Greetings from a fellow SGV native 👋🏻 this was very soothing to watch. I cannot wait until I am able to get one of these for myself 🙏🏼 Congratulations.
I like the ambient lighting a lot. I have a 2021 Sonata and certain colors show up as very dim. However, I prefer the length of the lighting stretching across the entire dash and not just under the screens.
Yeah, I owned a 2021 Sonata too and liked that it stretched throughout the dash. It just wasn't super bright. The ambient lighting on the 2024 is nice, but is just isolated to under the screen, and is basically only visible to the driver and front passenger.
Great question but I think this comes down to your preferences. Do you 1) want leather & ventilated seats? 2) want more tech? (e.g. 360 camera, front parking sensors, full digital cluster, ambient lighting, 3) want a panoramic sunroof? If anything above is a dealbreaker to you, then get the Limited Hybrid. Personally some of these are dealbreakers to me, so I didn’t even bother shopping for the SEL and went straight for the Limited. $7K is not cheap for an upgrade, but if you think about it like this; $38k msrp for the Limited trim is a very good deal for what you get.
I just test drove both trim packages and for me, a few more bling lights and a potentially leaky sun roof wasn’t worth the extra $7K. I drove home the SEL model and dropped the extra $7k onto my down payment. That made the most sense to me but of course, your mileage may vary.
Considering this very very heavily as my next car. Coming from an 03 Elantra GT. I will be doing a lot of 500 mile trips on the regular so the huge range is a huge thing for me and im a huge fan of what Hyundai especially with styling plus the warranty is fantastic and im used to Hyundai. Saw a 24 sonata the other day and it’s gorgeous imo. Question tho. Can you manually put the car into an EV only mode? I know the car does it on its own sometimes. I assume not but. Also would you say it’s worth it? I saw you say in another comment saying it’s as quiet as a bmw which really does speak volumes since I’ll be doing 9 hour trips super often. I was considering the Elantra Hybrid Limited but i want something with a bit more room.
Unfortunately there is no way of putting the car into EV only mode. There is a “Green Zone” mode, which will maximize EV mode when near parks/schools, but that’s about it. It kinda makes sense that it doesn’t have this option since it would realistically only last you a few miles anyways before you completely drain the battery. I’ve noticed that the way the Hybrid system works is that if you’re constantly on the gas (like on the freeway), it will use the engine until your battery gets recharged to 75%, then kick into EV only mode until 50%. You can always let go of the gas pedal and start coasting a bit to force it into EV mode as well. I love the car, no regrets on buying it. There are some rattles that have developed over my 3 months of ownership now, but nothing too crazy. Regarding noise, I just recently rented a 2021 Toyota Camry and WOW it is SO LOUD in comparison. I will say, the Sonata does have a bit more wind noise, but overall noise levels are better in the Sonata. I can’t stand how loud the Camry is even at low speeds.
your video is great but I'd like to verify something. I have driven cars with LED headlights and some, not all, have a very sharp cutoff, vertically speaking. As I see you pull next to a fence the sonata appears to have this sharp cutoff between light and dark. the cutoff appears to occur right in the of the field of vision (vertically speaking). Is that correct? Does it bother anyone when driving at night? Does anyone know whether the 2025 Kia EX any different?
It’s surprisingly quiet. I can realistically only compare it to BMW (3 series & X1), as well as the Honda Accord (2020) (since these are the vehicles I often sit in), and I can say that it is as quiet as both BMWs. I recently sat in a friends accord to compare, and I can confirm that the Sonata is much quieter at hwy speeds. Pre-face lifted Sonata had a lot of wind noise on the hwy mainly due to its mirror design (you could hear wind buffeting kinda?), but the mirrors were redesigned on the facelift and we no longer hear it anymore. (ps: my gopro mic distorts audio.. maybe I should do an audio test sometime)
Not great, lots of issues that requires someone to really spend the time to fix. But it does work decently on the highway, enough to keep the car going without interventions for miles
Yeah the cluster design is definitely a downgrade.. I saw that in Korea these cars received an OTA update to include new cluster designs, but no idea if we’ll get the same update in the US.
looks so awesome. I may trade in my car after two more years for this one because I want to wait few years to see if ppl are having any issue with this new model Sonata hybrid.
Yep! One of those heavy duty suction cups with threading for the camera. The ones with the little button to pump the air out. Holds to the glass really well
Thanks! Are you referring to the giant device on the windshield? If so, that is a “comma three x”, which technically is a driver assist accessory rather than a dashcam. My main dashcam for the car (shown all the way on the top right of the video) is a Viofo A129 Plus Duo
Gotta love it! I hate the CVT/e-CVT drive, it’s so satisfying feeling & hearing real shifts. Even cooler when the car is in full EV mode and is shifting
I’ve noticed this depends heavily on speed. If you drive 70MPH or lower (even in stop in go), you can easily achieve 50MPG+. My highway drive yesterday averaging 70MPH for 41 miles was 59MPG w/ 3 total passengers in the car. However, if I drive at 75MPH or higher, my MPG drops to about 45. On city roads, I’m often able to achieve minimum 40mpg, occasionally reaching 80mpg depending on how good I am with the accelerator.
@@miguelsanchez6034 very happy! some creaks and rattles here and there, but otherwise, the car has been awesome. love the powertrain, technology, and how nice everything feels for being sub $40k.
@@jayh3342 honestly, I don't really see it making a huge impact on MPG. It all really depends on your driving style. The brake pedal will always apply regen braking first, and then blend in the actual brakes. I usually keep mine set to "Auto", this is particularly useful when in stop and go traffic, or on certain city roads. The unfortunate thing is that the car doesn't come to a complete stop when using regen braking, so even if you set the regen to max, it will stop braking at the end and you'll need to hit the brakes manually. I also tried leaving it on max regen, and driving with just the gas pedal, but it's not the same as other EVs or HEVs, even if you let go of the gas pedal slightly, it will brake hard, making "fake" one pedal driving impossible. I keep it on auto because, when it detects a car, it will start to slow down. If not, I can still manually adjust it to the max setting and have it brake as well. But yeah, no real world difference.
