In a move that has started a bit of a pricing war at the bottom of the new car market, Hyundai recently announced that it was going to start selling a base version of its Hyundai Accent coupe for $9,970 thereby making it the cheapest new car in the country. So how did Hyundai manage to price its entry level model so affordably? Do the windows and wheels cost extra? Not exactly.
For $9,970 the Hyundai accent comes with everything a driver needs to be mobile. Essentially it features such luxuries as a steering wheel, starter, accelerator, brakes and even seats with seatbelts. It also features not much of anything else. There is no air conditioning, no radio and the windows and locks are of the manual variety. If you get too warm in this Accent you pretty much have to sweat it out or roll down the manual crank windows. Yes, crank windows still exist. They are there to punish you for buying such a cheap car.
Hyundai was inspired to create this base model by rival Nissan who recently announced a basic version of its hunchbacked Versa sedan priced at $9,990. The Versa follows the same mold of the base Hyundai Accent by not even offering air conditioning as an option and by removing most every power feature from the car. Even the door handles, side mirrors and body mouldings remain unpainted. I guess that is meant to make the owner glad that Nissan even bothered to paint the rest of the car. As with the Hyundai a manual transmission is the only unit available.
So how do these two bargain basement automotive “strippers” stack up against each other? For one thing, even though the Hyundai is ridiculously cheap it does still come with their class leading 10 year/100,000 mile warranty. Nissan’s powertrain warranty only lasts 6 years and its bumper to bumper warranty is only 3 years/36,000 miles compared to Hyundai’s 6 years/60,000 miles. As long as you can handle driving a Hyundai with no air conditioning for 10 years it is obvious which one is the better deal.
One other benefit of buying the Hyundai is the fact that it does come wired for a stereo system with four speakers. So essentially all a new owner would have to do is drive their “new car smell” imbued coupe down to Best Buy for a new CD player. So essentially all that leaves as a reminder of your car being a stripped out misery maker is the fact that it lacks air conditioning. Right? Not exactly.
A recent drive in this entry level Hyundai revealed that the once somewhat serene econo-box is now noisier and buzzier than a nest of Africanized Killer Bees. The website says nothing about this but the only answer for this increased noisiness can be that Hyundai removed ALL of the sound deadening material that is normally used on “regular” Accents. The “regular” Accent isn’t all that quiet a car to begin with so you can only imagine how much of a ruckus this base model makes. It is almost like they removed all the sound deadening foam and replaced it with paper clips.
So should you buy one of these sub $10,000 automotive bargains? Well, if having a brand new car is THAT important to you, why not? But if you like to arrive at your destination without sweat rings under your arms and don’t like to crank your windows why not spend the same amount on a three year old Honda Civic?
