The New Hyundai Sonata

Since its introduction last year, the locally-assembled Hyundai Elantra has certainly made waves in the market with average monthly sales of 600 units – an impressive volume for a newcomer that doesn’t have a Proton or Perodua badge. To broaden the range, Oriental-Hyundai (OH) has now added a second locally-assembled model, the Hyundai Sonata 2.0L.

It is believed that the short-term product planning calls for at least three models to be assembled locally within a period of about 18 months and the latest rumour is that the third one could be the Matrix. This would be a logical choice since it sits on the same platform as the Elantra so it is easier from the production point of view.

According to OH Managing Director/CEO, Dato’ Robert Wong, the planning phase to assemble completely knocked-down (CKD) versions of the Sonata was even shorter than for Elantra, which already set a record of sorts by taking just 5 months from the signing of a technical agreement to roll-out of the first unit at the Oriental Assemblers plant in Johor.

“The program to assemble the 2002 CKD Sonata took just 3 months,” Dato’ Wong revealed. “This speed is due to the experience and skills of our assembly personnel in OA with the generous assistance of engineers from our principal, Hyundai Motors.”

A more aggressive stance
While Korean cars are much respected in the North American market, their status in the Malaysian market remains lower than that of Japanese cars. This isn’t so much to do with their engineering or quality (the latter having improved tremendously in Hyundais in the past few years) but more a case of consumer perception of a brand that has not been in the market in any significant numbers.

Though Korean makes started to be sold in the early 1990s – Hyumal was the first to do so – their penetration and presence was minimal in the past decade. Furthermore, the build quality was also not so good, lacking the refinement of Japanese models. As far as Hyundai is concerned, the present chairman made raising build quality a top priority when he took over a few years ago and in quality surveys in the US, Hyundai products have been rated as having the most significant improvements in quality over the past year or two.

Thus it is the right time to launch an upmarket model like the Sonata here. To give the new model an edge, it not only carries a very attractive pricetag of between RM118,774 – RM119,653 (with insurance) but also a host of impressive technological features as standard.

High-tech package
Most of the high-tech stuff is in the powertrain with the highlight being the ‘Shiftronic 2-1 Sports Mode’ transmission which offers automatic and manual shifting (sequential style). OH notes that this advanced type of transmission – more commonly found in luxury models these days – is not yet available in the competitors of the Sonata, meaning rivals like the Proton Perdana, Nissan Cefiro, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.

A further advanced feature of the transmission is the HIVEC management system which optimises shifting for smoother motoring and peak performance at all times. While a number of other automatic transmissions have adaptive transmission which adjusts to the owner’s style of driving, HIVEC has a fuzzy-logic program (also found in the Perdana) which mimics the human brain in making decisions based on a very wide range of conditions.

The power that flows through the transmission comes from a Sirius II 4-cylinder engine which has dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. Output from this engine, said to be further refined for the 2002 model, is 97.8 kW/133 bhp at 6000 rpm and 177.5 Nm of torque at a rather high 4500 rpm. Nevertheless, a look at the torque curve will show that there are two stages in which torque develops rapidly. This suggests that there should be fairly good response in the lower speed range, with the availability of adequate overtaking performance at higher cruising speeds.

As with the engine in the Elantra, OH has coined its own name for the engine which it calls ‘S-Tec’ (a follow-up to the Elantra’s B-Tec’). Following current trends, some effort has gone into ‘beautifying’ the engine bay by giving a nicely styled cover to the engine. This cover helps in isolating noise but the big contributor to lower noise and vibration levels comes from such features as a hydraulic engine mount and a balance shaft.

With the larger number of electronic systems in the Sonata, conventional wiring would be a nightmare. To simplify things and also increase reliability, the engineers have used a Controller Area Network (CAN) connection which employs a communications bus with multiplexing that unifies signals from all the different electronic systems around the car. The concept was first used in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class about ten years ago and is now becoming popular in higher-end models of many companies.

The Sonata’s independent suspension system is also fairly sophisticated, featuring double wishbones up front and a multi-link layout at the rear. Earlier generations of the Sonata had an adaptation of the layout from older Mitsubishi Galants (Hyundai had Mitsubishi Motors as a technical supporter for some time) but the latest generation is developed entirely in-house.

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