2009 Hyundai Sonata Review

Introduction

What’s New – The 2009 Sonata gets a host of worthwhile updates. Foremost among them is a new interior with a design that looks a lot like the Veracruz. The Sonata also gets powertrain and other refinement enhancements, as well as a navigation system for the first time.

Competes With: Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Chevrolet Malibu

What We Think – We like the new interior, and the refreshed exterior styling. We also think that the Sonata makes a fine car for those A-to-B trips in life. However, driving enthusiasts will want to look elsewhere, as the Sonata is notably short on fun.

Hyundai Sonata – 2009 Review: There’s a reason mid-size family sedans are often called the “bread and butter” of a car company’s lineup. Think about it: You may go to your different restaurants for your favorite fish or steak or pasta, but the one common denominator for all of them is...bread and butter. If you eat at more than one restaurant, you know that not all bread and butter is created equally, and that there’s a wide variety of different tastes that can come from the same basic ingredients.

The same is true for mid-size sedans, like the 2009 Hyundai Sonata. They’re not very exciting (like bread and butter), they’re a staple in the lineup and conspicuous by their absence (like bread and butter), and even though they have the same basic formulation, they vary widely in how they drive and perform (like, well, sort of like bread and butter, if you overextend this metaphor to the breaking point).

Hyundai has offered up the Sonata in its lineup for close to two decades now, and it has steadily refined the vehicle to the point where it’s a credible alternative to the mainstays of the whole bread-and-butter crowd: The Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Nissan Altima. For 2009, the company has remixed it once again, and even though it’s not all-new, it sports a new, much more luxurious interior, a refined exterior, a bit more power and many other enhancements that move the car a notch or two further upward on the desirability scale.