2017 Hyundai Veloster: What you get when a car company doesn't bother trying for 6 years+ Clever, efficient DCT
+ It stops and turns reasonably
- Lacklustre motor
- Uncomfortable
- Missing interior details
- Poor ESC/ABS calibration
You can imagine the circumstances: Upon arriving at 20:00 on a Sunday night in the rosy city of Detroit, Michigan, you are forced to choose a rental car that's left over. You've driven 3h to get to your airport, flown another 2h, and have another hour of driving to get your hotel.
I wanted a Ford Focus but weirdly, that was locked. The rest were dreary Nissans and unloved SUVs from various other Hyundai/Kia/FCA makes. Traveller's advice: Don't bother renting from National. I had to, because you know, company policy.
"This one's got a dual-clutch, I can't find any car with seat heating, I've been searching for 10min. This has the most flavour of the lot, I'm going." So thus began 2 weeks and 1600km with the base Hyundai Veloster.
At first glance, things seem okay. Aside from a missing CD player and inability to configure the base board computer, the infotainment system proved easy to use, reminiscent of a Samsung tablet. The Veloster has brakes, suspension, and reasonable features for its 20 k$ starting price (with DCT). So as a transport device, you could do worse.
I wish I could write another paragraph on its virtues, but after multiple hours behind the wheel, through snow, wind, and the 401.....I just can't.
Most modern cars manage to be comfortable for long drives. This isn't. The seats, with their chunky lateral support, look sporty, but there is a lack of back support, and no adjustable lumbar. So after about an hour, my back starts to complain- even on the drive from the airport to Auburn Hills Michigan. The seats also use a nasty "ratchet" type lever for backrest angle, so I could never fine-tune, or get the back angle just right. No amount of shifting or tweaking improved things. Plus, when you fold the driver seat to put something in backseat, it doesn't return to its previous position.
Other details inside irritate. The heater controls are hard to use with gloves- turn the fan speed, you'll probably also turn the temperature "outer" dial. The touchscreen doesn't work with gloves, and you can't use the knob as a secondary like you would on say, a VW Golf. The blue backlighting is hard on the eyes at night, there's no clock in the centre display, nor instant consumption, the single USB part barely maintained my phone charged, and it kept prompting my phone to use Android Auto which was infuriating because I had to keep clicking "no" on my phone. The base stereo sounds terrible. And there is no rear visibility. Form over function, again.
The drive? Well, the DCT is reasonably well-sorted, with smooth quick shifts. It tends to hurry too quickly into a higher gear, so merging means unnecessary gear changes, but otherwise it's a decent unit that responds quickly in auto or manual mode. The gated shifter is stupid and clunky though.
Too bad its attached to a mediocre powerplant. The 1,6 litre, direct-injection 4 cyl. petrol supposedly makes 140PS, but the 167 Nm of torque waits until nearly 5k revs to arrive. Making things worse, it's rather coarse above 3k and makes unpleasant sounds as the revs build. It struggles to hold a standard autoroute/freeway cruise of 130km/h without changing down to 5th or 4th, and that's in hockey-rink flat Southern ON and Michigan. In certain secteurs of the 401 and the 94 (Michigan), doing 140-150km/h was taxing. Long distance cruiser, this is not. Consumption was as low as 6,6 l/100km if you keep it in the suburbs, but above 120km/h this engine gets thirsty, as high as 8 l/100km on E10 fuel.
Other dynamic qualities fall short. The steering builds weight unnaturally, and there's very little feel. The brakes grab when cold. The chassis quivers (!) over the worst frost-heaves, and the suspension clomps over bumps too much, even after I let some air out of the tires. Remember the first generation of run-flat tires? This car feels like it wears them. The ESC intervention threshold is extremely aggressive and poorly calibrated- sounds and feels like a 2004 cheese grater. And the heater takes forever to generate heat, even when it's above 0°. This car is nearly undriveable with all-season tires in light snow.
You get the sense that very little effort has gone into engineering and refining the Veloster. It reminds me of a Korean appliance. There's no joy that comes from the Veloster, the irritations build over time, and an underwhelming motor makes simple tasks like "cruising" quite hard. For 20k $, there's a whole laundry list of better choices. I was happy to leave it parked while in Toronto.
Not since the Euro-spec, 72 PS Fiat 500 have I driven something so unpleasant. Perhaps I will select a Nissan blob next time. In the meantime, I wouldn't shed a tear if this got knicked at some point on the mean streets of Detroit.
