Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review


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Please be aware , this might going to be a boring long thread, so please proceed at your own risk and don’t complain that this falls in your mirror blind spot.

Profiling myself

I am Charul Shukla from Delhi, a big car enthusiast from my childhood, and this also the biggest irony of my life, hit an bad accident 10 years back on my first day behind the steering and it left such a deep scar that not able to touch it for next 10 years.

Now after 11 long years I have decided to throw my fear into dustbin and I think it’s time to again back on road with four wheels.

Little more about me, I have already posted in my intro there here (Medium height, Fair, Handsome Driver with reputed cast of vehicle)


Buying Process and thoughts

As always happen in India, for a decision like buying a car (old or new does not matter), you always have too many well-wishers each claiming his/her own expertise in automotive world, and pushing you to buy their favorite cars based on their own experience with that car, even if they never driven it and only travelled in back seat as a company given cab ()

So on a good sunny day (mostly are nowadays in north), I sat down and decided few things as follows along with their reasons according to me.


Budget:
Maximum 1.70 Lakh on vehicle + max 50 K to accessorize my ride

Fuel:
Only and only petrol (CNG later if I feel the need)

Vehicle:
Pre Owned – Due to the budget and since I am going to learn driving so don't want to spoil a new tranny with mad clutch pressing

I am a Hunter

So being a IT guy, it makes sense for me to see as many as possible options in pre-owned car market available online, so I decided to spend 40 hours to this, by further splitting them in 4 hours per day for next 10 days (3 hours of searching + cataloguing in excel sheet and 1 hour for emailing and calling all prospective sellers).


To start with I start surfing classifieds on the following portals:

  • Gaadi.com
  • Cartrade.com
  • Cardekho.com
  • Zigwheels
  • Olx
  • Sulekha
  • Quikr
  • Carwale.com

Within three days I am able to select couple of hatchbacks and sedans, all of them are 2003-2006 modal due to budget and most of them are manual transmission apart from few automatic variants of old accord and santro AT, so I have mailed across everyone for next 8 days, talked to them on phone and went on few test drivers with my cousin (trust his opinion) and a mechanic (Family friend, trustworthy person). Based on test drives and seeing the cars in real (22 to be exact), I am quite disappointed due to the following reasons:


  1. Most of the car owners don’t have complete service records, or car is not always services by ASS
  2. Some also don’t have clear history of car insurance and how many claims has been taken (if any), sounds fishy to me.
  3. 90% of the owners are still not aware of actual working of mechanical parts such as crank shaft even after driving the car for like 8+ years and if some part has been replaced they trusted the opinion of ASS + Service guys , rather than knowing the actual problem with the vehicle
  4. 95% of the vehicle are dirty, looks like they have been use to carry some goods rather than human, some of major turn off are:

    • At least 5 KG of dust inside the cabin and double in engine bay and to be honest I did not even bother to check the boot.
    • Food leftover, shredded paper, and even upto toothpaste I have seen inside the cabin.
    • Pathetic quality of paint, due to dear washing wala bhaiya comes every morning and take revenge from the vehicle for his frustrated sexual life. Car detailing sounds like NASA call sign for most of the sellers. (AB JI SAAF TOH ROJ HI HOTI HAI).
    • Clear negligence for tyre not being maintained, either over or under inflation as a habit causing damage to rim most of the times.
    • Beautifying the vehicle using every possible sticker, idols, cheap Chinese stuff, bumper guards and god knows what all ( WAHE GURU KI KRIPA TYPE), I am sure if some guys from I.DE.A Institute see all this stuff he will have a cardiac stroke in less than 3 seconds.
  5. While I do agree that some of the vehicle are good in mechanicals, but points mentioned above make me stay away from them.

On 9th day I came across a ad, which is put up by a dealer (MODS—CAN I GIVE NAME), it was 2003 HYUNDAI SONATA 2.7 V6 AUTOMATIC and he is expecting 1.75 for the same. Since it’s near my office so I decided to go and check the vehicle in next possible hour.


( To be Continued……)
 
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Re: Old Love refuel – Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review –

Welcome to TAI. Hope your car hunting gave you a desired good ride.

Keep posting the rest of the story
 
Thread Starter #3
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Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

Next Sunrise

Called up my cousin in morning, if he can take the leave and also called up the mechanic uncle as well as the dealer. As mutually decided, we reached the dealer place around 10:30 in morning and he has the car parked outside his premises. The primary specs of the vehicle are as follows:


Make: Hyundai
Model: Sonata
Year: 2003
Engine: V6 2.7 Litre
Transmission: Automatic
Color: Metallic Blue
Expected Price: 1.75 Lakh
Mileage: 6-8 in city / 8-9 on highway as claimed by dealer

KM's Done 65817

As on paper specs looks impressive and also the fact this is one car I always like due to its on road presence and sheer comfort it offers, so now it’s time to check the papers and vehicle in question. To my surprise, this guy offers me these set of papers


  • RTO tax receipt: (Photocopy / He also holds the original in his records)
  • Original invoice ( So I Check Chassis Number against the original invoice)
  • Finance NOC ( Original)
  • PUC (Pollution under control) certificate
  • All the NCB certificates issued so far, it comes to me as a respite that in 10 year not even a single claim has been process ( later verified by insurance company also)
  • All the original manuals from HYUNDAI and supported documents comes with car at time of purchasing as such as coupons for free services
  • Complete service record of the vehicle from MGF HYUNDAI (with all invoices and receipts), and surprisingly he also has old parts still, which were replaced in earlier services by MGF

Now this seems really impressive set of documentation to hold, if you selling a pre owned vehicle. By looking at all the documents I come to know that car is registered under the company name (LLYOD INDUSTRIES, DELHI), and I was told that its one of the director car (always chauffer driven) and taken care like a baby. This part also I have verified by personally visiting their office and Mr. Director is humble enough to meet me for 13 minutes and answer all my queries and also assured his support, if there is any issue later on.

Now it’s time to have a test drive, so we started from north Delhi and I told dealer that 2-3 KMs is not enough for me, so we went up to NOIDA using DND. In such a long drive we were able to drive car in all possible speeds and check all functions, and to my surprise not even a single button I have found which is not working apart from one fused bulk on tail (does not even matter).

So after a comprehensive drive, we went to MGF (have a friend there) and ask the guys to scan the car thoroughly and inform me if they find anything. These are set of test they have done:


  1. Engine compression Test
  2. All oils level check
  3. Transmission analysis
  4. Check all gauges against any tempering
  5. Suspension Check
  6. Brakes / Fuel lines / Electrical Wiring for any modification/ tempering OR wear & tear
  7. Alignment
  8. Paint Analysis using paint gauge
  9. Tyres profiling
  10. Battery
  11. Under body condition for rust and any damage from water

This all took 5 hours and everyone can see smile on my face when I was informed in written by MGF, that everything is okay and every single piece in this car is either original or genuine Hyundai parts replaced by MGF only on earlier services ( cross verified against service records and part number).

One out from HASS, I was pretty sure in my mind that this is what I want and I have to get this vehicle, the only thing remain in question is bargaining with the dealer for the price (although I am ready to pay what he is asking), but again being from old Delhi, if I buy this without bargaining, my god will kill me.

While some people might argue why this car, why not a hatchback or some sedan, but I personally don’t like any hatchbacks in India, as companies selling them strip them of all goodies to keep cost low, not even airbags in most, secondly a hatchback is more like you owning a rickshaw in Chandni Chowk and cursing yourself in traffic jam for so many things (legs space) to me.

So we went back to dealer place and I told him let’s have a discussion on the price. To my surprise he said that he is not a party in any discussion of this sort. He will charge me for his brokerage and I can directly negotiate with LLYOD people.

So he called up the owner and arranged a conference call, after 5 minutes of negotiations, the owner asked me, look son, how much you can pay in next 15 minutes is what I am asking since you have met me already and few thousand bucks does not matter for me.

Voila, never had such a negotiations with any and I took my chance and told I can pay 1.5 Lakh, and he said okay I have no issues and deal is done.

So here I am now, OWNER of HYUNDAI SONATA 2.7 V6 AUTOMATIC, I was told that I need to pay via demand draft only drawing in favor of company and dealer using a different cheque for his brokerage. This sound very transparent to me
 
Thread Starter #4
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Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

Now its time to check some specs, i am putting them here for one main reason, that i have never seen a old sonata ownership thread and this might be useful to other people as well.

So here is technical specification of my just bought car:
Specs.jpg

And as everyone already know this car do comes with all goodies loaded, so here is a list of goodies in this ride

features.jpg
 
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Re: Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

All pretty good. [clap] But where are the pictures ?[confused]
 
Thread Starter #6
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Re: Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

As rightly said by anshuman also, its time for some pics, so here they all

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

4.jpg

5.jpg

6.jpg

7.jpg

8.jpg

9.jpg
 
Thread Starter #7
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Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

Lazy Saturday morning, so i thought lets give my ride a first wash, no detailing, no polishing, no paint correction, just simple plain wash using car wash shampoo and some MF gloves.

20130525_105138.jpg

20130525_105154.jpg

20130525_105225.jpg

20130525_105227.jpg

20130525_105241.jpg

20130525_105302.jpg

20130525_105337.jpg
 
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Re: Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

Good ride. Its a beautiful car only negative point it is a fuel guzzler. Any plans of making it CNG ?

Are the two sets of pics taken few days apart?

1. The Hyundai badge was missing in first set, and Sonata missing from second set.
2. Has the grill been changed, as I remember in 2003 it came with 'H' logo on the grill.

Cheers,
Anshuman
 
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Re: Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

The v6 models of the Sonata came with this type of grills,without any hyundai logo in them.
 
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Hi,
Its great to get a big car in just 1.5 Lakhs. And that too the Owner of the Vehicle is perfect in his words while negotiating. Wishes to clock many more miles without any issues.
 
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Re: Old Love Refuel: Hyundai Sonata V6 Automatic – Initial Ownership Review

Hi we are waiting for more details and new pictures and what is your overall experience with sonata.
 

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