Great Value and Great Fun!
The first thing that attracted me to the Hyundai Veloster is the styling. I absolutely love it. It has the looks of a sleek coupe with the flexibility of a sedan with the 3rd door. I love that quirky and useful feature. It's like nothing else on the road.
The interior is very well laid out and attractive. Everything is clearly visible and easy to reach. I really like the center mounted push button start and the large grab handles on the doors. Again, very unique and a little quirky. A let down is the lack of padding on the door arm rests and the lack of lumbar support on my model (I purchased the 2017 Value Edition).
The car has a 1.6L gas direct injection engine that is normally aspirated. It's a smooth and quiet motor, but lacks very much in torque. Having only 120 lb ft at about 4800 rpm, spirited acceleration isn't this car's strong point. It's okay for getting around town, but passing ability is virtually non existent. If you know this, it's easy to work around it's short comings. Also, I've owned the car for about 3 months now and it does seem to have become more energetic as I've owned it, perhaps adjusting to my driving style and breaking in. Since I knew the car was slow going in, the car has met my expectations and has proven to be very fun to drive.
I did test drive a new Veloster Turbo at the same time as my Value Edition and was very surprised to find I liked the non-turbo set up more. I found the Turbo to be quite noisy. The intake sound to me was horrendous and very unpleasant to hear. Also, the lag was terrible. The lag was aggravated by the dual clutch transmission in that the transmission shift points were very poorly matched to the turbo power curve so I was constantly on the gas pedal to keep the revs and the power up. It was faster for sure, but not much fun to drive in my opinion and not worth the thousands more in price.
Handling is very good. The car corners nice and flat. Shortcomings in this area are the numb steering and torsion beam axle. The steering is fine just driving around town, but go fast into a sweeping turn and you get no information about what's going on with the front tires. It feels the same in all conditions. Not very confidence inspiring at first and it takes some getting used to. The rear axle design gives you a nice, flat loading area, but hit a bump in the middle of a turn and it tends to hop around a bit. Overall, it's quite fun to drive fast though.
My car has the panoramic sunroof and it's one of my favorite features. My wife says it feels like a convertible, but with glass over head and yes, it does feel like that. It makes the cabin feel very open and airy and adds a lot to the fun.
Overall, this car is an unbeatable value and a very fun car to own and drive.
Recommended
Verified Owner
