Owners Review: Hyundai Coupe

The Coupe Story – what started as a compromise is now a keeper, possibly…

Owner/Reviewer: Rogeh Raffoul
Model: 2002 Hyundai Coupe 2.0 Tiptronic
Price: AED 9000-16,000 (see text)
Where: UAE

During my junior college years I owned my first car, a decade old Fiat Barchetta; the worst and best car I ever owned. One day, it gets totalled while innocently sitting in the university’s parking space. A month later, I get my compensation from Insurance some AED11000. I took the money and waited, until I graduated from college to see how things go before I buy my next ride.

I graduated in mid-2009, the world was and is still knee deep in that economic recession and I’m concerned that I will never get a job as much as many of the graduates and people at the time. Luckily I lived with my family and I still was holding some of the insurance money for my Fiat. I started hunting for a job and a car. I had a rule; that the car should be bought in cash and it must be a compact sports car with a manual transmission.

The hunt went on for a several months. With my budget all I found was boring mid-age saloons like Lancers & Civics or heavily abused sport compacts like US imported Mitsubishi Eclipses & Honda Preludes.

I lost hope and convinced myself it’s time to be realistic and that everything comes at a price. During that time, many people were made redundant and some rushed to leave the country having to either sell their cars for dirt cheap or abandon them to collect dust in parking spaces. It was a terrible moment. Still, I managed to find some good out of this bad situation when I spotted a Black 2002 Hyundai Coupe for sale on Dubizzle.

I called up the owner and we agreed to meet up. It was in decent shape with visible wear and tear inside out. The conclusion at the time was: it might not be as bright as the other real sports cars but it would do the trick better off than a boring family sedan especially as it was being sold for around AED 9000 and had some 72,000 kms on the odometer. The drive-train was a 2.0 engine mated to a 4speed Tiptronic transmission.

This 2002 Coupe is a rare entry model: with ugly fabric seats, 15’ wheel caps, a cassette radio, a single driver’s side airbag and it did not have ABS. The specs sounded a bit bland but I bought it anyways. I told myself even if I dish out some AED 3000 worth of repairs on it, it still is a good deal. I bagged the bargain, and a few months after I got a job.

The first impressions for the first couple of months went as follows: Going in reverse and changing lanes was a bit of a nuisance due to the blind spots from the thick back & the side pillars. Trunk and seating space was generous but the hard seats can break your back if your trips exceed an hour. The ride is very stable on highways but the stiff suspension was irritating on bumpy roads.

The four speed dodgy tiptronic is quite handy in situations. The body is pretty heavy, the 2.0 DOHC iron-block engine felt a bit on the underpowered side but the chassis did a good job on the corners, despite the heavy steering and weightless tail. The stopping power of the brakes is quite good, as long as you learn to how to avoid locking the brakes in urgent situations.

It took a year to get used to driving the car. The steering is as responsive as that of a semi-truck. On sharp corners, the tail can lose traction easily sending the car out of control; which happened several times in the past. The main contributor, for such behaviour, was the 15’’ steel wheels with 195/55 tires garnished with plastic caps, a disgrace.

The Coupe is a capable sports car once you learn how to tackle these limitations and the driving experience is actually pleasant. It is only missing a more competent/sporty drive-train.

More than two and a half years went and the Coupe was taken through all kinds of mixed driving mostly on emirates road commuting from Sharjah to Dubai. Plus, some long occasional trips to Abu Dhabi, the Eastern Emirates, Muscat & Musandam.

Frequent and generous maintenance intervals were done during these years by my trusted mechanic & in several cases by myself: drive-train mounts, a timing belt kit, constant velocity joints, wheel bearings, brakes, engine flushes, a radiator & a couple of batteries. The Coupe did require some decent repairs to keep it running in shape but it never let me down with any kind of breakdowns during the years.

It is a very solid and extremely reliable car; I exceedingly underestimated the reliability of a Hyundai at the beginning. The odometer is currently sitting at some 160,000km so far. This confidence got me motivated to get my ride pampered with a short ram AEM intake, 17’’ Lenso alloys, a Pioneer stereo and a nice metallic WR-Blue paint job. With all these additions along with the major repairs; the car now values at some AED 16000.

Next summer will be three years of ownership; It would hurt to let it go especially after working on bringing it back to top-shape; still there is this thirst for a more powerful/capable car. I told myself maybe this car is a keeper until it simply dies.

Otherwise I would love an engine upgrade and a manual transmission. Not very certain about what happens next, I would look forward to see how many miles it can soak. Nevertheless, it was a great experiment and experience seeing how that Coupe improved and got better as it aged.

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