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Hey, everybody.
Joe Wiesenfelder from Cars.com.
Is it me, or have things gotten a little weird?
They have.
And I know you've felt it.
We at Cars.com have, as well.
We've been under a stay at home order for a while,
first from our company and then from the governor
here in Illinois, JB Pritzker.
You might remember him from the Monopoly game.
So I've been in my house for a week,
thinking I could really use a new venue.
And lo and behold, here it is.
It's the 2020 Hyundai Venue.
There you go.
There's another epidemic upon the land.
It's dad humor.
And I'm not even a dad, I hope.
So you know, a lot of things have changed.
But some things haven't, which include the fact
that we still are really into cars.
And you probably are, too, if you're watching.
Or maybe you're considering buying one.
And with the stress on the economy right
now, a new, affordable model like this one
isn't a bad one to be checking out.
So I still got me.
I got my gear.
I got a new model people don't know much about.
I say, let's do this.
One of the obvious questions about the Venue is, what is it?
And it's kind of an SUV, but we don't consider it
one because it doesn't offer all-wheel drive.
We kind of consider that the cutoff point.
It's front-wheel drive only.
And it fits into the Hyundai lineup kind of along side
the Kona, which is a subcompact SUV.
But bear in mind that the Venue is shorter from bumper
to bumper than the Kona and also a little bit narrower.
But it does look like an SUV.
And I think that's probably going to help it out
on the market because Americans prefer SUVs largely because
of the utility of having the hatch and sitting high.
And all of that is here.
All you don't have is the all-wheel drive.
With the automatic transmission, it costs $19,670.
That's $1,750 less than the Kona with front-wheel drive.
So you can see the cost advantage right off the bat.
Well, the Venue has one engine and one engine only.
It's a 1.6-liter four-cylinder.
And it's not turbocharged.
It has a rated 121 horsepower, 113 pound feet of torque.
That is not a lot.
And it doesn't really feel like a lot, either.
But in a lot of cases, you don't need it.
It's a relatively light car.
Where Cars.com is headquartered here in Chicago,
it's the flatlands.
So without hills to climb, it doesn't really
affect us that much.
[engine running]
Do you hear that shifting?
It revs up.
And then it shifts down.
And that's pretty impressive considering
that this transmission is a continuously variable
transmission.
It's the only automatic available.
There's a six-speed manual available on the base SE.
Everything else is a CVT.
And they're designing these CVTs now
to make that shifting action, just because people
were so freaked out by the fact that CVTs would just
go into that drone mode and stay revving
high without coming back down and making that shifting
action.
It's almost like seeing a baby climb up on something high.
It's like, it's high.
It's high.
It has to come down.
And everyone's like anxious if it doesn't come down
or something like that.
But overall, it's an efficient car.
Something seems to be working.
The EPA rating for combined driving
is 32 miles per gallon, which is pretty good.
So it's nice to have a modestly powered vehicle like this
that actually delivers.
Because sometimes you get modestly
powered vehicles that are also not so great on gas, so good
there.
Now, for what it's worth, there are drive modes.
Sport mode actually makes it sportier feeling
by keeping the revs higher.
You're going to sacrifice some fuel efficiency this way.
But it does make it more responsive all the time.
It's actually a nicely executed mode.
There's also a snow mode, which is
good to have in a two-wheel drive car.
And it makes the accelerator a little bit more sluggish,
which actually helps prevent spinning your wheels.
Overall, it's not a quick car, which is kind of a shame,
because there are no cars out here.
I could go really fast right now, but I got nowhere to go.
I don't have to go to work.
I can't really go anywhere, and everything's closed.
This might be the perfect car for a pandemic,
because it's not real quick, and you can't go anywhere anyway.
Handling overall is nice.
The steering feel is good.
It's not a sports car, but pretty sophisticated
suspension for an affordable car.
The wheelbase is short, which can
make for more body motions in a smaller car on bad pavement
but, by and large, not bad.
The advanced safety systems that are included
are lane keep assist, which is nice.
You can see, it's actually kind of steering me a little bit
back into my lane.
And also a lane departure warning, if I let it go too far
it'll be beep at me.
And forward collision warning, here we go.
There's the beep.
Forward collision warning with pedestrian detection and
autonomous braking and the blind spot warning and rear
cross traffic alert, which is an option.
Cruise control is included, but adaptive cruise control
is not, which is unfortunate.
One of the advantages to the SUV-type shape, the boxy shape,
is a lot of headroom, front and back.
I'm six feet tall.
I have the seat all the way up.
It adjusts for height, as well as fore and aft and tilt.
And even with the optional moonroof that
comes in the convenience package, optional convenience
package, in this SEL, I still have clearance, which is great.
Now if you want extra clearance, and you
don't want the moonroof, that means
you also have to do away with some other things,
like the sliding arm rest, here in the center, and the console
and a leather steering wheel, and also the rear cross traffic
assist and blind spot.
So you might not want to give that up if you fit.
Power seats are not available.
They're all manual.
Unfortunately, the passenger seat
doesn't have a height adjustment,
which is less of an issue for fitting people in because
of all the headroom.
But some people like to sit higher.
Unfortunately, not an option.
But that's not out of the ordinary for an affordable car
like this.
Likewise, the interior quality, even
in a loaded version like this, which is pushing about $24,000,
you're going to find some hard surfaces.
That's typical, again, for the price range.
Cabin storage is decent, couple of cup holders.
The center storage console is pretty spare, pretty small.
Door pockets, so-so, but nice little shelf
here for things like your smartphone and such,
pretty nicely done.
That brings us to the touch screen,
which is larger than average at 8 inches measured diagonally,
pretty nicely done.
Now, it does have built in navigation
with real-time traffic alerts available on the SEL
and standard on the Denim, which is one step up from this.
And for what it's worth, we think
the Denim interior is nicer.
It just makes a better impression,
even though this is one of the high trim levels,
it just doesn't feel as rich without the color.
So another great thing is that the system supports
standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is a must,
especially in an affordable car like this.
You get navigation essentially for free off of your phone.
All you've got to do is plug it in.
The touch screens are pretty clear to understand.
Everything's laid out there, quick access buttons
right below.
And they are real buttons, not touch sensitive things.
There's a power volume knob, a tuning knob,
so many cars don't have that.
The ventilation controls very clear.
All really simple, exactly what you want.
Here in the back seat you see, again, the advantage
in the headroom is great.
It's especially great back here because the moonroof only
comes back to about here.
So you actually have more headroom
in the back seat in a car with a moonroof.
Now, legroom, not as great.
I've got the seat where I had to drive,
which was all the way back and all the way up.
And my knees are just touching.
And they're raised a bit, which is unfortunate.
But that's pretty common nowadays.
Manufacturers put the seat a little bit lower,
because it buys you headroom.
It seems unnecessary here.
I think I would have preferred if the seat were higher.
And I could sit less on my tailbone.
The Kona has maybe 4/10 or 5/10 of an inch more legroom,
so that's comparable.
It's when you get into something like the Kia Soul
where you get more leg room.
It's a longer vehicle.
It has about four inches more legroom.
There's more comfort there.
Not a lot of amenities back here.
You might notice, there's a net pocket here but not one here.
No means of charging your mobile devices.
That's a bit of a bummer.
But again, it's an affordable vehicle.
And that's not out of the ordinary.
The Venue's cargo area is pretty impressive for what it is.
Pretty small vehicle, but you get a good amount of space
back here.
And there are some neat tricks I'm going to show you.
The cardboard cover is, you know, typical
of inexpensive vehicles.
It's unfortunate.
But here's the thing, now it appears
you don't have to remove it anymore, necessarily.
Look, it slides back like that.
That's nice.
Here's another one.
Good amount of space, by the way, comparable to the Kona
behind the back seat, according to manufacturer specs, which
are a little hard to trust.
We just haven't had a chance to work this up yet.
Now, here underneath the floor, a lot of good space.
You've got your spare tire, some tools.
You could put stuff under there, sure.
But here's another trick that we're
starting to see a lot more of.
If you slide this into a different channel,
you can lower it.
And now you have a whole lot more volume.
And you can carry something taller, which is great.
And also, note how close you are to the back seat.
So you don't need releases back here.
You just reach forward and flip them.
In that case, though, obviously, you either
have to put this back up or remove it,
which is pretty simple.
If you want more space, you are going
to have to go for something like the Soul, which
is longer and has a good deal more cargo volume.
Overall, the new Venue is pretty impressive.
We're not big fans of model after model being added
to the market into a lineup if it doesn't
have a reason for being.
And this one kind of skates by because it is front-wheel
drive only, and it is smaller than some of the other vehicles
in the Hyundai lineup.
And it might be exactly what people
are looking for nowadays, especially
as the economy is under so much pressure
that we didn't see coming just a few weeks ago.
So worth checking out.
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll keep doing this as long as you keep watching.
Thanks.
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