First record 2020 Hyundai Venue: who needs to be used?

Do you prefer to have a new car or a second hand? This is one of those simple questions that gives extremely varied answers. Hyundai is betting that most people will opt for a new vehicle (with a 10-year powertrain warranty) if the price is affordable, the style attracts attention and the character is full of charm.

The Hyundai 2020 site will have all this shoveled. Or at least I think so. After driving an Australian car outside Brisbane and along the beautiful Sunshine Coast, many questions arise on this sub-compact crossover SUV. One thing to be sure of is that this is a smart and stylish package that should easily attract both newbie and new Hyundai brand vehicles.

Down Under Deal

The "Australian" criterion is obviously important for this review, not just because the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the cars I drove. Mechanically, the cars in question had a number of differences from what American consumers would get.

Instead of a six-speed automatic transmission, American customers get a continuously variable transmission available (or an intelligent transmission, as Hyundai calls it), or a standard six-speed manual transmission. The CVT arrives in America because it offers better fuel economy than the rest of the world gets, although I suspect that the companion to the Venue's platform, the Hyundai Accent, has the same belt transmission system. from the point of view of manufacturing and maintenance.

Cars in the US market will also feature softer dampers, although springs and stabilizer bars are identical across borders. Finally, Australian cars wore Nexen summer tires. All-season rubber, better suited to the varied climates of the United States, will be the only choice when the site arrives later this year. There are also the most obvious changes from one market to the other. The skins will not translate directly – the United States gets the Venue SE and SEL models, as opposed to the Active and Elite models shown here – and international customers will benefit from a much wider range of exterior / interior color combinations.

All this is a sideways way of saying that the US market site will probably feel very different from the Australian market model in some key respects.

Chonk Life

One thing that will not change is the style of the room. It's a very nice little filter from every angle. If you take some of the latest Hyundai design features from the Palisade and Kona and apply them to a car with such a short wheelbase, you get a car chonker. The outside of the Venue is an air of exacerbated toughness, similar to the Tonka, and just like the original Kia Soul, I see that this design forces consumers to rethink their opinion of the Hyundai brand. It's that good.

Hyundai knew full well that the external character would play a major role in attracting customers to such a small product. Also, apart from the beautiful sheet metal, designers have opted for bananas with colors. In overseas markets, Hyundai will offer up to 80 color combinations of body, roof and interior color. Despite the protests I have made to the US representatives of Hyundai in Australia, our market will not see so many combos.

Hyundai will offer up to 80 individual combinations of body color, roof and interior color, but not in the United States.

The biggest victim is the two-colored roof and the mirror caps. Available in black, white or acid yellow on several versions of foreign markets, Hyundai limits American consumers to a white roof and only with the blue body paint of the Denim Edition package. And in the cab, the Denim Edition is the only way to get interior plastics with a blue finish. Otherwise, consumers are stuck with monotonous spaces with black or gray cabins. Our site will also have slightly different taillight signatures.

These cabins, however, are good places to browse for miles. Plastic is the predominant material, which is also true of all site competitors. But the Hyundai stands out with pretty pieces of trim here and there – we dig the splashes of color in the cabin of the Australian model – although the plastics of the door are too firm and the material of the dashboard is not as solid that I would like. Again, the design looks good and, for the segment, nothing is too fragile.

There's not a lot of standard equipment in the cabin, but Hyundai far surpasses the Venue's most obvious competitor, the Nissan Kicks, with an 8-inch touch screen infotainment system, 0 inches with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. inch screen without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto standard on all versions. This is a significant element, as is the standard Automatic Emergency Brake (AEB) system, which includes pedestrian detection, which Nissan's AEB system can not match: the Kicks is equipped with standard automatic braking system, but it lacks pedestrian detection.

The cabin of the site is also a relatively spacious and comfortable place. Evaluating the space on the front seats is difficult on right-hand drive models – it's a bit like you're trying to dance with your badly-worn shoes. That said, the seats themselves were remarkably comfortable and encouraging for the class. The sitting position is excellent too, and the large windshield means that forward visibility is comparable to that of the Fiat 500L (the only thing I can praise flawlessly).

The second row is less commendable. Put the front seats back as far as possible (and they go back far – customers north of six feet should not hesitate to leave the site) and the second row legroom essentially disappears. With the driver's seat ready to accommodate a colleague of five feet and seven inches, I could sit on the second row bench with reasonable comfort. There is no harm in putting four medium-sized adults on the site for short to medium-length journeys.

Quiet … Mostly

If you load the site of people, the four passengers will enjoy a quiet walk. Along the highways and two lanes of Australia, Hyundai Hybrid's subcompact cab left little road noise. In fact, wind noise has only been introduced at speeds on highways. Even in this case, it is limited to around the A pillars. Overall, the site can boast the quietest tour of its category.

Overall, the site boasts the quietest ride in its class.

The comfort of the place extends to the way it behaves on the road. Something like half of the Australian roads is not paved and they spent a good part of my day with the car. On the clay, the MacPherson strut front suspension and Venue's torsion rear beam went well. On paved roads, it is even better: it has a level, a compound behavior that insulates the occupants of the worst surfaces and imperfections nicely. Considering that Hyundai will further soften the Venue's shock absorbers for service in the United States, the subcompact should happily handle the worst that our crumbling infrastructure can inflict on it.

Considering the firmer shocks and summer rubber, judging the site's handling is a more difficult task. The Hyundai behaves however like the subcompact CUV. It rolls freely when it is presented with a turn and shows a lot of diving in case of sudden braking. His movements on winding roads outside Brisbane, however, did not seem neglected. It's fun to launch Turning Venue with a well-balanced direction that provides adequate return levels (again for the segment).

The main problem with the site is a concern. The naturally-aspirated 1.6-liter four-cylinder arrives on our shores with only 121 horsepower and 113 pounds of torque. It's not very powerful, even for a 2,700-pound crossover. The Venue was struggling regularly with the slopes, the gasoline engine having started to let go as the six-speed car kept its undercarriage to keep the small four-cylinder in the fleshy part of the ultra-lean torque curve. The engine felt better on flat ground, however, and there was still enough low speed thrust at highway speeds to run passes with modest throttle control inputs and a bit of strategy.

However, I spent a lot of time refueling this engine. I'm not advocating that Hyundai sticks its 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinder under the hood of the Venue (although I've suggested a Venue N to any Hyundai employee who would listen to it), but it would take about 20 horses and a couple of pounds of torque. a big help.

Extra power would not help the din of the standard engine. This is not a nice powerhouse in any other Hyundai product, so no surprise, it sounds like a box fan powered by a lumberjack here. The addition of a CVT – especially coming from a company that my colleagues have already talked to with CVTs – worries me doubly about engine noise. And I would not be a Michigander if I did not report that the lack of all-wheel drive available on the site – which he has in common with the Kicks – could be a real gap for some.

Enter the place

These concerns are minor in the grand scheme. This early taste of the place proves that it's a sub-compact crossover SUV that deserves to be excited. Its elegant style and overall comfort should echo consumers. In the end, however, its appeal will be felt at the price that Hyundai's representatives have firmly refused to reveal for the moment. It is almost certain that the 2020 site will play above the $ 15,195 focus, but I can only speculate on that amount.

As it stands, the Australian specification site starts at $ 23,416 ($ 15,841 to date), while the top of the Elite lineup starts at $ 29,591 ($ 20,019 US). ). This type of conversion is an inexact science, but in this case, I would bet the numbers are in the $ 1,000 range of how Hyundai will set the price of the room in the United States.

If Hyundai sets the price, style and substance of the 2020 Venue, as well as the impressive 10-year warranty of the automaker, should be enough to convince customers of used cars to go to the new car showroom .