My parents always had Nissans. Japanese cars are also my favourites. But for some reason my #1 choice would be the Pontiac Solstice. They are rare here and I had a limited budget of €10.000. I wanted my first car to be special and also comfortable to drive. There are enough Renaults and Volvos driving around here. The only thing left was
a 1999 Hyundai XG30 with 243.900 km for €3.950. I love it and I hate it. It drives very well, but also has a lot of problems because it's 12 years old. Maintenance has been around €5.000 and I have it for only 10 months. Added another 24.000 km on it with all my trips to Belgium.
I had to pay another €1.100 for repairs and made clear that I would like a new car. I saw the Genesis at the Amsterdam RAI and fell in love with it. They wanted to speak with me immediatly after I made clear that I wanted to get rid of my XG. Our budget's a lot bigger now, so we chose the 3.8 Coupe. They offered the new Veloster, but I wanted a bigger car. Unfortunately, the only top models Hyundai sells here are the i40 and the Genesis Coupe. Not even the Genesis Sedan or the Grandeur.
There are several reasons to replace the XG with the Genesis Coupe:
- It's brand new, so it hasn't issues a 12 year old car has. Plus it has a warranty of 7 years.
- Parking a large car is extremely hard here. The nose tends to stick out quite a bit. The Genesis is 23 cm shorter.
- It's slightly lighter, so taxes are slightly less. I don't know if other countries do this as well, but how heavier the car is, the more you have to pay every month.
- It's a lot faster (192 hp vs 303 hp and 0-100 in 9.5 vs 6.5) while I shouldn't pay more for fuel because it's a new car. Insurance should also be the same.
- The fun of buying a brand new car!
- I was only using the rear seats for luggage, except maybe twice. I've heard that the Genesis has quite a large trunk for a coupe and the rear seats are perfect... for luggage

- I think the XG's a pretty car. But not many people share that opinion. Everybody likes the Genesis Coupe.
The downsides:
- The price of €52.000 even after trading in the XG. That's over $70.000! So people, be glad to live in the USA. Taxes are insane here.
- Even though fuel cost should be about the same, the XG has a LPG-3 installation. That's only about €0.77 instead of about €1.72. And with about 2.000 km a month... That's a lot.
- I drive 99.9% of the time alone or with 2 people. But there's still the 0.01% when I have more passengers.