Road Test: Hyundai Excel (1986)

[@mdb831]

My Grandfather had one of these babies. He loved it. He retired in 1986 and bought 1 of these brand new. He took good care of it. Never drove over 75 (I think 70 was top speed tbh lol), never shifted gears late, changed the oil 4 times a year because Hyundai recommended 3 months or 3000 miles, and he changed the manual transmission fluid every 12 months. That car served him 10 years and a neighbor of his for 10 more.

[@theKevronHarris]

Hyundai has come a long way.

[@TimSaundersC4]

I had an '88 Hyundai Excel that I bought for $300 in 1998 when I was 18. It was my winter car during the Canadian winter months and a field car in the summer. I had so many good times in this little car. It was actually pretty good off-road with my snow tires, LOL. It was so simple, almost like driving a go-kart. Back then, it felt like you could put 10 bucks in the gas tank and drive all day.

[@bluemoondiadochi]

haha there is still one of those in my street back home in Croatia, a local disabled person has it! i looked it up cause it was so obscure, and frankly, its a nice car. perhaps i should make an offer to the old guy.

[@TVMuseum]

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[@kippaseo8027]

Also referred to as " the Korean built Yugo" this was a crude little pile of rolling garbage even at the time. I was a little kid in the 1980s when South Korea started bombing our docks with these underpowered and unreliable little turd bombs. Mitsubishi was forced to import a version of the Hyundai Excel named Precis imported by Mitsubishi. Did you get that they didn't want to call it a Mitsubishi Precis so like Cadillac did with the Cimarron Mitsubishi always referred to the car even with its exterior badging as Precis imported by Mitsubishi. I think Consumer Reports said it perfectly when they described the Hyundai Excel as being the cheapest car on the road but in the worst sense of the word. My mom actually bought a brand new 1988 Precis LS which was marketed as the upgraded version of the Excel. It had every available option at the time excluding the automatic. It had thick padded color keyed velor seats, ac, a flip up sunroof, full color keyed exterior bumpers and molding, and a top of the line Panasonic stereo with tape and equalizer. My mom only kept the car about 9 months before Mitsubishi was forced to buy the car back under Florida's lemon law. The car from the beginning chronically overheated, two AC compressors, a slipping clutch, and two blown engines with blown head gaskets. This all happened within 9 months and less than 8K miles. Everything was repaired and replaced under warranty but after the second time the head gasket blew the service manager at the Hyundai dealership reprimanded my mom for trying to drive at highway speeds with the air conditioning on ( yes they told her not to drive over 55 mph while running the AC because it caused the engine to strain too much) she decided it was a good idea to contact an attorney and make a visit to the local Toyota dealership. These were such horrible cars and proof of that is that I work as a licensed appraiser and wholesaler so I scan tens of thousands of listings a month and I have not seen one of these on the road or on paper literally in the past 20 years. Literally the last one I saw was back in 2002 when I traveled to San Diego for the first time and saw one parked at the very top of a huge hill. I couldn't help but Wonder how the fuck they got it to the top of the hill? In the 10th grade we had a trio of 94 Hyundai Excel GLs that were on loan to our school from the local Hyundai dealership. Hyundai had just replaced the car with the dramatically improved accent and I think they thought that if they loaned those three to my high school after adding tint and plastic body kits it would somehow make us want our parents to buy us one. To this day I have never driven a car with an automatic transmission that literally rolled backwards when you took your foot off the brake. The cars were so underpowered that we had to borrow the instructors 91 Sable wagon in order to do our Highway merging tests. The maximum speed of these brand new little cars was about 76 mph and God help you if there was even the slightest incline. Luckily here in Miami Beach we don't have a lot of mountainous Terrain but unfortunately we did have some pretty steep I-95 on ramps. With three teenagers and one instructor weighing the little piece of shit down we were not able to get the car up to speed while using the air conditioner at the same time. Turning it on while the car was moving was literally like pulling up on the parking brake in fact we called it the first electronic e-brake. By the end of the semester two of the three cars had the check engine lights on and two had to be retired for chronically overheating so I guess even 7 years after my mom's Hyundai never was able to correct the problem so they just dumped it then replaced it. I think there would have been more Hyundai Accents sold if Hyundai hadn't have tarnished their reputation so much.

[@jyy9624]

That was epic

[@shakeAbooty88]

Thanks for that entertaining information!

[@landyachtfan79]

Yes, it Excelled at offering a lot of standard equipment & a VERY modern looking interior for a VERY low price, but beyond that, it just Excelled at being a colossal piece of crap!!!!