Korean car drama is the recent research that indicates that while the country’s cars and trucks are getting vastly better – perhaps even better than those coming out of Japan in certain cases – public perception of Korean cars has not caught up.
Personally, I still think that Korean cars hold some sort of stigma. That’s even though when someone asks me what’s the best value in a mid-sized sedan I tell them that it’s the Hyundai Sonata, and not just because I love the joke of telling them it’s not-a my car, it sonata your car! Well, maybe I’ll stop doing that. What about you, what’s your opinion about Korean Cars? Do you think they have climbed to the pinnacle of quality and value, displacing their Japanese competitors? Or, do you feel otherwise? Let us know!
Image: honestjohn.co.uk

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  1. Kiefmo Avatar
    Kiefmo

    Solid DD cars, but still not much to offer enthusiasts. I probably wouldn’t buy one used, and if for some reason you ever caught me buying a new car, my Honda fan bias would kick in.
    Attempts at going upmarket are puzzling, though. I’d rather they distinguish themselves through, for example, overtly sporting performance than trying to ape Infiniti.

    1. P161911 Avatar
      P161911

      The Kia K900 is the most puzzling. Hyundai is supposed to be the upmarket side of the company while Kia is price leader/economy car side. The Hyundai Genesis sort of makes sense, except for the totally different character of the coupe and sedan.

      1. Vairship Avatar
        Vairship

        Looks very SAABish.

  2. P161911 Avatar
    P161911

    Personally in the “basic car” category I don’t think there is much difference at all now between anything from Japan, Korea, America (with the possible exception of Chrysler), or Germany/Europe, at least not for the first 200k miles or so. At least the differences aren’t near what they were 25-30 years ago. Back then for the most part:
    Japanese cars = cheap, small, and reliable
    American cars = big and cheap
    German/Europen (Swedish) cars = expensive and reliable
    Korean cars = cheap, small, and cheaper.

  3. pj134 Avatar
    pj134

    I’m on my sixth year of ownership of a 2008 Sonata. Little things that should never fucking break are constantly annoying. Like my door handle that popped off if someone’s hand while trying to open the rear door. Apparently it’s a thing. I’ve had to reset the spring in my center console a few times now. Little, really fucking annoying things. Big things that usually break don’t, so that’s good. I don’t know, it’s taken every beating I’ve thrown at it without blinking. That’s probably the best compliment I can throw at it.

    1. Tanshanomi Avatar

      Disintegrating door handles were common on Ford Escorts for many years, too. I know that doesn’t invalidate your point, but just sayin’…

      1. Maymar Avatar
        Maymar

        Well, they would’ve been sharing a showroom with rebadged Kia Prides, so maybe those Escorts got some contact Korean on them.

        1. Tanshanomi Avatar

          Having owned both a ’93 Festiva and a ’94 Escort, I would suggest that the “rebadged Kia Pride” had enough Mazda DNA that contaminating the Escort would’ve only helped it.

          1. Drives Dead Marques Avatar
            Drives Dead Marques

            Since it was based on the Mazda B platform, doesn’t the 1994 Escort have a lot of Mazda DNA?

          2. Tanshanomi Avatar

            Touché!

      2. boxdin Avatar
        boxdin

        chevy astro door handles too. Pull right off in your hand.

  4. Lokki Avatar
    Lokki

    Korean cars, in the U.S., still have perhaps another 10 years or so before they can erase the cultural memory of the disaster of the early KIA’s and Hyundai’s and fully compete head-to-head with the Japanese. They have also suffered because, while rebuilding their reputation, they went through a phase of being willing to finance anybody, including your dog. This is not inherently bad in itself, but did mean that a lot of them, new and especially used, fell into the hands of people who think maintenance is a waste of money because the car isn’t going to last very long anyhow.
    I do think though, that the Koreans have already captured the ‘Economical Joe’ segment of the market – the old AMC turf- which says, “Yeah Japanese cars may be a little better, but Korean cars are perfectly OK and there isn’t enough added value in Japanese cars to justify the price differential. Or, to quote my grandfather,
    ” Why pay Cadillac prices when a Chevy gets you to work just fine?”

    1. P161911 Avatar
      P161911

      ” fell into the hands of people who think maintenance is a waste of money because the car isn’t going to last very long anyhow.” I think what you mean is “Why bother with maintenance on a car that is going to be repo-ed anyways.” Or the make the car payment vs. do the 30k mile service.

      1. dead_elvis Avatar
        dead_elvis

        Sounds like you’ve met one of my former employees. Shortly after he got canned, the repo man kept showing up at work, looking for Mark’s Elantra. I had to get the sheriff’s office involved to make them understand that even if he DID still work here, they didn’t get to cruise the property uninvited in order to grab their target.

  5. Cameron Vanderhorst Avatar
    Cameron Vanderhorst

    My folks bought into the hype of “They’re better than they used to be!” and in 2011 bought a Sonata 2.0T instead of the G37 I told them to buy. It ended up at the dealer every three months. The interior was cheap, the dynamics were atrocious, and with around 20k miles, they traded it in three years later on – you guessed it – the 2011 G37 they should have bought.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      Returning issues or a string of failures? I got stranded in my Honda last weekend. That sounds a bit like “Jews and Palestinians made peace last weekend”, but it was due to a caliper failure. I’ve had minor brake issues all the time since I bought, also after replacing all discs and pads. Had the car in to replace both rear calipers ten days before the hot stop, but they told me it wasn’t necessary. It was a front caliper that failed anyway; they hadn’t been a problem before.
      http://s30.postimg.org/j1xwto0xt/IMG_20150627_202301.jpg

  6. duurtlang Avatar
    duurtlang

    The opinion I have about Korean cars is that I have little opinion about them. They’re present in the market, they’re decent and they’re generally not offensive. I see little to put me off and little to attract me. Decent daily drivers for someone who doesn’t care much about cars, not worth while for an enthusiast.
    The designs have dramatically improved in the last decade though, I’ll give them that much. I would buy one over a Toyota, but that says more about my opinion of Toyota than about the Koreans.

  7. Citric Avatar
    Citric

    I think public perception has caught up actually, I certainly get more positive comments on the Elantra that sits in my driveway than anything else I’ve owned. There’s still some inertia in some corners of the internet, but on the street people seem to have embraced Korea completely.
    As for what I think, they’re not perfect on suspension design – though it’s a hell of a lot better on gravel than the Toyota Matrix, at least – but I’ve driven it over mountains and down back roads and enjoyed every minute of it, I think the “not for enthusiasts” thing is overblown to be honest.

  8. Tanshanomi Avatar

    Korean cars fall in to the same category as Korean music — “ennoyable.”
    http://tanshanomi.com/temp/animated/ennoyable.gif

  9. GTXcellent Avatar
    GTXcellent

    I don’t know? I’ve never driven one – never even sat in one. Ever. Even back to the old Hyundai Excel. I think most of the Hyundai/Kia line up is sharp looking design wise (I’m not going to include SsangYong or Proto or anything else that might come from there), but that’s as far as I can go.

  10. Greg Kachadurian Avatar
    Greg Kachadurian

    From what I’ve been noticing from my legit automotive news columns every week for the last 4 years, the Koreans are really stepping up their game. They’ve got some attractive cars with great packages now to really be competitive against others. They’ve got the practical, stylish, comfortable family car pretty much figured out over there.
    But I think they just need to figure out how to make more cars that excite people who want something fun or premium. They’ve got a few premium luxury cars and sports cars, but I don’t feel they really win on anything other than price – except for the Genesis coupe, which I hear is a great car.
    TL;DR great for practical daily drivers but not so great yet for fun or luxury, but they’re trying at least.

  11. Age_of_Aerostar Avatar
    Age_of_Aerostar

    I had a Kia Optima as a rental car once in Canada. Overall, it was satisfactory, until the traction control tried to work. I don’t know if the traction control was supplied to them by someone else, or if they developed it in house, or if they spec’d it in a strange way, but it was the worst thing I’ve ever encountered. It almost violently jerked the car when engaging, and it was so pitiful, it couldn’t make it up a snowy hill when activated. I just turned it off, and all was good, but it made me think twice about the overall quality of the car.

    1. boxdin Avatar
      boxdin

      I had a Sonata rental last yr and the hair trigger throttle was idiotic. Made me look like a reluctant drag racer at most lights. I would hate a teen driver to have to try to modulate that throttle.

  12. Maymar Avatar
    Maymar

    I believe between my family and my in-laws, we’ve easily bought over a dozen Korean cars in the past few decades. Mostly, they’ve served us well (my father-in-law’s ’11 Elantra spun its bearings at 95k kms and was rebuilt under warranty). I also hate them. Most of it is suffering for two years in an awful, terrible, no-good old Accent, and I can’t shake the feeling that the same people who built that rolling violation of the Geneva Convention are still making the new ones, just doing a better job of it. So, I personally won’t be buying another one for years, until I have good reason to do so. But i’ll recommend other people do so, if it works for them.

  13. irishzombieman Avatar
    irishzombieman

    The only new car I ever bought was a 2000 Sonata, and for the price, nothing else came close. I got a new car for the price of a lease-return Civic.
    And it was mid-sized vs small, which meant that it lasted us through three kids, instead of two.
    It’s been fun to sorta watch Korea grow up in the last decade. At the time Hyundai was marketing itself on value (this was when they came out with the 100k warranty). They followed that with quality and performance pushes that have, in my completely biased opinion, made their current cars physically on par with anything Japanese.
    And their designers have moved from timid imitation to bold weirdness. And the results are great. Look at the number of Kia Souls on the road. They’re a kick-ass little car, and they’re selling like hotcakes. I see damned near as many Sonatas on the road as I do Accords anymore. Yep, I agree that for similarly-equipped and -performing cars, the Accord’s the better of the two. But I could do a whole lot with the $4k price difference.
    I love Korean cars. If I ever buy a new car again it’ll likely be one of theirs.

  14. HDS Avatar
    HDS

    Well I have owned 3 hyundais and 1 Kias and they all have been trouble free. We currently own a 2007 Santa Fe with almost 130k miles and all I have had to do is change the oil and brakes. The car rides great, has enough power. There is nothing wrong with the car except it lacks “cachet”. No body its going to turn around for a second look. It as mundane as any other car on the street. My wife drives a w204 c-class and thats another story. I can’t walk away from it and not take another look back at it.
    I like my Santa Fe, but I am not sure if I would replace it with another kia/hyundai… specially after being spoiled by the Benz.

  15. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    I’d buy one over a German car any day. If it was about my own money…also, I’m currently on vacation and I see some of the nicer Equus and Genesis offers we don’t get at home – there’s nothing left that distinguishes them from the rest of the market in any negative way. Looks modern and up-to-date. Driving though? No clue. I also miss Korean baroque of the XG30 kind.

  16. Drives Dead Marques Avatar
    Drives Dead Marques

    I drove a 2015 Rio rental for a week. It was well put together, equipped well (Bluetooth stereo in a car this inexpensive is nice, but no cruise control) and drove nice enough. Would I buy it over a Fiesta or Fit? Probably not. Unless I got a good deal on it.

  17. mzszsm Avatar
    mzszsm

    I’ve driven a few Daewoos (and not the good Polish sort) so I’ll keep my opinion to myself.
    My uncle and his family have bought a good number of Hyundais now. Basically they hold-up well enough for them to keep buying more, past 100K they tend to need work, but a lot of cars do, it’s just that things are sort of oddly expensive if you want replacements of decent quality (like coils) or simply things come apart that really should not come apart ever.
    So good enough is the perception they have, kind of value proposition really.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      But Daewoo is gone? Had a Matiz for a week around y2k, it was a bloody shed. Made 140kph on the autobahn after 15 min of full throttle, and sharp corners would convey a distinctive feeling of a twisting car. Didn’t dislike it, but I would never buy one. The whole Chevrolet-branded lineup Daewoo evolved into just looks sad.

      1. mzszsm Avatar
        mzszsm

        Daewoo earned a pretty big fleet sale here, that’s why I have that pleasure plus my MiL had one and I rented one.

  18. david42 Avatar
    david42

    We had a new 2009 Genesis. Dumped it after a year: the display for the nav/climate/audio/back-up camera was endlessly buggy, so we would constantly lose access to those features (roughly 10% of our trips). It also rattled like an old taxi–something got loose above the headliner. The leather quickly got worn and saggy. Oh, and the power-adjustable steering wheel got stuck in its lowest position. That’s a lot of failures for a one-year-old low-mileage car.
    So, it always “got us there”… but too often we were pissed off when we arrived.
    Never say never, but… we’ll never buy a Korean car again. Especially now that they’re priced closer to Japanese cars… why take the risk?

  19. Surfer Sandman Avatar
    Surfer Sandman

    Mixed bag here. Owned a ’97 Accent which was passable transportation at the time. It was problematic but then again, it had a rebuilt title. I’ve heard that things are on the up and up for Hyundai and that’s awesome because they do seem to build solid, reliable cars nowadays. I just preferred my Civic over leasing a new Hyundai.

  20. karonetwentyc Avatar
    karonetwentyc

    If it was a Kia-built Peugeot 604 or Fiat 132, I’d probably be the first in line.
    Really, though, I have to admit that the couple of Hyundai Elantras we’ve rented over the last year or so were pretty decent cars. They’re not cars that particularly set my blood boiling with desire for them, but if I were shopping for something in their bracket I would be more inclined towards them than a good chunk of their competitors.
    Drove a manual Kia Coup a couple of years ago, and was impressed but for different reasons. It reminded me a lot of a Ford Capri I once owned, and really seemed to be the modern Scirocco that VW couldn’t quite remember how to build. Again, not one I’d have at the top of the list – but it was a pleasant surprise, and with a few tweaks I could see it being perfectly liveable.
    Those two aside, my general opinion is that Korea is cranking out basically competent cars that are attempting – for the most part – to out-bland the Japanese. The Koreans really need to figure out how to carve out a niche for themselves rather than trying to duplicate what has come before, and it looks like that’s starting to happen to some extent. Unfortunately, the car market as a whole seems to currently consist of a great many cars that are largely-indistinguishable from each other; Korea is far from alone in following this trend. But if they do continue to follow it, they’ll never have a chance to really develop their own character.
    What’s going to be interesting is when (if?) Ssangyong hits North America. I remember very well when they started selling cars in the UK, and let’s just say that uptake was… Not tremendous. Odd styling, driving dynamics that were middle-of-the-road to iffy-at-best, and automotive technology that was one-half to a full generation behind competition from elsewhere never really made them much more than a curiosity in the low-end market. If they enter this side of the water with similar products, they can probably expect a hasty retreat.
    Then again, if it means that parent company Mahindra’s Pik-Up makes it here in diesel 4×4 form under the Ssangyong banner, we’d finally have an economical, capable, compact pick-up back on the market. But that’s a whole other ball of wax.

  21. Damian Solorzano Avatar
    Damian Solorzano

    I’ve piled 121,000 miles on a ’13 Elantra. Nothing…nothing awry. it starts, stops, withstands the depredations of my students and returns a solid 28 mpg in mixed driving. We were so impressed by it, my wife and I bought an Elantra GT for her DD. They’re screaming values right now.

    1. dead_elvis Avatar
      dead_elvis

      That’s a hell of a lotta miles on a ’13 anything. What do you do that racks up that kind of mileage in such short order? I’d say it speaks pretty highly of the Elantra.

      1. Damian Solorzano Avatar
        Damian Solorzano

        Driving Instructor.

      2. Damian Solorzano Avatar
        Damian Solorzano

        Driving instructor. Sorry to have taken so long.

  22. Ahnuc Onun Avatar
    Ahnuc Onun

    I’ve worked in car dealerships pretty much since I started working as a kid. I spent a long time with Volkswagen and Audi, and was into European cars exclusively. Several years ago my family decided to invest in two Hyundai dealerships. Initially I declined to join, because I was working at Audi and I thought Hyundai was crap and I need to be able to stand behind the product I represent. Eventually, after purchasing a Hyundai for my wife and seeing the product was not as crappy as I had experienced in the past, I made the jump. While I was with Hyundai from 2008 to 2012, I realized the cars started getting good around 2006 and steadily improved. Around 2009 is when Hyundai dropped the Genesis Sedan and Coupe (2010 model years) and I realized this was going to be a whole different ball game. Not only where the products good, but now stylish. Customer perception, however, took a long time to get on board. Even though newly redesigned models kept coming the majority of people that bought the brand where budget conscious and such willing to take a chance on the brand. At first there was a lot of desperate people with subprime credit, but eventually thrifty but prime customers jumped on board. Eventually they spread the news and now I think, in Canada at least, Hyundai is a mainstream brand, even though there are Japanese diehards out there. Hyundai’s however are not without their flaws. I find suspensions are underdeveloped, their interiors are overwrought, and fuel economy is slightly worse than advertised, but still reasonable. As far as reliability, they have usually been fairly reliable (even prior to 2006 for some models) and getting better. But being an Asian brand, I find that Hyundai’s are a lot like Japanese cars in that there is a slight flimsiness to them that is covered by a fancy veneer and they convey little driving pleasure. In short, they followed pretty much the same development as the Japanese but in a much more protracted time frame which is an admirable feat.

  23. boxdin Avatar
    boxdin

    If Kia builds this sport wagon I’ll be in line to get one.