http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Jan17.html Excerpts Last year, the company overtook Honda and Nissan to become the world's seventh-biggest automaker. Also last year, U.S. consumers rated Hyundai and Honda as tied for second-best in overall quality in an influential J.D. Power and Associates survey -- ahead of Mercedes-Benz and behind only Toyota. "Hyundai is very clearly targeting Toyota -- I don't think there's any doubt in anybody's mind that Hyundai really does want to take a piece out of them," Spinella said. "And the attitude is, they'll walk over Nissan, Honda, GM and Ford in order to get there. Even if they never touch Toyota, in the meantime there'll be a whole lot of collateral damage." ------------ Remember, Hyundai is also developing an in-house hybrid with a huge influx of government subsidy money.
Ive had 3 Hyundai's in total, all new. The first a Hyundai Pony in 1988 had a few quality problems, but it was very cheap., The 2nd a Coupe in 1998 was a very nice car, excelent quality, except the 2 colour leather seats were a bit strange. The colour scratched of on one of the colours, like it was coated not stained. An boy, the car could shift Our last Hyundai was a Santa Fe SUV. Thirsty, but otherwise excelent as well. What I done like with Hyundai was the service costs. On a 1 year old SUV I had to get the read disck break skimmed, (not covered by warentee) and new break shoes in addition to the 15000km service. They charged EURO 700 which was a rip off. So the car was sold. Btw, Hyundai is from South Korea not Japan. :wink:
I almost bought a Hyundai Elantra when I was fretting about the price of Prius. It felt comfortable and solid - nothing terribly frilly, but I didn't want frills. I have to believe that the "overall quality" rating was influenced not a tiny bit by price - Hyundais are inexpensive for the features they offer.
