700 mile update:
I love love love love it!
The not-so-great:
After driving cheap rental cars quite a bit the last couple months, it just reinforced my opinion that I would rather have high quality cloth seats than the leather I have. Still a bummer than if you want the 2.5L, you are stuck with "leatherette" unless you go to the highest trim level. Perhaps if they were ventilated...but they aren't, and I get very warm in them. Yes, the seat warmers are turned off.
I will say that the ceiling is probably the cheapest looking and feeling in any car I've driven. It seems it's not a fabric...it's more like just fuzzy cardboard. I also feel like the moonroof slider shade will likely sag over a short amount of time, especially since I park outside 99.99% of the time. The visors are pretty cheap, too, but at least they have slide-out extenders.
The transmission generally performs pretty well (I find I'm in the correct gear quite often)...but it's slow to up-shift manually, even in Sport mode.
I can find a really comfortable driving position...however, it's aaaaall the way back, so rear legroom behind me is bad. It's an inconvenience to have to move my seat forward when I want to fold down the back seat behind me.
I do kinda wish I would have sprung for the radar cruise control...but it was an expensive package bundled with other features I really didn't see a need for.
The GPS has been spotty in it's showing of the speed limit. I've turned it on and off, and it doesn't seem to stay on anymore. Now it only shows it when I'm speeding.
The dash is covered in a nice-looking soft-touch rubber...but it's "grippy" rubber, so it's hard to keep dust free. It was a tiny bit dusty, so I grabbed my almost-new Swiffer from the house. After one swipe, my dash was dustier, as it seemed to pull dust OFF of the Swiffer. Ha! I feel like my ceiling is making all the dust, since the upholstery is all leather/faux leather (only fibers can come from the carpet, and the ceiling)
What I really like:*
Steering feels great. Comparing it to the Focus, e-Golf, Veloster, Versa Note, and Sonic, only the Focus could hold a candle.
The engine and transmission are very well-paired. I am obviously not doing burnouts or drag races...but I always feel like I have all the power I need when I press on the gas.
The navigation is sooo nice compared to using my phone. On one clear screen, it shows me the name of the road I'm on, my next direction, which lane I need to be in to stay on my route, the speed limit, all the surrounding gas stations and parking lots/garages (something that was a pain in the phone), and the services available on the next 3 exits...as well as 3D buildings (some even with accurate full-color renderings), etc. I can pull up the laws of unmarked speed limits in any state, the BAC limit in Canada and mexico, and how many satellites I'm "connected" to.
The GUi is super responsive...and not even "compared to" anything else, it responds almost as well as my iPad after a fresh reboot. It's like a BluRay player compared to the VCR-like unit in my GF's Golf. That thing looks like it's not even running at the screen's (low) native resolution.
I put a 32GB USB drive with 24GB of music on it, and it's usually playing music by the time I've pulled out of my parking spot, and starting down the road. It's quick to connect to my phone, and two people I have talked to have said that my calls are clearer when in my car than it is when I'm just talking into the phone.
A common complaint about the system is that it's pretty involved with a lot of options...however, after one session with it while just sitting in my driveway going through menu-by-menu, to set up my defaults, the majority of those menus are never visited again. Like, when I pick the number of seconds that the headlights stay on after I exit the car? Are you really going to be changing that setting every day? No? You'll set it once, and never go back to it again. I've also found that the things that you might need to change more often, like the height alignment of the HUD, are located in easy-to find locations and are generally the first option within that menu, so it's really only one or two "clicks" away. Like...I can pull up the Satellite radio traffic map "app" without even looking at the screen. Spin the main knob it all the way to the left to the "apps" menu (it's only two spots over, but the selection won't pass it if you spin it all the way, so it's an easy "stop) and click the knob, and then click the knob again to select the traffic map. That's it. The "Favorites" area is quite nice. You can save a selection of favorite audio selections, contacts, and locations, and the favorites menu is one press away on the "
*" button in the center console.
All of the controls (for both the car, and the infotainment system) feel really nice, and very logical to the way my brain works.
The HUD is super fun, but I fully understand that it's likely going to be one of the first things that fail.
Dual Zone climate control is awesome. I had mine in 66, and hers on 74. Neither of us felt a warm/cool breeze from the opposite side the whole drive. Nice that each can have their own locations (floor, vent, defrost) selected, too.
Two coworkers have told me that they think they bought the wrong car, after seeing mine. :lol: one bought a Corolla, and one bought an Elantra GT.
These headlights are soooooo much better that the ones in any car I've had before. I'm amused when I catch them "steering". I *thought* the high beams were supposed to be controlled when in the headlights' "auto" setting, but that doesn't seem to be the case...or perhaps I'm just more cautious about blinding people than the system is...
*I readily admit that perhaps many of these things will be the same with any new car (2001 has bee my newest car up until now), so they may seem like those reviews of flat-panel or HD TVs from people who haven't had one before: "It"s so much thinner then my old TV! It's so sharp, too!"
"Mods" (ha!)
I've already replaced all of the interior lights with brighter, cooler-colored LEDs. Perhaps overkill, but my last car had shitty lights, so I wanted to make sure they were quite bright.
I don't want to do anything too crazy appearance-wise, but I think this color would look awesome with yellow or orange-painted brake calipers.
I bought the "real" optional "cargo shelf". It sits just below the cargo-area cover. There are two bummers: 1) it pretty much blocks the cargo area light so the cargo area is completely dark, and b) while it keeps the cargo area tidy, it's been in the way a lot. I've had to remove it 4-5 times already. I never even installed the Velcro strips that it comes with to secure it, assuming I'd just wear 'em out...it should be fine, unless I park facing up a very steep hill...it might slide out then...we'll see. May not keep it. I might put grippy rubber strips instead. hmm...
I thought about buying the official interior light kit, which includes lights for the footwells and I believe the glove compartment? But when I looked up the installation instructions, they were 30 pages long!! When I bring my car in for its first (free) service at the dealership, i'll ask them about the cost to have them install it.
I also want the (factory original) aluminum pedals, but I need to find out if they can be added afterwards. I know the are aftermarket options, but I want to keep it all stock where possible.
