2006 LX Sonata a great value

Author's Rating:

Pros: Price, better V6 engine than previous Sonatas, more features, smoother ride

Cons: Fuel MPG, less headspace with sunroof, spare tire is not full sized

The Bottom Line: 
Comparing it to the Camry LE and Accord SE, this car is right up there as far as features, affordability, and warranty

Author's Review
My wife and I were car shopping between several manufacturers and in the end the Hyundai Sonata won out. The competitors were the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Chevy Impala, Ford 500, and Chrysler 300. All I can say about the American dealers is that one didn't respond (the Chrysler) and the other two were trying to get me into the dealership without talking price first. The other 3 were willing to price it out over e-mail and then hash it out in person even more.

Ok, that out of the way. The first car we test drove was the Honda Accord SE. Nice features, rode a little rough, solid car, though. Next was the Toyota Camry. Now I own a 05 Camry and I do like the 07 Camry LE. My wife, however, did not. Mainly due to the inside feel and she said it felt too long in the front and made her uncomfortable. Ride was great, however.

Which leaves us to the Sonata LX. Wasn't sure on it at first, but since it was to model comparison, we gave it a whirl. It helped that the front end was MUCH better than previous models. Compared to the Accord and Camry, it was in between both as far as comfort of ride.

The interior has two choices of "grain" to speak. Woodgrain (with beige interior) or metal (with the gray interior). I'll be honest, we really don't like the woodgrain and we think it still looks bad. However, compared to the earlier model, they did remove it from the steering wheel, so it doesn't look as bad. The metal looks a lot better and isn't as obtrusive.

Comparing between the models on some features, the LX is the only one with leather standard and heated seats standard. The Camry has the power driver seat and the Honda did not. The Camry/Sonata also has a CD player that can also play MP3s and the Honda did not. Everything else seemed pretty similar. I can't remember if the Camry comes with a car alarm, but I know the Accord did not.

One thing to note on the sun roof. If you get the sunroof, be conscious of the headroom. It seems to chop it down quite a bit, so we stayed away from the sunroof. It felt a lot more roomier without the sunroof and we do have family members that are a little taller.

There was also another odd feature in the Sonata interior in that on the passenger side there is a small flip down lever of sorts. We found out that it was there to put a plastic bag for trash, which is a nice feature. 3 pounds max is what it put on there, so should be able to handle the everyday trash someone may throw around in the car.

Exterior, nice looking wheels at 17", seemed to have as much trunk space, and the overall body style is more comparable to the Accord than the Camry.

Driving the vehicle, it seemed to hit bumps a little hard in comparison to the Camry and less than the Accord. The one key thing to compare this 06 model vs. previous Sonatas is that the V6 seems to have more pep to it and seems to accelerate very fast. I did not notice anything exciting on the braking aspects, but my wife seemed to think it was a smoother breaking and better response to her driving.

On the LX, the heated seats are a nice touch as well. They warmed the seats up fairly quickly, say 20-30 seconds or so and maintained a lukewarm warmth, so not too hot or cold.

AC in Texas is VERY important and this feature did not disappoint. It is very responsive and in the LX, the auto feature is really nice. Considering I like it ice cold and my wife likes the warmer temps, so when we do drive in that car, we're figuring out what we can live with. This new feature (for us) is helping out a little bit as it's alternating the AC, but from what we've heard it does eat up the gas a little more.

Did not get a chance to use the heater all that much as it's getting warm down here, but we did use it once and it did seem to work fairly well. Of course this was a few minutes into driving the vehicle, so it's hard to gauge how it works on a cold start.

The stereo sounds pretty good and we've verified it does play MP3s. I will admit, however, that I'm not an audiophile and I don't blast my speakers out. The one quirk difference I could tell is that on the steering wheel with the radio controls, it seems like you can control the volume (in fact there is a mute button!) and mode (changing from CD, AM, FM1, FM2), but now way to change channels on a particular mode without having to reach over. In other words let's say you are on FM1 and you are on station 3, you have no way on the steering wheel from going to station 4 or 2 without manually reaching over to the console. This includes changing the CD track up or down.

The steering wheel cruise control is a little odd as well (I'm used to the Camry) and it was a little difficult to find how to turn it on without a lot of looking. It's a little lever behind the main cruise control buttons on the steering wheel. With that said, the cruise control did function quite well with smooth transitioning.

Automatic transmission comes with shiftronic, so it feels a little more sporty, but my biggest concern would be if someone hits the shift gear in advertently. This could potentially really mess up something at a bad time. Granted there would have to be some extenuating circumstances, but it seems a lot easier for a mishap to go from drive to reverse than it would be with a traditional automatic transmission on the floor where you generally have to push a button and then move the lever.

The visors flip down for both driver and passenger which is very nice. There are also lights on the roof that activate if you open the mirror, which is a nice feature, but the lights seem to be placed to far forward and seems to throw more shadows than light directly down by the mirror.

One other note, check the Hyundai owner manual and tint. With the LX and the auto dimming rear view mirror, it may negate that feature if you tint the windows and the manual does not recommend tint anyway since you do have the solar control windows. They don't give you tint, but they do help keep out the UV from the sun.

The warranty is also very, very good. 10 year-100,000 mile power train, 5 year-60,000 mile bumper-to-bumper, and lastly 5 year unlimited mile roadside assistance!! I called my insurance company and they were going to put a 7 year roadside assistance to my policy, but told them not to since I'm already getting 5 years for free!

Lastly, MPG is a little worse than I would have expected. Of course depending on how you drive, how you maintain, etc, will ultimately determine the MPG. Sticker was 20 MPG in the city and 30 on the highway. Currently we are seeing around 17-19 MPG, but admittedly my wife is a little bit of a leadfoot and we're using the auto AC function which we've heard uses more gas as well.