2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo: June 2013

Fri, 12 Jul 2013

There are an awful lot of good reasons to get into the Hyundai Veloster family and formula. This car looks good, is loaded out with tech and offers a great deal of practicality in a small form factor. One good reason not to consider a Veloster, at least if you're a city dweller or have primarily urban daily driving path, is the turbocharged 1.6-liter engine in the eponymous Veloster Turbo.

Two major factors kill the Veloster Turbo in terms of said city driving: turbo lag and fuel economy.

Two major factors kill the Veloster Turbo in terms of city driving: turbo lag and fuel economy.

I had our long-term Turbo for all of June and the first week of July, during which time I primarily used the car as a runabout in Ann Arbor, MI. With the exception of a few 40-ish-mile jaunts into Metro Detroit, I drove the Hyundai roughly five to ten miles at a time, with speeds that I'm sure averaged 30 miles per hour or less. This kind of driving isn't a good recipe for high mile-per-gallon numbers, to be sure, and I netted out at about 21.6 mpg – a decent bit lower than the EPA estimate of 24 mpg in the city.

Meanwhile, I wasn't having a riveting time whilst burning that gas (at least you don't have to run premium). If you've been following the saga of this long-term car to date, you've read a lot about how the Turbo doesn't feel especially hot-hatchy. There are plenty of reasons for this, but I think much of it comes down to a laggy turbo. Getting into the heart of the boost takes a really heavy foot and a low gear when initially accelerating. Worse, the rush from the turbo boost doesn't feel especially strong once it does come on. (I don't actually mind a bit of turbo lag, if the payout at the end is a crazy accelerative moment; see Mazdaspeed3, Mini Cooper S, etc.)

In other words: If the Veloster Turbo felt really fast, even sometimes, I'd forgive the fuel economy. As it stands, I'm quite sure the trade-off versus the standard, slow, nice handling non-turbo Veloster, at least for city drivers, is a bad one to make. That's not even taking sticker price into account...

In better news, the $1,000-option Matte Gray paint withstood a major test a few weeks ago. I was westbound on M-14 when the car ahead of me ran over a newly shed tire tread and rocketed it backwards, directly at the nose of the Veloster. There was a mighty "whump!" and "thwack!" as the offending gator smacked the hood and bounced up to the windshield, leaving a trail of rubber-burn as it went. Considering this paint finish isn't even allowed to go through a carwash for fear of paint damage, I was less than pleased at the prospects of keeping the Veloster out of the body shop.

As it turns out, the paint (and bodywork) was just dandy. I used the much-discussed Dr. Beasley's car-care kit and a soft wash mitt both to remove the rubber residue and give the Veloster a much-needed bath. All cleaned up, I was sort of surprised to see that the tire tread hadn't even left any fine scratches, although there is still a very faint, whitish rub mark on the plastic 'vent' on the hood. The washing process wasn't all that bad, either. It's been a while since I've hand-washed a car (I'll cop to being more of an automatic wash guy when I can get away with it), but my fairly thorough cleaning only took about 45 minutes. The results weren't detail-shop worthy, but the car looks as good or better than it did when I took possession of it.

I was pretty surprised to find out that the Veloster seems to have a real "community" out there in the wide world.

One more quick note: I was surprised to find out that the Veloster seems to have a real "community" out there in the wide world. A couple of my fellow editors have mentioned that the car was positively received where it's been driven. To back that up, I noticed that just about every time I drove by or next to another Veloster on the road, that car's owner waved or handed out a thumbs-up.

I love this; It happens with Mini Coopers, Miatas and other high-personality, high-owner-loyalty cars that I've driven, so it's fascinating to see a similar camaraderie growing up around this three-door (four-door?) Hyundai. It'll be more interesting still to see if the fellowship sticks over time. Oh, and it's worth noting that not a one of the Veloster Buddies that I encountered were themselves driving a Turbo-trim car. Methinks the lukewarm-hatch market is still a little soft around these parts, or else Veloster drivers just tend towards rational decision making.

By Seyth Miersma