Faults:

Drivers door lock barrel worn quickly and had to be replaced.

Spurious central locking fault.

Boot light micro switch snapped off.

Exterior tailgate handle broke off.

Rear left passenger door stay broke in two.

Front electric windows sloppy in their window guides (slow to raise).

Rear left passenger door electric window pulley cable jumped off it's spooler tangling itself up and rendering the window inoperative.

Front washer pump packed in.

General Comments:

Very good brakes.

Plenty of room inside cabin.

Poor ventilation with windows open.

Terrible fuel-sapping performance from the automatic gear box.

Front seats very unsupportive.

Rear seats hard-as-hell and most uncomfortable.

Faults:

One H.T. lead started to break down quite early on.

Fuel pump expired at about 80,000 miles.

Both of these items were fixed under warranty.

The gearbox was getting a little whiney in the lower gears just before it left my tenure, but then it had done 130,000 miles & I had ran it hard for most of that time.

Apart from that the car was utterly reliable for the two years & 130,000 miles that I ran it as a company car.

General Comments:

For the list price of £11,500 (in 1997) this was excellent value for money.

The engine was quite powerful for a 1.6, although it needed revving to get the best out of it.

The seats were quite clever in that they had a sort of pre-moulded shape that turned out to be quite comfortable.

It had a gearbox with a sweet action.

The interior wasn't bad at all for what could be fairly described as a car in the lower budget category. Electric windows in the front, a reasonable quality radio-cassettte & clever use of contrasting shades of plastic for the fascia & trim to give the interior a more upmarket feel than other cars at the same price.

From memory I can't recall any peculiar handling traits so it must have been O.K. in that department.

No complaints about the dealers, they were most helpful when it came to service time, I even got a free courtesy car (Hyundai Accent -Ugh!).

The interior was very hard-wearing; there was no appreciable evidence of the high mileage apart from the usual wear on the pedal rubbers, steering wheel & gear lever knob. The seats were unmarked.

Faults:

Clutch failed due to a worn master cylinder - replaced under warranty.

No other problems, the car was only off the road for 2 days.

General Comments:

An all round acceptable, cheap to run and buy, family sized motor.

Loved it (at the time)

Massive improvement on the Escort I had beforehand.

Faults:

Alternator failed. Warranty replaced.

Rear fog light had water in. Dealer drilled a hole to release water! Refused to replaced component.

Wiper arm rusty.

Clutch failed at 49.000 miles. Replaced with re-conditioned at a cost of £700 myself.

General Comments:

When I first picked the car up from the dealer it was like driving a dream car. That dream soon disappeared.

Two weeks after I purchased the Lantra, the dealer closed down. I had to travel 30 miles to find another.

It pulled away quite well, but take it on a motorway and it was very sluggish. Anything over 70mph and it whined and whistled.

The brakes were very bad. Hard braking was a nightmare. With no ABS, it flew all over the place.

The comfort level was not too bad. Air conditioning was not on my model, and I really missed it during hot weather.

However, it never failed to start first time through the 40 odd thousand miles I owned it, but I would not buy another Hyundai. It felt cheap.

It was written off by a truck rear end collision. Actaully the Lantra may not look like it, but it is a very strong car. The whole back end was in the rear cabin, but I never sustained a scratch. The truck did me a favour actually. That was the end of my Lantra. Unfortunately I had just spent £700 on a new clutch. Oh well!!