HJR's EXPRESSions Thread

[Brian Gluckman]

This is where HJR. can post his thoughts and ponderings, including rants about corrupt internet car forums like Autoweek.

[whitefeather]

ah yes, the great GURU speakes.....we all shall learn from his Greatness and Wisdom, i bow to you HJR ;D

[whitefeather]

p.s. thats going to cost you 10 bucks harry. money orders accepted or cash.....

[hjr]

They are all corrupt, except for this HyundaiKia site

Detnews.com is "fun". That was the palce one lady said"I BUY AMERICAN brands only", yet she had a "Dodge" Stealth(made in Japan, by Mitsubishi). She NEVER returned to that forum again with silly comments. I had to do this on carconnection, autoweek, among others.
You get people who drive Trackers(Suzuki), yet flame HyundaiKia and others.
Remember when Chevy called some of their rebadged stuff"Geo's" , like Geo Storm and Geo Spectrum?

Just amazing how people beleive whatever they want to.
Even my mother-in-law has a Tracker, and nearly had a heart attack when she was informed it was a Suzuki vehicle. She actually thought it was made solely by GM/Chevy!

Oh well, what ya gonna do?

Another pet peeve of mine is when people on say detnews.com comment on everynew vehicle they review(usually 2-3 per week)
They Sound as if all they do is drive to car lots and test drive stuff themselves.
When they flame and bash cars, I ask"
Do you drive these before making comments, or just parrot what their friends and family say/paper says?"
Never do get a reply,LOL.

Gets old, fast.

My father in law(may have said this once or twice before) flamed Hyundai to no end. Did he ever test drive one, look at one at an autoshow,etc? No!
yet, he was an expert on Hyundai(like these other posters on other sites/forums).

Whjen we got our 99 sonata, he literally spent 45 mintues going over this car. A few months back, he said"I hate Korean sheetmetal, but they do know what they're doing". He did say"If they made stuff in USA< I might consider it". Well, I mentioned Alabama, and he quit his "I'll buy a Hyundai when made in USA".
For a guy with a masters degree, he can be a trip.

No more rants this week. Will be too busy.

[Brian Gluckman]

Well the thread will always be here for you.

[hjr]

went and got my car fixed, new water pump,etc, last week. They used to give ya a free rental car, but are under new ownership. I told hte guy I had enough waterpump left to drive 20 miles south to go to the competetion and see if they;d hook me up , even with a used car, for overnight. Well, the service mgr, called Enterprise(they have a "deal" with them) and got me the car for 2 days free(if it took a week to fix my car, it would have been free).

I guess my complaining worked for a change, instead of annyoing someone(only).

I thik for the price these places charge, you should have a free rental or two around.
One place in columbus ohio says if you have a 30K-60K tune up done, they'll give you a rental, you pay for gas, for the day.

I had heard that if you have your hyundai for 1year/12K milers and have problems, they will (used to) give you a loaner, free(happened to me).
but this was 1999.

This place I went to, a newer customer told me he gets free oil changes for 5 years at this place in Trotwood Ohio.

hey, how come "free" tune ups(Mitsubishi) is not helping with sales for 3 years, or 45,000 miles(ort whatever it is, besides the 10/100K).

Sorry to digress:
"Poll" time:

What cars would you like to see come to usa(or be made, like a concept), and , which ones should be forgotten about?

Cars I'd like to see:
HCD-8!
Smarts ForFour(not the suv mode they are making out of a forfour, to come here for 06, either. FWD is good enough for me)
Nissan Micra(if they could make it inot a Class B model)
Equus(if done correctly)

Cars I would not mind if they disappeared:
Neon(sorry tuners).. i drove one in 97, and in 04, and 4 say 10-12K tops, it would be acceptable, but they are more than that, and not worth it, to me.
Cavalier(it is disappearing, but will Cobalt just be a glorified Cavalier, reworked?)
Accent(sorry accent fans... I drove the last gen model,m and it seemed nicer than current model...also, next gen should have tilit steering,etc, like Rio)
Optima(Kia needs to fix this thing. It is not a great looking car, in the current front end treatment. Sorry Optima fans)

Most suv's larger than a tank(I know, I said cars, but these 8 ton vehicles, to seat 10, and only 1 person uses it... makes no sense).
Later
DAV
83-94
USNR-USCG

[hjr]

Anyone care to comment? It is akin to the new Spectra's two tone. At first, I was kind of like'what's this about", when I tested the new Spectra a few months back.
After 5 minutes of driving, I thought it was a nice change of pace, two tone interior colors.

Guess it could have red interior cloth/leather/flooring(yes, I had seen cars like this at old car autoshows).
Some looked ok, some looked really bad, like an Aztek, but interiorwise.
Tan part can get dirt looking faster than the black, on the Sonatas(like my tan interior/leather) but the floor mats,etc, they looked bad within a year.

Hmmm, maybe reverse the n tan and grey 2 tone?

Like I said, it could be worse. It looks neat, just gotta stay on keeping the coth "sprayed" to repel dirt/liquids, or keep the leather cleaner handy.

[thejoyof6]

I would like to see the HCD-8 make it to final production but the equus does not need to come over. Nobody would buy a 30k plus hyundai at this point unfortunatly...maybe in 10 years but certainly not now nor 3 years from now. Hyundai should spend its money more misely and improve its current vehicles more compareably to honda and toyota. Then maybe they could bring over the equus. Again i go back to adding a longer warranty, airbags, and standard cd player do not make a great car...we also need safer vehicles, better interior plastics, better transmissions, and for god sakes hyundai why does every vehicle you make have to weigh 300lbs - or + more than the competitions?!!!!!!!! Also america does not like your soggy suspensions and please change the look of the keys, kia gets the nicer looking ones and the current ones are 10 years old...THINK VW SWITCHBLADE KEYS HYUNDAI!.

[hjr]

Seems the HCD-8 was something of a minor hit this year. Even on boards usually on the flame HyundaiKia bandwagon spoke of it. Some said change the headlamps, or whatever, but minor stuff, and they'd even look at one.
The size, like I said, is similar to the 01 Tibby, but hcd-8 would have 3-4 inches longer wheelbase, definitely larger engine, I think they could do this for oh what, maybe the cost of current Tibby/Sonata?
(save cash due to less sheet metal for smaller car, use next gen V6).

I think that if Hyundai does not use Equus here(or plan to) then why not take the design from HCD-7 2 years back, and update it for Sonata. That also got lots of comment,s positive, even from the usually HyundaiKia bashers.

It seems they come up with decent design cues, that look fairly unique, but then sort of fall back to the"let's copy others".

I hope that next gen Accent is really something(again, what was that design shown recently, it had the suicide type doors, no b pillar, and it looked great all around, the show car from overseas, size of Accent. It is on the Accent thread, I think, pictures).
Hyundai should use these designs(hey, lots of companies are doing just that, if you see a show car, in 2 years or so, you'll see an almost identical vehicle on the lots for sale) pretty much" as is".

Quit trying to copy others, and go for the gusto!
They'd hit their million units per year goal for USA that way, I bet.
Like I said, on sites like carconnection, edmunds, detnews.com,etc, they almost all said" Great designs" on the cars mentioned above.
That is from Hyundai Flamers, yet!
Hyundai wants to convert people? Use more original designs.

[hjr]

Tried to find a story form 1-2 years ago, on thecarconnection.com, but waay too many hit for Hyundai to sort through it all right now. I was looking for a drawing of a car( looked kind of like a cross between HCD-8 and 97 Tibby) and was more of a sketch/computer generated thing.

The story was that Hyundai, if they do a luxury brand(which they will, it sounds like) this would be a V6 turboed car, 300HP/300 Torque, with AWD, for about 30K MSRP, to compete with Z car,etc.

If I can find that again, I will post it here. I did post in on old t-h-c.org board, but of course, it is no longer there.
Sounds like it'd be a decent sports car, and it looked good.

[hjr]

Accent. the magazine hit the stores on 2aug04. he reviewer said the palstic was not good, and a few minor complaints, but he said Hyundai beat the Aveo or Kia car, and said he woudl recommend the car to perhaps his son. Siad 5 years ago, he steered his oldest son away from Hyundai.(Something like this).

Anyhow, a fairly even review, and somewhat good review, from AW. Amazing! I am almost in shock!

[hjr]

get to the point., in 01, when the curren model elantra arrived, we got one for a week, due to car in body shop after an accident. It was almost as quiet as our sonata.

Tody, we got one and unless you were on cruise control, it sounded as loud as our 01 tibby, which is made to "be loud", like a sporty car.

Maybe it is just us, due to the quietness of our 99 Sonata. Maybe it makes anything "less" sound loud?

Anyone?