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2003 Hyundai Elantra Gls Sedan 4-door 2.0l Perfect For Young Driver on 2040-cars

Year:2003 Mileage:150134
Location:

Austin, Texas, United States

Austin, Texas, United States

Offered for sale, a vehicle perfect for your teen driver! Oh, sure, I've cruised the high school parking lots and seen the late model Mustangs and the shiny new Jeep Patriots. Don't be that parent! Start with an inexpensive way to get from Point A to Point B, and when your child wrecks it (which, statistically, they will), no one is out a fortune. There are many life lessons to be learned here; a beater is the way to do it. And, as beaters go, this one is pretty dang nice.

I purchased this car in late 2002 in Las Vegas, and have been the only owner. Run the VIN through CarFax or your favorite VIN verification. The car has never had any body work, even though I have rear-ended a car, then gotten sandwiched in when a car hit me from behind on a rainy Oklahoma highway with no turn lane. I have pictures of that damage. Additionally, there is paint fading from the bumpers. One piece of trim is missing from the front driver's side of the... part of the car you sit in. Listen, I'm not a mechanic. I don't know the correct term.

Other than that, the only damage is normal wear-and-tear from ten years of use, including several dings made from cars in parking lots designed with spaces the exact width of the vehicles, with no apparent thought to the need for egress. Also, it's possible that I've backed into the occasional telephone pole, trash can, or zombie, but sometimes these things cannot be avoided.

There are two things to consider about this vehicle before you buy, both of which might be seen as drawbacks if you were purchasing a car for your parents or spouse, but please allow me to show you the benefits they might post for your student driver.

The air conditioner just went out. The fan works, and I can hear the compressor, so it's possible that it just needs a recharge. Then again, it might need $900 worth of work. So that's a gamble. However, if you choose not to get it fixed and are buying this car for your son, he might not mind arriving at destinations this summer in full-bore sweat. If you are getting it for your daughter, then sell her on the multi-tasking capabilities of both transporting herself AND experiencing a sauna without having to visit her local gym or sweat lodge (which, I hear, are all the rage among female teenagers). If this is the case, be sure to compliment her on her radiant complexion, and comment often about how much healthier she is now that she's sweating out all of those toxins.

The second thing is that reverse will randomly not work. There doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with the vehicle; it is likely an electrical problem. When reverse works, it's perfect. The way I have dealt with this is not to park front-end-in anywhere unless the parking space is angled so that I can coast out should the gear fail. The times I have forgotten this mandate and had reverse refuse to cooperate, though, I have had the privilege of meeting extremely helpful strangers, many of whom do not possess the overt musculature seemingly necessary to push a vehicle up a slight incline.

For your young adult child, this offers an opportunity to learn real-world social networking skills. Going back into the cupcake shop to ask if any burly men work in the strip mall, only to have three tiny women absolutely bust it to get you back out on the street again teaches one a lot about the kindness of humanity and about humility. And don't forget to pay it forward!

The power windows and locks all work fine, with no sluggishness, sticking, or weird motor noises. The doors and trunk all close normally, and the interior is still waterproof, even though you will notice some gouges in the lining made from a couple of times I locked my keys in the car. As a side note, without the help of a professional (burglar or locksmith) or a willingness to break a window, you cannot unlock the door with a foreign object from outside.

The rear seats lean forward to allow for storage of large items, and also for escaping in the event that one of your kid's smart aleck friends thinks it's a laugh to shut him or her into the trunk. The trunk also has a glow-in-the-dark safety latch for that, but that smart aleck will probably be sitting on the trunk, and this will surprise the tar out of him.

Everything else is really good. I bought the radio/CD player, so it's not the stock Hyundai one. The interior fabrics are all completely intact. Rather than extolling the virtues of this vehicle, I encourage you to come take a look at it. Test drive it. I think you'll agree that this will be a great set-the-bar-medium-low vehicle for your beloved offspring.

When I was 16, my grandparents gave me a canary yellow Chevy Caprice Classic. It was hideous, and it didn't need a key to start. But I drove it until I totaled it, over-correcting when my back tire went off of the pavement on the winding road where we lived. Although my dad made me drive the next day so I wouldn't lose my nerve, I didn't own another car for over a year. I had to buy my next car, and my expectations were pretty low. When I did get a car, I paid cash for it. Now, I'm an adult with no consumer debt, no car payments, and I'm pretty content in addition to being fiscally responsible. So let those other guys buy high-end show-off pieces for their kids. You know better. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, and you want your kid to be awesome!

If you buy this car, I guarantee* that will happen.

*I don't guarantee that. No one can. But it's 55%** more likely to happen.

**I just made that number up.

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Auto blog

Hyundai sells its 10,000,000th Elantra

Thu, 30 Oct 2014

There aren't many nameplates that have sold over 10 million units in the history of the automotive industry. In fact there have only been ten, and now Hyundai has joined the list for the first time with the Elantra.
Launched 24 years ago, the Elantra has far and away been Hyundai's top selling model. Now in its fifth generation, the Elantra is sold as a coupe, sedan and wagon, and under the Avante name in its home market. It's one of the top selling cars in the world, and Hyundai has earned the right to crow that it has sold its 10,000,000 of them globally. That means that, on average, Hyundai has sold more than 45 new Elantras every hour of every day of every year since its introduction in 1990.
Other models in the 10 Million Club include the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, VW Beetle and Golf, and the Ford Model T and F-Series. The latter might still be considered the most impressive, selling over 34 million units - the vast majority in the US - to be America's top-selling vehicle for over 30 years running.

Honda scores big in Automobile Advertising of the Year Awards [w/videos]

Wed, 15 Jan 2014

This year the Detroit Auto Show didn't just celebrate the automobile, it celebrated how we find out about the automobile, too. Partnering The One Club, this year introduced the 2014 One Show Automobile Advertising of the Year Award to Cobo Hall, celebrating winners in five different categories of advertising: broadcast television, online, interactive, experiential, and print/outdoor. Winners in those categories were judged by 50 creative directors and journalists, while a Public Choice category was chosen from among nearly 20,000 online votes.
Honda walked off with three of the six awards, its Hands spot taking Broadcast honors, its Sound of Honda getting the Online category and Illusions winning Public Choice. Hyundai made the grade in Interactive with Driveway Decision Maker, Fiat captured Print/Outdoor with its "Letters" ad, and Toyota's Tundra Endeavor Campaign spot and BMW's A Window into the Near Future were co-winners for Experiential.
You can watch all of the press release and winning videos below or check out all of the finalists, announced last month, for a refresher.

Hyundai mulling new small CUV under Tucson

Wed, 17 Jul 2013

Hyundai maintains it can barely build enough of its core models to satisfy North American consumers, but that doesn't mean it isn't keen to expand its offerings to capture developing segments of the market. According to Edmunds, one of those expanding niches could be the burgeoning subcompact crossover segment. The website quotes Hyundai North America president and CEO John Krafcik as acknowledging his company is "very under-represented" in crossovers, the market's hottest vehicle type.
With the discontinuation of the Veracruz, Hyundai is down to two CUV nameplates, Tucson (pictured) and Santa Fe, the latter of which covers two segments with a two-row Sport and long-wheelbase three-row model. And while Hyundai commands seven percent of the US sedan market, the company estimates it only has two percent of the truck segment.
And while Krafcik stops short of confirming a new model, he acknowledges "a new segment is emerging" underneath the Tucson and says, "I think it's something to look at." At the moment, the subcompact softroader segment remains small and somewhat amorphous, with tiny CUV offerings like the Buick Encore, Nissan Juke, and now-discontinued Suzuki SX4 illustrating that there are a lot of different ways to package and market such a vehicle.