2007 Hyundai Accent Hatch ( Base ) review from North America

Nothing has gone wrong, however there have been some mysterious clunking noises, twice.

During the break in period, engine sounded very raspy and coarse. This turned out to be normal. Another accent did this same thing, but it was alarming.

I drive one of these as a company car. We have a fleet of these. At first I thought 'oh great, the managers are cheap and are buying us these pieces of #%@#*', but boy was I wrong.

The engine has a strong, useable torque curve. It's driveability is excellent. Most small engines are seriously lacking low end torque, but this car has it in gobs. These things could probably haul pretty heavy with some mods.

Transmission feel is good, but the shifter is pretty long. The gear ratios could use some improvement, for sure. With longer gears, this car could get better gas mileage, and not be so noisy on the highway.. driving above 70mph makes the engine exponentially noisier to the point of irritation.

However, you have a good amount of power even in 5th gear. Kind of a tradeoff.

My main beef with these cars is their soft, rubbery suspension and little tires. They do not handle well in inclement weather or around turns. Sure, the ride is soft, and potholes do not punish the chassis, but hyundai could have stiffened things up a bit with a small swaybar, or harder shocks.

And I know that excellent handling is not a design goal of any economy car, but body roll is pretty bad in this car, so you have to slow down quite a bit on turns. I can imagine flipping this car would be quite easy if you didn't take that into consideration.

Interior is nice and very well designed. It is of much higher quality than I expected. seats are comfortable, and everything has a solid feel to it. The weather seals in the door window worry me, because they move freely and are not glued down or screwed in.

Compared to my 1.6L honda civic EX, the accent is a much smoother ride, whereas the civic is very hard edged and lacking in low end torque. At 1500rpm, the accent accelerates like normal.. whereas my civic will shake and stutter until I downshift.

Hyundai has created an impressive economy car, but for the sake of refinement, however, i'd much rather be driving a yaris.