Hey videos Peter, and this is a 2023 Hyundai Elantra preferred with the tech package. It is a car that at a point in my career not long ago, I was known as an expert on. So in this video I'm gonna try to show you a few of the things that the other videos aren't showing you because this car, although well-equipped, has a number of sort of secret features that maybe you don't see with every other video and maybe they're not explained the same way that I might explain them to you. Which again, my job is to make sure you understand this vehicle. So I'm filming here at  Jim Gilbert's Wheels and Deals and this is just one of the many options that you can look at side by side among all of its competitors. So I wanna thank Jim Gilbert's Wheels and Deals for giving me access to their entire product line because if you have questions, I can come back to this vehicle again and again and again and I can compare it to its competitors and answer questions both in the comments and in future videos. 
So make sure if you're interested in this car or this class of car that you hit to subscribe, let me know the kinds of things you wanna know in the comments section and I'll do my best to kind of fill out the information for you and give you as much information as I can.

So let's get going with the review. So the 2023 Elantra was actually redesigned in 2022 and one of the things you're gonna notice is this really sloped front end. This is all part of Hyundai's new styling language. It's got some sharp angles and creases in the side, but the other thing this does is really contribute to an aerodynamic design and they use the engine in this, in a variety of vehicles in the Kia and Hyundai lineup. But this is one of the most efficient ways to get this motor transmission combination. 
So that's something worth keeping in mind that one of the reasons to go to a car like this is just for overall efficiency, especially fuel efficiency. So it's also kind of a neat style. Again, very low down, but this car is also, especially with this tech package, loaded with safety features and that's what I really like. So it's got some design details here. We haven't got them all right now, but there's some L e D lights up here which give you just the daytime running lights. These ones do have the halogen uh, headlights. Now I'll tell you last night I was driving a vehicle with L E d only headlights, it was snowing like crazy here. And those l e D only headlights don't always melt the snow cause they don't create as much heat. So having these halogen headlights on a sticky snowy night like that, these would've been better than what I was driving last night. (02:17)
Couple safety features worth mentioning here is you have a camera system out front. Now a lot of cars are gonna have that moving forward and a lot of cars have them already. The Elantra's not the only one that has that, but what it does is it allows it to see lane markers, it does a number of things, but one of the things it allows it to see lane markers. This is a car that can actively steer itself to keep it centered in the lane. I'm gonna show you how that works from the driver's uh, perspective later. But it's one of the better systems for steering itself. And again, it's not designed to replace what you do. You're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel and if you take your hands off the wheel it will warn you over time, uh, to put your hands back on the wheel. 
But you can very much go around corners and have the car or feel the car steer itself. The reason I think that's important because, and the reason everybody thinks it's important is because it allows the car to, when you get a little bit distracted looking at the screen playing with your Android Auto or Apple CarPlay playing with various things that you probably shouldn't be touching with, that car is gonna center itself in the lane and keep it centered. So that's a nice safety feature to have. The other thing that camera does is that it gives you forward collision avoidance assist. So essentially if you are driving this car and you're not watching where you should be, this car is capable of breaking itself to avoid a collision. Now at the very least, it's designed to minimize a collision. So don't test it. Don't sit there and pull up and say, oh yeah, the car is gonna break for itself because although it probably will, there are situations where it does, if it senses the driver's in control, it will allow you to continue to drive. 
Uh, but it does keep an eye out in the traffic ahead of you and it can break for you and completely stop. It will also warn you if you're approaching somebody very quickly, um, you know, beeping in that kind of thing. But it is capable of stopping for itself and that's a really nice feature to have. There's a couple other safety features I wanna talk about as we move our way around the car. So let's do that right now. So coming along the side of the car here, you can see some swoopy details here, that really sharp lines here. That's actually quite difficult to do and Hyundai is very proud of the fact that they can create these sharp creasing lines now because you can, whether they should or not is up to you if that's a style you like a lot of people do, some people don't and that's fine.

Can I focus on the mirrors here? Of course they're heated, of course they're adjustable. All the typical stuff you'd expect in this class. They also give you a little bit warning when someone's in your blind spot. So blind spot detection is part of this car. Now what's cool about that is, although the warning is here in the mirror, what you actually have is hardware back here. You have a radar plate back here and what that does is it allows the car to using radar look out to the side and that's what activates the warning to tell you that someone's in your blind spot. It'll beep if you're about to cross paths. What's really nice is you know when you're here and you're looking at the lane beside you, if someone pulls into that lane while you're coming, it can see that happening. It can see things that you can't always see. (04:56)
But what I like about it is they also use this hardware here if you put the car in reverse and it can sense people coming from where your camera is coming this way, whether you're walking, whether you're driving and it can sense traffic coming in where you can't see. So imagine that I am a minivan parked beside you. There's no possible way that the driver can see through me the minivan, uh, when you're backing out of a parking spot. So as I'm here, you physically can't see cuz it's blocked by something. As long as this radar plate is clear of that minivan, it can start to effectively see and it can help, uh, prevent an accident by making sure that it gives you rear cross traffic alert. So nice little features to have. Again, a lot of little safety features on this car. I won't probably mention all of them, but those are a couple things where it can see things in front of you, prevent collisions in front of you, it can see things crossing your path or behind prevent collisions there and it can see things beside you and prevent prevent collisions there. 
And when we think of safety, we were trained to think of safety as crumple zones and Hyundai has what they call the super structure, which is a super so strong structure, uh, designed to crumple very well. In other words, the back end will crumple, the front end will crumple and the passenger compartment will stay very solid. That gives it both good crash performance and you know, the squeaks and rattles don't work their way into a vehicle like this. So that's important. But crash safety nowadays to get a really high score on the crash safety things you need to have a vehicle that avoids collisions and warns you of collisions and this one does. So let's take a look at the trunk now while we're here. Take a look at the back of the Le Elantra here. Again, those sharp lines continue. You've got that spoiler built in and there is a little bit of a up sweep at the very edge here that's tough to see.You won't see it from the angle you're looking at, but again, it gives you that nice sort of up sweep there for the aerodynamic efficiency. When the air comes off the back of a car, you want a sharp edge to keep, to cut that air cleanly and keep it from pulling dragon and you've got the same kind of sharp edges along the side of the car. So you've got good things here. If you're hearing beeping, they're doing some snow plowing outside. One of the things I like back here is your backup cameras mounted nice and high so it's easy to keep clean and see. And then you have a button on the trunk here. A lot of sedans require you use the keys, which I don't have to use right now. I can tap that button and open the trunk. The thing I like about the Elantra is it has a very big trunk and you can see you can reach right through there, very, very long trunk.
Interestingly, it does not have a 60 40 split, something like the Kia Forte does. This is similar to the Kia Forte but doesn't have that 60 40 split here. But the trunk size, when you compare this to something like a modern suv, although this opening is smaller, the actual floor space is significant, it's got a long, long floor and it carves out very wide here behind the wheels. So you actually have very, very good trunk space for a compact car. You can easily vacation in this with all the luggage you need for uh, family of four or four people together in the car. So good trunk space is a big plus even though the opening is smaller than the typical suv. Give you a little closer view here. You can see this particular car has the Elantra branded, uh, hard uh, matte in here. And again, good space, but again interestingly no split there. (08:00)
One thing of note is this car does come with a spare tire. A lot of economy cars, if you're shopping for a car, you should check underneath the trunk, uh, back area. Sometimes they have just what's called an inflater kit. You don't actually get a tire, in my opinion. The tires are better, they will take 'em out. They'll say it's for fuel efficiency. The reality is it's probably gonna save the manufacturer some money. Uh, and you know, something like this, it already has it. So that's good to know. If you wanna pull down the seats, you probably can't see it in the shot here. Let's just go way over here. Yeah, let's just zoom in, see if we can get that in the shot. Okay, here we go. So you can see right here zooming right in, there's a little pull tab right there. So pulling this tab and pulling on the other tab, we'll fold the seat down so you've got that option there to get the seat down. One of the issues with low slung cars kind of sleek aerodynamic cars is sometimes they take away head room from the rear. So let's try that out right now. Hopping in the back here. First of all, the seat is set for me. I have a ton of leg room. I probably have this

Much leg room from my knee to the back of the seat. Again, I'm a six footer sitting behind a six footer. But how's the headroom? Well, pretty good. If I lean back it gets a little tighter, but sitting in my normal spot I've got, you know, a couple inches or so, an inch and a half, that kind of thing for a six footer. One thing I'm not crazy about, what Hyundai does is they don't put pockets back here. They don't put vents back here, they don't put USB ports back here. Some of those things you get in the Kia version of this car, which would be the Kia Forte. Uh, so it's interesting that Hyundai doesn't do things. They save a little bit money on the backseat, but I would say they do throw it into the front seat. So if you're driving this car, you're, you know, buying it primarily for you, not necessarily for your backseat passengers, then I think you're gonna be happy with where they spent their money. 
We're gonna show you that in a second. But a couple things I do like back here, the backs of these seats are plastic back seats. So they just wipe clean with a damp cloth, you don't have to do anything fancy and if you've got kids in child seats, their feet are, you know, touching up against this. So nice and easy to clean even though there's cloth seats here, that plastic back is nice but not a whole lot of features here. Actually no center armrest either. So the only couple orders you have is bottle holders in the door. Little bit interesting, but again, the money they save here, they spend up front. Let's go take a look at that.

Alright, so we're gonna get in the driver's seat right now. Before we do that, let's show you what the key looks like. So you've got lock, unlock, remote start hold this and you'll pop the trunk and you've also have the hold panic button, nice little key, not too large, nice and compact fits in your pocket. And that's where I'm gonna stick it right now. What you have over here is the little black button that allows you in. Now we're seeing cars move away from these black buttons to just touch that touch sensitive, uh, areas there. The Hyundai has not done that yet, but uh, I think they'll head that way eventually. If you need to get the car in with the key, there is a little key Hole Underneath there. So this is one of those things that maybe the other man other videos aren't showing you. Uh, this piece here pops off so if your car battery ever went dead and your carob kind of thing, they, you kind of aerodynamically cover this off. But that is something that you are able to get um, with the key. If you had to, should point out here, there's a sunroof there it is on the outside. We'll talk about on the inside in a second. Let's jump into this driver's

Environment cuz there's Actually pretty good stuff. Now, first of all, manual seat here, pump this up or down. If you pump it up, the seat raises, push it down, the seat lowers. Pretty much anybody of any height can get comfortable in here. You got a little bit of design to the seat here. Uh, nothing too fancy but uh, again, quite comfortable seats, decent side bolstering and good support. Sometimes smaller cars have smaller seats. These are good size and comfortable. We'll point out the door as well. Nice sort of detail here. This is all soft touch here. This is hard plastic up here, but soft touch where you're gonna put, uh, your arms. Again, this is not hard plastic, it is a little bit rubberized kind of thing. So pretty good comfort in there. The tech Package has nice tweeters in the doors here as well. So you got a six speaker stereo system over here. This is nothing just design in other cards it does other things. But we're gonna go wide angle for a second here is we turn the car on because what's cool about this car and we're just gonna go to the on position without starting it, you can see you've got a whole lot of screen here. So what you have is a 10 and a quarter inch screen here, a 10 and a quarter inch screen here. And visually it just looks like one big screen. So there's a lot going on here. We're gonna talk about some of the key features here. Let's first start just over here. Now you're gonna have this battery discharge warning that's gonna come up every now and then because I don't have the car running, it's gonna say, Hey, you know, you've got some battery usage here, this might be a problem, it might not be for you. 

So we're gonna swipe across here and see a lot of things. First of all, this tech package does have a map. That's because it actually has navigation sometimes in Toyota vehicles or something like that. It um, has a map button, but it's like navigation not installed or something like that. So you have factory navigation, which I kind of like it, uh, you know, pretty good navigation system. You also have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in here, which I think is good stuff as well. But then they have some features over here. It, we'll talk about a second, but let's just start by looking at them over here. This is also a full digital dash and somebody said to me yesterday when I was reviewing the crv, even the base model, it has sort of a screen over here and they said it looks kind of like the eighties dash and I thought it was clean and easy to read, but I can see the point here.
This again is also clean and easy to read. And if we zoom in a little further here, you can see there's actual little lines in there. Again, a screen does not film well, but there's tremendous detail here. And this is all just a screen. I mean even the shine on the, what looks like a metal, um, needle. There is very, very good. Fuel gauge is easy to read, but simple. Uh, so there's really good detail that you won't see in all the gauge clusters here. This can change with your drive mode and we'll go through drive modes for a second here. It's uh, drive mode is sport smart and normal, but that's not all the design from the cluster here. So let's just jump over here and show you how to do some fun stuff. First of all, blue Link is a app that you can connect this car to your phone. 
It does some pretty cool stuff. So we won't talk about that too much in this video, but we'll talk about it in another video. We're gonna go set up over here and we're gonna go to vehicle over here. If I can touch it the right way. I'm reaching around the steering wheel with a wrong hand here. So we'll hit the vehicle there. It's a little slow today. All right, cluster. There we go. And we're gonna go to cluster theme selection. So that is gonna allow us to change the themes here. Right now it's linked to the drive mode, which is what you just saw and I'm using the wrong hand here, so lemme just see. Okay, I can reach around my camera. All right, excuse me if I jiggle the camera a little bit here. So right now it's linked to the drive mode. We're gonna go over to unlink it from there.
It's on theme A right now. There's A, B, C, and D. A lot of people don't realize that. So B is that sport mode setting that we just showed you. There again, looks like carbon fiber in the background and again, the screen does not film well but it does um, you know, it is really cool in person. So that's the one you just saw. Then there's also this C theme here, which again, maybe you prefer that maybe you like it. Uh, again, you're seeing glare on the camera. I don't see that with my eyes, it's just the camera interacting a little bit better or a little bit differently than my eyes. But then there's a pretty cool one down here as well, which is theme D. Whoops, just dismissed it there. I'm trying to go with my left hand again. Theme D is actually pretty cool. 
So every time you cross over like a thousand rpm, this thing rotates a little bit. Um, but of course that's your RPM in a digital form. Uh, it's the speedometer in a digital form and what that does is allows you to have a digital speedometer here while also seeing some various information in the center here. Because if you look at the center as we switch it back to you, let's go theme A, you can see that it shows your car. Now what that car does is it can show you various things, um, uh, you know, display and safety type things, but you can also cycle through some of those um, uh, things in here. Oops, I'm going the radio side things. Let's just turn that back down. We're inside. Uh, where are we here? I'm on the wrong side. I'm trying to do things with my right hand and I'm getting all confused.
So we're gonna cycle through here on this side here and soon as I do it, there we go. Menu items there. So you have your navigation information in here. You can have driver uh, information as well. All kinds of fuel efficiency things. Now again, you'll see seven liters per hundred kilometers. You're also gonna see 59 liters per hundred kilometers. Remember a car that idles at a dealership is going to get terrible mileage, especially depends on where it's reset. Um, drive our attention level. It can sense if you're paying attention or not and it can warn you, hey, maybe take a coffee break. So that's kind of cool. After five hours that'll go tire pressure monitors as well. Standard on this car, you're gonna see all that information in there. And this tells you how you're driving normal, economical, that kind of thing. Uh, gives you um, you know, that area there.
So lemme just go to the drive modes here. If you go to that smart drive mode, which we'll do right now, whoops, uh, hold on, I'm using the wrong hand guys. Sorry. There we go. Smart drive mode there. So if we hit the smart drive mode, what the smart mode does is it says smart eco right now. So the smart mode drive mode, if you're driving economically anyways, it will keep you in that eco setting. As you get into the throttle, you're gonna see the little, this bar graph go from economy to dynamic. In other words, you're driving harder. This will change with smart eco to smart, normal to smart sport. So you don't have to change the drive mode yourself. The car can sense it in the sport mode. The shifts are more aggressive, uh, holds the revs a little longer, that kind of thing. 
So you can manually control what you do there. Normal sport and smart. Or if you leave it in that smart setting, it'll work with you. If you're getting good fuel efficiency, it's gonna right away drop it in the eco eco if you're driving like regular eco, eco economical driving. But if you get into the throttle, it's gonna change the character of the car. It's kinda like chipping the car. Uh, but you can set it so it just changes automatically, which is pretty cool. So whole bunch of little features here. We do have this little lane keeping assist. So again, that can allow you to sort of bounce off the lane and it'll steer itself back in. But what you're really gonna want to use is this button right here. Remember when we talked about this car being able to steer itself, this is one of the best systems, even though it's an elan, one of the best systems in vehicles right now.
Uh, it is the tech in here is very, very good. So you tap that button and that's when it actually centers you in the lane and it'll show you in that other display that we were gonna show you over here. Um, these lane markers, when they go from gray to white, that means it actively sees the lane markers and you can see if it sees the left side or the right side. When it sees those lane markers, that's when it's capable of steering for itself. And you'll see this symbol pop up in the dash just like that and that symbol will go green and the car is actively steering itself. So really cool stuff here. Um, pretty cool stuff if you wanna turn all of those systems off so it never steers itself. There's your lane keeping again. The one could just steer you when it touches the lane marker and this one here.
So you can steer, you can turn that off as well. Uh, a lot of people ask me questions about, you know, what happens, uh, if I have those things on and I wanna switch lanes, as long as you're signaling it, uh, cancels those, it'll allow you to go over lanes, which is pretty cool. So this is just part of the controls here. There's a hundred things I could show you here. Let's put this back to the drive mode. So leave it the way it was. There's a lot of stuff in this dash, which again I could show you in the future if you wanted to. Down here what you have is your automatic climate control. Now again, the glare here you're seeing on the camera, I don't have any issues with that in real life, it's just the way they interact with the camera. This is a dual zone climate system
So you have 22 and a half set to both sides. But if I wanna change just the passenger side, hey it's just 20 degrees there if I wanna go up now 23 degrees. So again, you can sync them together like I just did or you can set them here. Now one thing that you'll remember if um, if you're driving in a hot summer day and you open the, if you have automatic climate control, you open the door, it's just gonna blast that air conditioning a full blast to bring it back to temperature and it'll take a minute or so and then it'll bring that speed back down. What this auto system does, whether it's heat or cool, is it can limit the maximum fan speed to a lower uh, level. When I just do from there there it's max, uh, it'll limit that maximum speed.
So it'll still bring it to that temperature, but it won't make as much noise. It'll bring things down, uh, calmly and quietly. So that's kind of fun to have, um, just kind of easily, uh, it just makes it quieter and more comfortable in here. Rump s are standard in the front seats here you've got three levels of seat heating. You also have a steering wheel heater kind of buried in the climate system right here. Uh, simple to use controls down there as well. 12 volt USB ports down here. U usb uh, c both of them or yeah, regular USB ports, both of them. And then 12 volt port and a place to put your phone down here. This particular trim line does not have the wireless charging. It is what it is. Uh, you do have uh, transmission, uh, C B T transmission here. There's your gear shift. 
You do, you have sport mode here. If you drop it into uh, drive like we'll do right now and tap it this way, you can choose between eight different ratios. So you can choose your own gears at displays in the dash, what ratio you're in. If we throw it in reverse, you do have a backup camera here. One thing I wish they'd do is go full screen but they don't. And it is what it is. You can change the backup view, uh, to look straight down from the bottom. So, uh, that's like directly right behind me or you can go the typical wide angle view. I don't think most people are ever gonna touch that, but uh, it is a very clear camera. I will say that it doesn't film all that well as well, but it is what it is. You got a little bit of l e d lighting across here, so that little blue light there, it gives you some kind of rich feeling there. 
We mentioned the six speaker stereo system here. Let's flip the camera around. So overall, the seating position in some of these lower slung cars can put your head close to the ceiling. Sunroofs actually take away some headroom, but you can see here I have no issues. The seat can move a long ways up, a long ways down. It's not a big problem. Uh, underneath the head or underneath the sunroof is where my head sits. And of course that gives me tons of space and I kind of like the way it lines up so you know, you do get the sunshine above you and uh, that kind of thing. So it works very well. Comfortable visibility for low slung cars can also be an issue. Sometimes these, whoops, let's go this way. Some of these, these pillars can be in the way. I think you get a sense that visibility is still very good in this car. 
So driving position, very comfortable. You have a tilt and telescopic steering wheel so it can come closer to you or further away. Um, good, like I said, meaty steering wheel. Heated steering wheel as well. So driving this car comfort-wise, not an issue. And I will say that when they redesigned this, it was noticeably smoother than the Kia vehicle, uh, at the time. So, you know, I think it's got a fairly smooth ride, relatively sporty but not over the top. Of course you can get absolute crazy sport versions of this car as well, including that n model which has a whole different suspension. It's truly a racetrack car for the street. This one itself, you know, very comfortable, very efficient, and uh, you know, relatively fun to drive without being like too harsh. It's uh, just well controlled ride. So if you need a great handling car, this one's not gonna be top of the thing, but it's, you know, mid-pack for handling. But uh, as far as a controlled comfortable ride in the class, very, very good. So if you're just doing your regular commuting driving this car, like most people are gonna be drive this model of car, I think you'll be very impressed with the ride. Let's jump outside and finish up.

So let's talk about where this car fits in the lineup and who it's for. Well first of all, when I say lineup, what I mean is in the class, something like a Volkswagen and Mazdas is probably gonna be a little bit sportier ride. However, I feel like this is a little bit more of a luxurious ride. And with the tech package here you have, you have very good technology, which again, I used to do around a channel where I did videos on the technology and I would go days and days and days into the technology. There's a lot that you can do with the technology here and it's very easy to learn. So the type of stuff I showed you just to change the gauge cluster, it's very similar to change some of the other settings in here. So if you're a bit of a techy person, you can kind of customize this up. 
But if you're not a techy person, I still think this is a good trim line for you because it's very, very easy to use. The safety systems, especially that sort of self-steering, lane keeping, lane following assist system, uh, is one of the best at any price point in the automotive industry from the Kia and Hyundai products. So that is something that again, if you like going on a long trip, you just want an easy to drive car. This does that. If it kind of scares you to say I don't really want a car driving myself, well again, you could turn that thing off, but there are a whole bunch of scenarios where even someone like myself, I like kind of engaging in the driving long, boring drives on the highway. Having that system, it actually works very well. Uh, and it's kind of thing, it's nice to be able to turn on overall styling. 
You either like it or you don't. It's got some aggressive lines in here. It is certainly aerodynamic, uh, you know, styling is what it is. Having the sunroof is kind of nice here. And uh, price point, they're kind of mid-pack here. So in the class, uh, as you get in the tech package, it does get a little bit more expensive, but I think for a lot of people you're getting things that you would expect in mid-size cars, even space, mid-size cars and more luxury cars. You're having some of that tech out front here. And again, they do spend it in that driver's environment. I only went over it briefly, rear seats, pretty basic stuff back there. It's comfortable, but it doesn't have a split fold seat. It doesn't have an armrest. It doesn't even have cub holders or vents back there. Now it will have some venting underneath the seat so your rear passengers will have climate control, but it's not class leading rear seat for features, although for space, very good leg room, trunk space, very good trunk space. (23:46)
Again, not that 60 40 split, so very good car for the class, but there are definitely cars worth comparing to. And that's the amazing thing about here at Jim Gilbert's. Jim Gilbert's Wheels and Deals, they have pretty much everything in this class sitting right next to it. So you can go from one to the next, to the next, to the next. You can deal with the same salesperson. They're known as Canada's Huggable Car Dealer and they treat you really, really well. So when you're comparing numbers, you know it's the same numbers from this car as another car and uh, I think it's just one of the best places to buy a vehicle anywhere in the world. But the bigger thing is they allow me to, to review their vehicles. And if you have questions about this car, let me know when the comments below. And also, uh, you know, if you have comments, if you own it, tell me what you think of it and I'll make sure I try to answer your comments and come back to it in future videos.