I recently completed an 801 mile round trip (SoCal to Bay Area) with two elderly passengers, one of whom has been in and out of the hospital for over a year due to a whole body infection that cost him his artificial knee. He had a "temporary spacer" (a fairly stiff construct holding the knee area roughly in shape so it can one day receive a new artificial knee) in place of the knee joint - making getting in/out of the car difficult: he can't flex that leg and it IS sore when he has to move. He needs assistance getting in/out of a wheelchair to get in/out of the car. Anyway, I drove him and his wife to the Bay Area to visit his daughter's family - and the three grandkids. (I'm "Uncle Mike" to the kids even though we're not the least bit related) They'd seen my 2009 Genesis 4.6/Tech before but had never taken a ride in it. They LOVED the ride, loved the car, and were impressed by the nav system and audio system. The trunk swallowed the wheelchair and most of the luggage; only a few loose items on the back seat. She managed to finish sewing the edge and "quilting" the center of a new blanket they'd made for the latest grandchild during the trip while riding in the back seat. I didn't hear any yelps from getting accidentally stabbed by the needle!
1/ Great on smooth roads ... not so great on roads in need of work.
Nobody complained about the ride; in fact, the passengers (used to floating
Buicks!) said the car rode nicely. There were some expansion-joint thumps that I think could have been handled better by the suspension but I come from a couple sports cars with semi-trailing arm rear suspension (for those that don't know about that type: they ALWAYS have stiff springs to minimize tire toe & camber changes over bounces) and a leaf-sprung Corolla (yes, it's that old - a 1978 rear
wheel drive (!) Corolla). So I'm used to firm suspensions that "pick up" road irregularities. I haven't experienced the disjointed/coupled problems folks have complained about with the 2009 cars - at least not yet - though I expect my car would ride lousy over certain road surfaces too. Fortunately we didn't encounter anything like that on I-5, I-405, and the other roads we used.
2/ Less tiring to drive than some other luxury cars due to great feel of the road and accurate tracking.
The original plan was to take their car (a several year old
Buick) and share driving duties between myself and her but I volunteered the Genesis since it had more space... and I thought it'd be a LOT nicer to drive. I did 100% of the driving - no problem, felt fine/refreshed when we arrived.
3/ GPS pronunciation can be horrible and the map data base is several years old.
The GPS guided us perfectly to their daughter's house - even though they'd made this trip many times previously so they knew the route. No complaints for this trip. My friend was enthralled with & impressed by the various "here's what's coming next" displays. They want one now. I do know of a few local streets missing from the database... and a couple-year-old local CostCo isn't in there either. I hope Hyundai steps up to the plate to update map data to "current" as of the car's model year/sale date at least. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a 2009 luxury car to have 2009 based nav data, let alone the folks with 2010 cars running with 2008 nav data.
4/ GPS ability to find a place to stay or a specific place to eat is OK.
We didn't need this function on the trip; they'd driven this trip many times previously and knew the good spots to eat. I've used it locally though and it works well enough. I just wish the address entry (using the DIS knob) was city-street-number instead of street-first... the voice recognition doesn't recognize my voice very well.
5/ No 12-V power in the cabin ... blown fuse ... taken care of yesterday by the dealer ... no hassle.
Does one fuse power both the cig lighter outlet and the accessory outlet in the arm rest? We didn't need/use either one. So far mine have worked normally.
6/ Decent gas mileage ... not great, but decent.
We got just over 26 MPG for the whole trip according to the dash display; I haven't actually calculated it yet. Normally I get just over 27 MPG on the SoCal to central Utah run when I visit my folks... so this trip MPG actually disappointed me... I was driving slower & smoother in deference to my passengers! 26-27 MPG is what my 4-cyl turbo sports cars get on the Utah run as well... so I think that's outstanding for a big 4-door V8 sedan.
7/ Automatic windshield wipers are screwy! No big deal.
Wipers? That implies rain! Doesn't happen much in SoCal so I've never used the auto wiper mode. After a year of ownership I recently/finally drove the Genesis in a light rain - just to try the auto wipers. Seemed to work okay. Usually if it might rain I drive one of the other cars. My folks have an Azera and they use the auto wipers... they "swipe" each time you start the car; I don't care for this and the extra wear that induces to the blades which is why I normally don't have the auto wipers turned ON for my Genesis. I wonder... does the Genesis even do that start-up swipe?!
8/ Cruise control easy to use and adjust.
"Old style" cruise control is all my 2009 has, no Adaptive CC. Works fine for me; it's what my other cars have as well so I'm used to it. I've never tried an Adaptive CC system... My CC doesn't have the +/-3 MPH issue some folks have reported. I use it frequently. Both sports cars have cruise and I use cruise on the highways. The Corolla was the only one without CC for a while... a few years ago I retrofitted a Mitsu Starion cruise control system to the Corolla so it'd have one too.
9/ XM radio is a disappointment. Not going to pay forward on this puppy.
One place where I do disagree with you - and I'm a cheap Scrooge when it comes to "subscription" services like XM, cable/sat TV (I don't have either of those), etc. Yes, the sound quality is poor relative to what the rest of the system is capable of but I use XM most of the time in the car. I don't have have much of a CD/DVD/DVD-A collection. XM beats the snot out of broadcast programming around here. On my short commute to/from work there are times when all 6 memory presets (in the other cars) are advertising at the same time! Way too many ads on broadcast these days. And, though the systems in my other cars were "high end" for their day, they really sound muddy compared to the Genesis. Since those are my daily drivers... I'm used to that muddy sound so XM "fits right in." I recently renewed mine (since my car is a 2009 I had a 1 year trial, not the stubby 3-month trial on 2010 models) and even added the "best of Sirius" package for the racing & football coverage - 3 years worth!
10/ The heat in the rear compartment kept coming on ... found out that was due to reaching back to retrieve stuff from the back which apparently bumped up the control back there.
Thankfully the temp control on the rear climate control panel stays put on my car... I don't have the "drifting" temp dial some folks have mentioned. Nor a teenager with chilly feet! My friend's wife liked being able to set temps herself; we actually had "3 zone" climate control on the trip. My dad likes riding in the Genesis back seat as well thanks to the generous leg room & multiple a/c vents.
11/ The trunk is small and we had to store stuff in the rear compartment (see #10 above).
This was my first trip where everything
didn't fit in the trunk. For my Utah runs, I'm often carrying tools (so I can help dad around his house/cars) and gifts... yet it all fit into the trunk. The wheelchair was the "straw that broke the camel's back" this time.
12/ On-ramp and lane-change acceleration is awesome!
Isn't it though? My Genesis will walk either of my sports cars (turbocharged engines too) with no effort whatsoever... getting about the same MPG overall too. Really shows how old my other cars are!
13/ Final word ... My Genny is Plenny and I love her!
I've been quite satisfied with mine as well. I sprung for the V8 model because:
a) I figure V8s will soon be very hard to find thanks to CAFE requirements so this might be my one and only chance to own one and
b) for the US spec 2009s, the V8s had a few extra frills in the interior relative to the V6 models, the LSD, etc. for only $2K extra - a "deal" in my opinion. I much preferred the V8 interior to the V6 version.
Everyone that has seen/ridden in my car is impressed/amazed by it. Dad says "let's take the Rolls." After the Bay Area trip, both passengers gushed about the car for weeks to me, my folks when they were in town, and to numerous others. I'd say they liked the car!
mike c.
