1989 Hyundai Excel GS review from North America

The Brakes are gone, I need to use the Emergency Brake to stop it.

The car burns so much Oil there is no need to take it in for oil changes, it just burns off the old oil, and you need to add new stuff. I spend about as much on oil as I spend on Gas.

The carberator is seized, so I had to take it out and fix it.

The floor on this car is terrible. Over the car's life, a new floor has been put in twice. The doors and fenders rust bad too, but, the paint in some places (upper parts of the doors, hood, ect) has stood up incredibly well.

There is an unsolvable problem with the reverse gear, when ever the car is in reverse, especially when it is first started, it stalls or looses power, very dangerous, especially when you have a blind drive way on a busy street.

The heater-stove for the carburetor has rusted off, and a replacement part is not avaliable.

The electric heater to warm up the carburetor has failed. Fixing this problem would require a complete rebuild, so I'm just going to leave it the way it is.

The GS model has aluminum rims and two tone paint, and an OK Stereo. That is about all for options.

This has to be the slowest car on the road. It came new with 65hp, and, in its old age, it retains about 30-35 hp. I'm afraid to drive this car on busy streets, let alone the highway.

As a result of the carburetor heater and heat-stove not working, the car is very, very hard to start in the cold weather. Part of the Start-up checklist is "Pray to Jesus and to almighty God that the car will start."

But, I must say that, all in all, this is a reliable car. It is no fault of the car that it is in such a state of disrepair, it is the fault of the previous owner. If problems (i.e engine, heater stove, ect) were fixed back in the day, and if the car was maintained properly, it wouldn't be a half bad car to have. It is fixable, but I'm not interested in doing a major restoration which will probably cost me quadruple the car's value. So I'll drive it until it dies.