EXBMWGUY
Been here awhile...
It’s been 25,000 miles since my last review, so I thought it might make sense to address some of the concern areas: excessive oil consumption and DIS navigation functionality, as well as worries over performance deterioration due to carbon build-up from Direct Injection. For some people here, there are other issues that are related to design, omission of certain features, and characteristics that are inherent to the purpose of this relatively large, 4,300-lb, five-passenger touring sedan. I won’t lament the lack of features more customary on $60-80,000 cars, because I didn’t pay that much for this one. And “touring sedan, I believe, is exactly what it is, and nothing more. But I’ll start with the general stuff first, for those who have limited knowledge or experience with the Genesis and, in particular, the 2012 Genesis R-Spec.
General Discussion
My car is black (remember, black is beautiful) and is bone stock except for winged badging on the trunk, wheels and steering wheel, which is the funky stick-over variety. This car begs for a little rumble from the exhaust, but that will have to wait until there are some proven drone-free choices out there. As EXBMW GUY, I will use a stock 2011 535ix as my benchmark for several highly subjective comparisons.
Reliability: Superior to anything I have driven in the last 7-10 years. Problems have been few and minor inconveniences (1) driver’s seat cushion wrinkled and stretched – replaced by the dealer under warranty (2) reversed rear middle seat belt female buckle (3) brain-numbing false front parking sensor “chirp” that was fixed by the dealer but is still intermittent.
On the Road: All my comments relate to street vs. track use, albeit my frequent spirited driving style. This car has very stable, well-controlled road manners despite the car’s size and its firm suspension settings. It has very little body roll, and inspires enough confidence to encourage pushing the limits. Some people (especially folks who don’t own an R-Spec and drive it every day) will argue it has a harsh ride. I disagree with that assessment 99%of the time, but I do remember one road surface once that would have caused 12 nuns in a school bus to sound like a college hockey team. Overall, a subjective 8/10. I’m sure tires make a difference, but I’m not an expert on tires for this particular size, as my experience is limited to the 245-45/19 OEM A/S ContiPro and my Dunlop WinterSports 3D in which get swapped back and forth on the OEM R-Spec wheels. Each of these tires is middle-of-the-road mediocre when it comes to all-season or winter performance. The winter tires, in particular are not ideal in this size for the R-Spec. Someday, I may go to dedicated 18” rims and taller sidewalls on a winter tire. I will also go with difference all-season rubber when these wear out.
The R-Spec wheels are superb, and have taken a beating from Jurassic-sized potholes multiple times over two pothole seasons here in the cloudy north. For their ability to resist breaking or bending, I would rank them above high-end German and Japanese wheels with similar low-profile tires. Brakes are a high point for this car: a 10/10. Brake feel is the equal to my former current-generation 5-Series and better than any other car I’ve ever owned. There is no brake fade in street use, and absolutely no brake dust – none! Steering is an 8/10; the 5-Series is a 9/10, for reference. My car pulled slightly to the right when new, but was corrected with an alignment under warranty.
Last but not least – acceleration continues to be a high point for this car. I have never been able to find a graph of the torque output at RPM, but it drives like a very flat torque curve from about 1,600 to 6,000. And no, I won’t go into the torque vs. horsepower debate here. Big limiting factors are tires and the nanny systems which only hint at the true straight-line performance potential of the R-Spec. To put it into perspective, the acceleration of this big sedan is equal to or better than some pretty legendary muscle cars that some of us old guys have owned or driven over the years. For example: 1969 Mustang Mach 1 SCJ and 1970 Boss 429; any year Plymouth Roadrunner including hemi-equipped; any year Pontiac GTO; Olds 442; and every Corvette prior to the 1990 ZR-1.
The 8-speed transmission has been a source of criticism here, but only very selectively from me. Left in D, it is every bit as good as the 8-speed ZFs going into premium cars (but left in “normal” or comfort mode). When I say just as good, I mean it knows exactly what gear to be in and never stumbles looking for a gear or lurches once it finds one. I regularly experience downshifts from 8th to 3rd without a hint of hesitation, only a rush. In fact, I underestimated the car’s acceleration a couple of times by nearly entering somebody else’s trunk during a land-change maneuver. However, I have been so frustrated with the manual mode that I won’t even try to use it anymore. I take that back . . . going down a mountain road I have shifted it into 5th or 6th for three or four-mile descents. But forget manual mode for anything remotely resembling performance driving. The morgue-like shifts and lack of shift paddles belong on a Geo Metro, not anything with this much potential.
After 30,000 miles, I still like the appearance and functionality of the interior of this car given its price point. Two exceptions are the clock, which looks like it came from the dollar store, and the lack of usable storage space inside the car. Otherwise, they have done a great job making this a very pleasant environment to spend many hours at a time.
The seats – another area of criticism – have been very comfortable given the lack of side bolstering. The passenger seat has correctly received death-threats for its lack of lumbar and cooling. For my wife and me, this has not been an issue since neither one of us has even tried the cooling feature on the driver’s side. She has never complained about the lack of lumbar on the passenger side, and the only time I ever sit there is when I’m sleeping and she’s driving.
The smart-cruise is generally pleasant to use, except under certain conditions that have happened to me lately. Case in point: 4-lane divided highway, driving in left lane in windy conditions, truck trailer swaying left as I was approaching to pass on the left = radar cruise causes the car to brake hard, and the driver in back of me using sign language because he sees my brake lights but still nearly runs into me because he can’t figure out why I don’t just pass the truck! In defense of Hyundai, the system did exactly what it was designed to do and, I believe, works as well as any system sold by any other manufacturer. The lane departure warning system works as well as other brands and, in fact, is better than my last benchmark 5-Series LDWS. Lack of blind-spot warning is an irritation for me, but I have given up complaining about it. Electronics in this car are plagued by mediocre software design with iPod integration and controls and some of the issues with surround sound and defective heads on the Lexicon. Hyundai apparently fails to understand that although $3,000 head replacements under warranty may be easy for them to charge back to Harmon Kardon, customers want, and deserve, more proactive and progressive technology improvements done in real time. After all, for some people, warranties do end eventually. Of course, we will never know the real truth about what engineers do behind closed doors, especially when there our outside suppliers involved like H-K. I am still with the original head unit, software and navigation map version, which I do not plan on changing before I sell the car.
Gas mileage has been stellar. The worst tank has been 15.1 mpg; the best tank 27.2. Overall, since I began measuring mileage in January this year using gas receipts and a calculator, I have averaged 22.3 with a 60/40 mix of city and highway driving. Mind you, this is the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area, not Chicago, NY/NJ, Atlanta, Houston or Atlanta where gridlock congestion will drive those figures down. Yes, I am aware there are some really great web-based tools for this purpose – I just haven’t gotten around to using them.
Navigation: I love the idea of integrated car navigation. I love it better when it works well. To be fair, where we live, the Hyundai navigation has not always performed poorly. However for reference, we recently returned from a trip to Florida where we used the navigation system a lot. Correction: navigation systems, plural. Starting our trip, we found our first day’s route via Hyundai navigation invited us to drive 925 miles vs. Google encouraged us to go 840 miles to the same destination. Because it was as humorous as it was ridiculous, we kept the Genny’s navigation system on, but muted, while we used Google maps for iPhone, which integrated quite well with voice commands coming from the phone through the car’s audio system. Through parts of Missouri, where we had ignored the Hyundai’s instructions, it continued to try to re-route us up to Chicago, adding more than two hours to our trip time, even though there were obvious better choices involving great roads that would not require us to essentially backtrack.
We had a similar situation near Atlanta. Lots of laughs and sneers. Navigation: 2/10.
Oil Consumption: I have read with a certain amount of frustration and anxiety, the excessive oil consumption experiences of others on this forum. Similarly, in the last year, I have fretted a bit about DI carbon buildup on the top sides of intake valves, the effects of oil volatility and blow-by, sot in general, and the effect of all of this on maintenance, performance, and engine life in general. I have never used anything except Top Tier fuel in the car, for which I am thankful to have experienced no fuel-related issues. In addition, I have used one bottle of Techron Concentrated Fuel System cleaner at about the same interval as my oil changes. The Techron practice I started long before buying the R-Spec, so that decision has nothing to do with the fact that it appears to be the same stuff Hyundai recommends as labeled under their own name. Dumb luck, but still a good decision, I believe.
I also changed my 7,500-mile oil change regimen from Mobil 1 to an equal interval of Pennzoil Ultra, which currently seems to have superior performance across most of the technical performance standards, including low volatility, wear protection, and high detergent action. While Pennzoil has some good marketing going on here, this seems to be backed up by Blackstone testing, as well as a ton of data provided by Corvette owners. And, if it means anything, the Pennzoil Ultra European spec 0W-40 is the only oil currently approved by Ferrari. Has it worked? So far, better than Mobil 1, I believe. I wanted some real-world evidence that would come under somewhat adverse conditions. The timing was perfect. When we left on our 4,000 road trip recently, my car had 3,500 miles since its last oil change and it showed squarely between the two marks on the dipstick. Intentionally, I didn’t change it before our trip or top it off, but intended to keep a very close eye on it, knowing we would be driving in 12+ hour stretches at 65-80 mph. At the end of our first day – Minneapolis to Nashville – the dipstick showed halfway between the middle and the lower mark. I waited until we had made it to Florida the next day – another 820 miles – and added a quart of Ultra. Fast forward, 1,680 more miles, it was down to exactly where it was when we started. So there was the evidence: 7,500 miles, almost equally divided between city/short trip and long stretches of 100% highway driving = 1 quart consumed.
Thinking this is great, I was also anticipating how clean and sludge-free the engine must be after that many miles. It had been running absolutely great, so when I had a long-open stretch of onramp and open freeway the day after we got home, I put it to the floor, and wow, she just absolutely flew! Cool, until I checked the rearview mirror and saw this immense puff of black smoke come out the back of the car! Guess it takes more than a 4,000 mile road trip to clean out this car. I haven’t unraveled the DI/carbon/sot issue in my head yet, but I hardly think about it anymore.
Final Impressions:
After 30,000 miles, I would buy this car again. It is as tight and rattle/squeak-free as the day I took it home. It fits my needs for a large, safe, high-performance four-door sedan that seats five, runs equally well on regular gas, and is affordable, easy to own and drama-free.
I waste no time wishing this will be anything that it’s not at the price I paid for it. It turns heads – especially mine – just like in the beginning. I clearly remember one day in a downtown parking ramp seeing a new black 5-Series parked next to my black R-Spec. Holy God that 5-Series is beautiful. Graceful, athletic, lean, almost feminine in its beauty. A Natalie Portman. And the Genny – more serious, more muscular looking, in a refined way. Daniel Craig. Overall, an 8.5/10 for me.
General Discussion
My car is black (remember, black is beautiful) and is bone stock except for winged badging on the trunk, wheels and steering wheel, which is the funky stick-over variety. This car begs for a little rumble from the exhaust, but that will have to wait until there are some proven drone-free choices out there. As EXBMW GUY, I will use a stock 2011 535ix as my benchmark for several highly subjective comparisons.
Reliability: Superior to anything I have driven in the last 7-10 years. Problems have been few and minor inconveniences (1) driver’s seat cushion wrinkled and stretched – replaced by the dealer under warranty (2) reversed rear middle seat belt female buckle (3) brain-numbing false front parking sensor “chirp” that was fixed by the dealer but is still intermittent.
On the Road: All my comments relate to street vs. track use, albeit my frequent spirited driving style. This car has very stable, well-controlled road manners despite the car’s size and its firm suspension settings. It has very little body roll, and inspires enough confidence to encourage pushing the limits. Some people (especially folks who don’t own an R-Spec and drive it every day) will argue it has a harsh ride. I disagree with that assessment 99%of the time, but I do remember one road surface once that would have caused 12 nuns in a school bus to sound like a college hockey team. Overall, a subjective 8/10. I’m sure tires make a difference, but I’m not an expert on tires for this particular size, as my experience is limited to the 245-45/19 OEM A/S ContiPro and my Dunlop WinterSports 3D in which get swapped back and forth on the OEM R-Spec wheels. Each of these tires is middle-of-the-road mediocre when it comes to all-season or winter performance. The winter tires, in particular are not ideal in this size for the R-Spec. Someday, I may go to dedicated 18” rims and taller sidewalls on a winter tire. I will also go with difference all-season rubber when these wear out.
The R-Spec wheels are superb, and have taken a beating from Jurassic-sized potholes multiple times over two pothole seasons here in the cloudy north. For their ability to resist breaking or bending, I would rank them above high-end German and Japanese wheels with similar low-profile tires. Brakes are a high point for this car: a 10/10. Brake feel is the equal to my former current-generation 5-Series and better than any other car I’ve ever owned. There is no brake fade in street use, and absolutely no brake dust – none! Steering is an 8/10; the 5-Series is a 9/10, for reference. My car pulled slightly to the right when new, but was corrected with an alignment under warranty.
Last but not least – acceleration continues to be a high point for this car. I have never been able to find a graph of the torque output at RPM, but it drives like a very flat torque curve from about 1,600 to 6,000. And no, I won’t go into the torque vs. horsepower debate here. Big limiting factors are tires and the nanny systems which only hint at the true straight-line performance potential of the R-Spec. To put it into perspective, the acceleration of this big sedan is equal to or better than some pretty legendary muscle cars that some of us old guys have owned or driven over the years. For example: 1969 Mustang Mach 1 SCJ and 1970 Boss 429; any year Plymouth Roadrunner including hemi-equipped; any year Pontiac GTO; Olds 442; and every Corvette prior to the 1990 ZR-1.
The 8-speed transmission has been a source of criticism here, but only very selectively from me. Left in D, it is every bit as good as the 8-speed ZFs going into premium cars (but left in “normal” or comfort mode). When I say just as good, I mean it knows exactly what gear to be in and never stumbles looking for a gear or lurches once it finds one. I regularly experience downshifts from 8th to 3rd without a hint of hesitation, only a rush. In fact, I underestimated the car’s acceleration a couple of times by nearly entering somebody else’s trunk during a land-change maneuver. However, I have been so frustrated with the manual mode that I won’t even try to use it anymore. I take that back . . . going down a mountain road I have shifted it into 5th or 6th for three or four-mile descents. But forget manual mode for anything remotely resembling performance driving. The morgue-like shifts and lack of shift paddles belong on a Geo Metro, not anything with this much potential.
After 30,000 miles, I still like the appearance and functionality of the interior of this car given its price point. Two exceptions are the clock, which looks like it came from the dollar store, and the lack of usable storage space inside the car. Otherwise, they have done a great job making this a very pleasant environment to spend many hours at a time.
The seats – another area of criticism – have been very comfortable given the lack of side bolstering. The passenger seat has correctly received death-threats for its lack of lumbar and cooling. For my wife and me, this has not been an issue since neither one of us has even tried the cooling feature on the driver’s side. She has never complained about the lack of lumbar on the passenger side, and the only time I ever sit there is when I’m sleeping and she’s driving.
The smart-cruise is generally pleasant to use, except under certain conditions that have happened to me lately. Case in point: 4-lane divided highway, driving in left lane in windy conditions, truck trailer swaying left as I was approaching to pass on the left = radar cruise causes the car to brake hard, and the driver in back of me using sign language because he sees my brake lights but still nearly runs into me because he can’t figure out why I don’t just pass the truck! In defense of Hyundai, the system did exactly what it was designed to do and, I believe, works as well as any system sold by any other manufacturer. The lane departure warning system works as well as other brands and, in fact, is better than my last benchmark 5-Series LDWS. Lack of blind-spot warning is an irritation for me, but I have given up complaining about it. Electronics in this car are plagued by mediocre software design with iPod integration and controls and some of the issues with surround sound and defective heads on the Lexicon. Hyundai apparently fails to understand that although $3,000 head replacements under warranty may be easy for them to charge back to Harmon Kardon, customers want, and deserve, more proactive and progressive technology improvements done in real time. After all, for some people, warranties do end eventually. Of course, we will never know the real truth about what engineers do behind closed doors, especially when there our outside suppliers involved like H-K. I am still with the original head unit, software and navigation map version, which I do not plan on changing before I sell the car.
Gas mileage has been stellar. The worst tank has been 15.1 mpg; the best tank 27.2. Overall, since I began measuring mileage in January this year using gas receipts and a calculator, I have averaged 22.3 with a 60/40 mix of city and highway driving. Mind you, this is the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area, not Chicago, NY/NJ, Atlanta, Houston or Atlanta where gridlock congestion will drive those figures down. Yes, I am aware there are some really great web-based tools for this purpose – I just haven’t gotten around to using them.
Navigation: I love the idea of integrated car navigation. I love it better when it works well. To be fair, where we live, the Hyundai navigation has not always performed poorly. However for reference, we recently returned from a trip to Florida where we used the navigation system a lot. Correction: navigation systems, plural. Starting our trip, we found our first day’s route via Hyundai navigation invited us to drive 925 miles vs. Google encouraged us to go 840 miles to the same destination. Because it was as humorous as it was ridiculous, we kept the Genny’s navigation system on, but muted, while we used Google maps for iPhone, which integrated quite well with voice commands coming from the phone through the car’s audio system. Through parts of Missouri, where we had ignored the Hyundai’s instructions, it continued to try to re-route us up to Chicago, adding more than two hours to our trip time, even though there were obvious better choices involving great roads that would not require us to essentially backtrack.
We had a similar situation near Atlanta. Lots of laughs and sneers. Navigation: 2/10.Oil Consumption: I have read with a certain amount of frustration and anxiety, the excessive oil consumption experiences of others on this forum. Similarly, in the last year, I have fretted a bit about DI carbon buildup on the top sides of intake valves, the effects of oil volatility and blow-by, sot in general, and the effect of all of this on maintenance, performance, and engine life in general. I have never used anything except Top Tier fuel in the car, for which I am thankful to have experienced no fuel-related issues. In addition, I have used one bottle of Techron Concentrated Fuel System cleaner at about the same interval as my oil changes. The Techron practice I started long before buying the R-Spec, so that decision has nothing to do with the fact that it appears to be the same stuff Hyundai recommends as labeled under their own name. Dumb luck, but still a good decision, I believe.
I also changed my 7,500-mile oil change regimen from Mobil 1 to an equal interval of Pennzoil Ultra, which currently seems to have superior performance across most of the technical performance standards, including low volatility, wear protection, and high detergent action. While Pennzoil has some good marketing going on here, this seems to be backed up by Blackstone testing, as well as a ton of data provided by Corvette owners. And, if it means anything, the Pennzoil Ultra European spec 0W-40 is the only oil currently approved by Ferrari. Has it worked? So far, better than Mobil 1, I believe. I wanted some real-world evidence that would come under somewhat adverse conditions. The timing was perfect. When we left on our 4,000 road trip recently, my car had 3,500 miles since its last oil change and it showed squarely between the two marks on the dipstick. Intentionally, I didn’t change it before our trip or top it off, but intended to keep a very close eye on it, knowing we would be driving in 12+ hour stretches at 65-80 mph. At the end of our first day – Minneapolis to Nashville – the dipstick showed halfway between the middle and the lower mark. I waited until we had made it to Florida the next day – another 820 miles – and added a quart of Ultra. Fast forward, 1,680 more miles, it was down to exactly where it was when we started. So there was the evidence: 7,500 miles, almost equally divided between city/short trip and long stretches of 100% highway driving = 1 quart consumed.
Thinking this is great, I was also anticipating how clean and sludge-free the engine must be after that many miles. It had been running absolutely great, so when I had a long-open stretch of onramp and open freeway the day after we got home, I put it to the floor, and wow, she just absolutely flew! Cool, until I checked the rearview mirror and saw this immense puff of black smoke come out the back of the car! Guess it takes more than a 4,000 mile road trip to clean out this car. I haven’t unraveled the DI/carbon/sot issue in my head yet, but I hardly think about it anymore.
Final Impressions:
After 30,000 miles, I would buy this car again. It is as tight and rattle/squeak-free as the day I took it home. It fits my needs for a large, safe, high-performance four-door sedan that seats five, runs equally well on regular gas, and is affordable, easy to own and drama-free.
I waste no time wishing this will be anything that it’s not at the price I paid for it. It turns heads – especially mine – just like in the beginning. I clearly remember one day in a downtown parking ramp seeing a new black 5-Series parked next to my black R-Spec. Holy God that 5-Series is beautiful. Graceful, athletic, lean, almost feminine in its beauty. A Natalie Portman. And the Genny – more serious, more muscular looking, in a refined way. Daniel Craig. Overall, an 8.5/10 for me.
