So I guess nobody apart from the IRC people know anything about this car of mine. Made a couple posts about it in another thread ages ago but never spoke about it further.
Born in August of 1998, this is my Hyundai Coupe 2.0 SE or “Special Equipment”. I doubt most of the forum users even know that this generation exists so I’ll give you a quick rundown:
Produced from 1996 to 2000
Called the Hyundai Coupe in the UK, known as the “Tiburon” and “Tuscani” elsewhere.
Available with a (transverse FWD) 100 or so HP 1.6 and a 140HP 2.0
5 Speed Manual
This is my car (whole album of shit will be posted down below)
Picked it up in February of this year for £490 with 76,000 miles on the clock and absolutely no service history. 9 months later, it still has 76,000 miles on it as it hasn’t left my driveway once.
For the money that you can pick these things up for, they’re honestly not bad cars. You get cruise control, ABS, 140HP, full leather interior, almost indestrutible engines etc for absolute pennies, and imo they’re very good looking cars, much better than the facelifted cars starting from the end of 2000.
I took a bunch of photos a while ago, they’re not brilliant because there’s loads of ISO noise but they get the point across
So here you go: http://imgur.com/a/kHotH
I don’t know how long I’m gonna own this car for (might try and get a 1.6 version as a first car when I start learning to drive), but in it’s current state I’m the only thing stopping it from ending up in a scrapyard due to the lack of MOT, and I refuse to let that happen.
I had the 4 eye facelift version, wasn’t really impressed, but I had a bad example of the breed. Glad to see you’re keeping it alive and I hope yours is in better driving condition then mine was
That was among the least of the problems, the evap system was clogged so it got horrible economy, and would try and stall when I let off the gas, the driver and passenger doors trim didn’t match which made me think it had been hit at least once, and it leaked a lot of oil.
Interesting, does certainly sound fishy. The engines in these things are bombproof, despite what people who have never owned a Hyundai may want you think. Very rare that major mechanical components fail.
The panels on mine don’t line up perfectly, but it hasn’t had any documented accidents in its history. Sure does sound like your was hit.
It was either replaced or was assembled wrong, took me a while to notice, the outside color was the same but inside the colors and texture were slightly off
The evap was partially my fault, should have had the car checked out by a independent mechanic prior to buying it, the dealer lied through he teeth and must have paid someone for the safety inspection. I paid $1800USD for it, more than I should have but I was in a bind and needed a car ASAP and that shady dealer had one i could afford on the spot that was inspected and the paperwork was all ready to go. If I had more time I would have gotten a small loan and bought a non sketchy car like I did for the scion and do a full inspection, multiple test drives, and do it through a reputable dealership, but my Corolla was literally falling apart as I drove it. All that aside it handled very well even with the crappy tires, and the shifter and clutch action was very slick. It didn’t turn me off of Hyundai’s, just off cheap cars.
Hmm, it does certainly look like somebody had taken parts off a different car and put them in. Shame you got so unlucky, but I’m glad your opinion of Hyundais wasn’t tainted.
It’s funny how you paid $1800 for it, in England you will almost never see any first or second gen of Coupe sell for much more than a grand (£), and the first gen/first gen facelift models go for absolute pennies.
That’s the used market around my area, anything under $1000 has been wrecked, has frame rot, or has been sitting outside for years. Though there seems to be almost no price difference between the first gen and second gen, even the second gen GtV6 models are available in the same sub $2000 range as first gens. I live in a high road salt area, northeastern American, so any car without good corrosion protection or a owner who knows to wash the undercarriage every week or so during the winter tends to rust out after 10-15 years. As such there’s actually very few cars that sell in the hundreds of dollars that are road legal without work.
The sills (rockers) on the first gen, and I presume the facelift, are notorious for rusting VERY badly behind the plastic cover. I temporarily repaired the visible rust but when I was trying to prepare it for paint, rust would fall out every time I hit the sill with something. Better now, but will require welding at some point.
For the most part I think people have always considered Hyundais fairly reliable except people that went “uh I’ve never heard of it it must be crap.” They must have had something going for them when they were built out of old Japanese bits (and ocassional Ford bits).
On that note I vote you find a Hyundai Stellar for your first on the road car. Or a MK1 Marina based Pony for maximum autoshite points.
They’re super rare these days in England. There’s only about 10 in the country that are roadworthy. Simply replaced by better, more modern cars and I believe many were used for banger racing and such when nobody wanted them anymore.
Much more likely to be related to the Lantra as it shared the same engines (1.8 and 2.0 DOHC 4’s). Tiburon (he 4 and V6 one) was most likely a hybrid of Elantra’s chassis and Sonata’s V6.
Mitsubishi did similarly; FTO was all Lancer underneath!
