[jonesanto]

Again... Let the picture do the talking.




Elantra is reaching 15 years, FC is up by this year end. Keeping a car with you for 15 years is really something and even more if the car is reliable all these years. I got Elantra at a really young age, I did not know head and tail about cars, it was my dad who selected the car, it was all him looking for a powerful car with safelty which can cover highways like a breeze and boy, we did choose the right car. From my experience I’d say the challenge starts if you decided to keep the car after 10 years, you need a lot of patience to source parts, a good FNG is a must. Then the mind game starts, is it practical to keep something this old? Etc…

Elantra is again special because we never kept any other car for more than 10 years. One Innova we kept for 8 years and that was the longest. I would have definitely sold the Elantra, at one point I put ad and contacted dealers to sell the car, but destiny had other plans, situation changed and I badly needed a car when I visit Kerala and thought why not use Elantra? Since 2017 Elantra is in Kerala full time.

Car has been pretty reliable all these years, I would not call myself a car enthusiast, it is in my nature to take care of things that I own, let it be anything. So, I just took care of the car and it served me way above my expectations. All these years and kilometers, car never broke down or stranded us anywhere. Couple of times there were signs that things are gonna give up soon and we took care of things immediately without fail.
At one point wifey was telling me to sell the car and I somehow justified the reasons and fast forward 2021 it is time to do the FC, she’s telling me to keep the car for our city runs.

Value what you have



Last year due to covid and stuff Elantra barely ran anywhere. I wanted to take her for a long run before I go for FC, just to make sure the car is fit to do a highway run. This month starting got a chance, Kerala-Bangalore, alone, with family I’d never take Elantra for a long run, something happens, you are in big trouble if family is with you. Since it was just me, took the opportunity to test the car, what I expected, the opposite happened. It drove like a dream, till 120 kmph I could keep up with pretty much anything on road, car still gives good mileage, most importantly, it could still put a grin on my face when I floor the pedal. What more do you need from a 15-year-old car?

Before doing FC, I decided to do a thorough mechanical checkup, if any parts required changing, will source parts from Bangalore and fix it. I was doing interior cleaning last week, noticed couple of things, seats are still holding up, 15 years, only driver seat shows age, other seats are actually in decent condition, I am still using the carpets and floor mats I got with the car… Those are in decent condition too.

Back seat and those floor mat, got it with the car



All the electrical and switches are working, everything works! I have a strict policy of not to fiddle with any wiring in the car, that could be the reason everything is still holding up.

Window switches



Boot



We stay very close to the sea, barely 3 KM, car is rust free, this shows how well the car is built.



Cheers.

[createrkid]

I keep coming back to this thread to marvel at how Hyundai used to build their cars (of course, you rightfully deserve all the credit for maintaining it)

You know how most cars have different tolerances when examined with a fine toothed comb even though they're the same cars from the same manufacturer? Heck, every Tata/Mahindra car that rolls out of the assembly line is different with their own niggles and birthmarks. At one end of the spectrum, you've got yourself a lemon car and at the other, you've hit the lottery and everything works for years to come. I think you've hit the lottery multiple times now.

[rosh_aveo1.4]

Dude. What the hell man! 4.5 lakh in a Hyundai...how is that even possible? I mean we take Toyota, Honda and other Japs for granted when it comes to such high mileage runs but the Hyundai doing that is just beyond me. Amazing how well you maintained it and there is this content feeling seeing how well it holds up after such a long run. Do you miss the gizmos like bluetooth and all (did the car even have it then)? Sorry if I missed this but do you service it at Hyundai A.S.S or give it to a local FNG?

[jonesanto]

Originally Posted by createrkid

I think you've hit the lottery multiple times now.

Thank you, createrkid. I can confidently say now that I have got a niggle free car and with regular maintenance everything worked for years. They don't make them like this anymore, which is a shame. I had finalized on Seltos, then I heard about brake issues, apparently there is a chance it would not work when you need them. Then the NCPA rating was the final nail in the coffin, 3 star for a car cost 20 big ones? Thank you, I will pass that. Shortlisted Harrier AT, but man, so many niggles and issues reported by owners, it is really a killjoy. I am finishing up a house construction, car purchase can wait.

Originally Posted by rosh_aveo1.4

Do you miss the gizmos like bluetooth and all (did the car even have it then)? Sorry if I missed this but do you service it at Hyundai A.S.S or give it to a local FNG?

Thank you, rosh, all your questions have been answered here at some point, so, I will keep it short. Stock audio set up was pathetic, it was a cassette player, changed that to a touch screen, this unit has everything covered except for the maps. I still have the stock unit with me, future generation will never see a cassette player in real life, they will only see pics. I will keep that for someone to see it in future. I have got TPMS installed recently, planning to get a Dashcam and install it without fiddling with the wires.

Service, service, well, Hyundai service is pathetic when it comes to old cars, they don't want to attend cars like this at all, heck, Hyundai don't even support their newer and on sale premium cars. They just keep it for the heck of it. I don't even get air filter for my car at Hyundai, so I source all original and do it at my FNG and they do sincere work on my car. Being in Bangalore helps a lot, I get pretty much everything from JC road, if at all I am unable to source it, I have contacts abroad and I will source it from there, she runs trouble free.

Just realized I have never put a picture how the car looks at night, these are not the shots the car deserves, I could never take good pictures Still...



Side profile



I still dig how the cockpit looks at night in this car

[Rahul Rao]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Wow that oil color after 1500km is unreal! Even in a new diesel engine the oil gets blackened within a few hundred km after oil change!! What's your secret?

The engine has run 4.5 Lakh km. That means it is well beaded and everything is smoother than when new. Talk to any cabby with an Innova with 4-5 lakh on the odo, and they will tell you the same thing, the engine gets smoother the more it runs.
Follow two things. A patient running in when new, not reeving hard till engine has properly warmed up means the engine will live on to a very long age.

Rahul

[jonesanto]

Finally, after so much debate with head and heart, heart won. Elantra’s FC is done!



Now, some of you might be thinking, “What’s there to think too much about it?”

Because this is our first car getting the FC done. My dad has a 88 Bajaj Cub, which he will never sell and I have an Yamaha Libero finished 15 years, which is the first bike registered in my name and I don’t plan on selling that and it does not cost me anything when it comes to maintenance and stuff. But cars, a big no for us, dad was a business man (now retired) and he had lot of running, so he kept changing cars after 5-10 year mark, my brother also a business man, he has a minimum of 4 cars in his name all the time, two for business purpose and two for his personal usage. Same 5-10 year rule applies here. Though not in my brother’s league, I too had lot of running and things have calmed down now, still I easily do 15K an year, so never kept any car for more than 10 year. For me the list is pretty small, I got dad’s Ikon, sold that after using it for two years, got Elantra, then got Octavia, sold Octavia recently, offer was too good to pass. I don’t have a primary car now, using brothers Innova as my primary drive. I will make a purchase once this COVID situation settles, nothing has been finalized yet.

Elantra is the first car purchased in my name, Libero is the first bike purchase in my name and I still have both of them with me, weird coincidence?



I am gonna drag it a bit from here…

So 15 years and 4.5 lakh kilometers, NEVER STANDED us anywhere is a big deal for me. Elantra is Nov 2006 registered, so I still had a good 3 months to do FC, thought I will do the FC around that time. I had already spoke to an agent and all was good. Then me and my family had to go to Bangalore to sign some papers and appointment was fixed on particular dates and travel was planned. Wifey does not like long car drives, she prefers train or flight, but due to COVID she did not want to travel in train with our son. Plan was to take brothers Innova, brother told me service is due and he will get it done before the long trip. He got the car serviced and when I was about to pick the car from his place got the news he tested positive for COVID. Since he was using the car could not get it without getting it sanitized and I had just one and half day left to leave to Bangalore. Tried getting some rental cars, did not work out, one guy wanted 65K for one week. Taking advantage of the situations. Other options I had, Fortuner gone to business trip, will be back the on the night I wanted to travel, means I have to drive at night with family with no other co-driver, safety is more important, skipped that option, then I am left with redi-GO (let’s not go in that), Celerio, Swift zxi 2020 model. So Swift was the choice but again it was parked at brother’s home wifey and dad said, not to do that since all members from brother’s family tested positive.


In the mean time I started talking to people in Bangalore about postponing the travel, but it was a property deal and seller is not happy about postponing it further, we had postponed it once earlier. What’s next? Elantra? I wanted to take her to Bangalore for the FC anyway but with family is contradicting to everything I have been following, old vehicle, with family is big no, I am alone and if something happens, I only have to worry about me, I can manage, but with family, it’s a different scene altogether. My situation is such, I had to take a risk somewhere if I were to reach Bangalore on time or possibly let go off the property deal.


This is where experience and age comes into play, my dad said, if you think the car will run and you are just worried about anything happening while on road, it can happen to a new car too, new car’s don’t breakdown? Just take it to your mechanic and leave it with him for a day and ask him to check everything. So I did that, took the car to my trusted mechanic, did all the normal service, I had all the parts stocked. He kept the car for a day and said, it runs just fine, just take it and go. Wifey also gave the green signal.


I know I dragged it too much but had to explain and only then the narration will be complete. Members were, wife, mother in law, son and me. When I loaded the luggage itself the car became over-loaded. I wish if I had taken a pic of the trunk condition, there was not an inch of space left to keep anything. Morning 4:30 left my place, we have taken Kollam- Aryankavu- Madurai-Salem- Hosur route. Evening 4:00 parked the car at my apartment in Bangalore. I did not think anything about the car, was enjoying talking to my family. Return, left at 4:30 in the morning from Bangalore, reached home at 3:00 in the evening, thanks to lock down in Kerala and overall less Sunday traffic. Wifey was impressed with the car and told me it was not tiring at all and she could sleep well, apparently the last long trip in a car she had was in Elantra, a Bangalore-Kerala drive back in 2016.

Somewhere in Tamil Nadu



Next morning, while washing the car, I was thinking only one thing, I absolutely can’t expect anything more from Elantra, the car has served us more than anything anyone could ever ask for. I am a proud owner! With full luggage and full people, car had no problem pulling, overtaking, cruising at 120km even at ghat section rarely had to use second gear, it just pulls like a locomotive. On toll highway, I am not a driver who keeps it at 80km to get the maximum juice out of the efficiency, I try to keep a steady 120km, not more, which is not safe on our highways.


Coming to the FC part, called the agent, he came and saw the car, said all is good, just had to change the number plate to IND one, done that, current number plate I got with the car and still in good condition, survived all kind of weather and condition and this IND is so flimsy, it may hardly last two year and maybe that is exactly what the authorities want. At the RTO, agent came with his colleague, he’s the one took the car to the inspector and I was just there standing and they did talk about something and that was it, done in two mins. 10 days I stayed in Bangalore and I was extremely busy, I wanted to get a detailing done, last detailing done is 5 years back, also wanted to get dash camera and maybe a new head unit, but had no time, I will definitely do something soon, car deserves its 15 years’ birthday pampering.





Coming to the FE part, did not do a thorough calculation, before leaving 3300rs for full tank, with that I could reach Bangalore, usually I do a refill at Salem, this time I did not stop, then in Bangalore did a 2500rs refill did my run in Bangalore and before leaving to Kerala did a full tank for 3500. Again with that full tank I reached Kerala and yes the needle showed E mark but no fuel warning showed up, so there was still enough fuel left. With full load, full people and keeping a steady 120km on the highway it still gave a 700km full tank range. Pretty good for a 15-year-old car.

Coming to the conclusion, right?


There is no doubt this car will always hold a special place in my heart, I got this in my 20’s, all the wild thing I have done and all the places I have gone, this car was with me, then got married, I am a father now, I took my son home in this car, I am in my mid-thirties. Life has changed and things have changed, but whenever I require, Elantra is still there like a true companion, a car which has never let me down and was always dependable. Like I said, I will always be the proud owner of this car. I shall keep her as long as I can and I will be the FIRST and LAST owner this gem!

The underdog



Random clicks





Signing off

[SoupRaw]

This speaks volume for that CRDI's bulletproof reliability. I've read many stories here about Elantra, and how much of a reliable mile muncher it is.

Hats off on keeping the beauty in such a pristine condition. If you take care of things, they last!

Wishing you many more happy miles with this beauty

[Rajiv0909]

There are very few owners who actually use their machines to the fullest. 450k kms, wow! Hope you continue to believe in the Elantra and do many more miles.

[Shreyas_H]

I love seeing posts such as these. It's so great so see a car reliably run for such high mileage! 4 lakh plus kilometres is probably something one would associate with a yellow plate Innova. To see it in an Elantra is fantastic!

You are truly helping the car fulfill its purpose! Wish you many more kilometres of fuss free running with this beauty.

[Hayek]

What a review and what a car. Congrats. 450,000 km in any car is incredible - in India is mind boggling. Was just trying to calculate how much my family has done in all the cars we have owned - 75+57+65+57+75+34+4 - 367,000 km in 7 different cars since 1998. Hope that I can keep driving long enough to get to 450,000 for my family one day.

As an aside, I must admit I disliked the old Elantra - thought it looked ugly and dismissed it without a fair trial. But a boss of mine loved it - and retained it for years after getting to level where his official car was an A8. So clearly owners value this car, and your thread is the ultimate proof of why.

[littlebrother]

Aaah ! This brings back such torquey memories of our old Elantra crdi. If there's any car we strongly miss from our garage it is our Elantra Crdi. The European vehicle like build quality, handling and that amazing engine. It could keep up with any car on the high way. We used to have an innova alongside but I always wanted my father to choose Elantra while travelling from Cochin to Bangalore to enjoy those fast tamil nadu highways. He would only pick the Elantra if he had to travel through the double lane Kerala highways to close those sudden overtaking gaps. We used it for close to a lakh kilometres and I then remember hearing over the phone father facing some glitch with the vehicle where the authorised service centre recommended to open the engine to repair the fault for which he wasn't willing . Hence he sold and got a Jetta 2.0 Tdi but the Elantra was surely missed. Wishing you many more happy miles in your Elantra

[rkv_2401]

Congratulations! I saw your thread last year, after your golden steed knocked down a wall.

We have a 2004 Elantra CRDi, in midnight blue. And every time I see your ownership thread, I am stirred through a plethora of emotions - nostalgia about when Team-BHP was brand new and the Lancer & Elantra threads were all the talk of the town, my own memories of first dreaming about driving this car, to learning how to drive in it, to using it as a daily drive, going back and forth from college....and suddenly, I've been driving for 5 years? That comes as a shocker to me.

That tells you something about how gracefully this car ages. It feels like yesterday when I started learning how to drive in it, and despite it not being serviced regularly, being locked down for nearly a year in a garage where the salty breeze(looking for metal to rust) hunted at day and anti-social elements stalked at night...it still performs as beautifully as the day I first drove it.

The long gears and big, turbocharged diesel mill sound like a bad combination for city driving, and indeed - it's much better suited for the highways, where you can slingshot past cabbies and smaller cars doing 100-105. You can cruise all day at 120 km/hr and 2500RPM, middle of the power zone. Or you can drive along at night to that beautiful blue-lit dashboard, doing 70-80km/hr under open skies with the engine barely making a whisper. And it has a couple of redeeming qualities for city driving, too.

First, that beautiful engine. Just as happy at 3300RPM as it is at 1800. When the reviews first came out, comparing the CRDi mill of the Elantra to the Octavia PD, the reviewers weren't happy that this new technology couldn't clear the speedbreaker test(20km/hr in 3rd gear). I say, keep it in first! It's certainly got the rev-range to do it. I'm still surprised by the extent that common-rail technology has pervaded and revolutionized the industries using diesel engine. Would a Tata Ace or Swift MJD be half as popular if we were still using the old diesel technology? After the Mercedes C200/220 CDi in 2003, Hyundai were the second people to bring this to India, with the 1.5L, 3-cyl Accent Viva CRDi and the Elantra. I'm pretty happy to be an owner of one of the flag-bearers of such a revolutionary engine technology. I hope you are, too.

Second, the steering. For a car that's over 4.5m in length, it is supremely nimble and easy to drive! The turning radius is mind-bendingly small...5.05m for a car this size! My Vento is a smaller car and yet it's more difficult to park and harder to get turned around. Recently, I made a U-turn with the Elantra in a narrow street where even a Swift owner had tried and given up. I took away the car with a small scratch on the back as a parting gift, a reminder to always strive to do the impossible.

My Vento TSi may be faster in day-to-day usage thanks to it's 7 gears, 6ms upshifts and 6000RPM rev-limiter - but where it loses out in statistics, the Elantra more than makes up with in feeling. It takes off with it's wheels spinning away, 195s struggling to put all that power down, all the way through to around halfway in 2nd. The roar of the 2.0L mill at 3000+ RPM is giddying, the torque wave intoxicating and you have to reign in your foot much as you would a wild horse. Remember, even 3rd gear can get you to illegal speeds.

There are downsides, too, though. The electronics in my car have always been faulty. The audio system turns on and off seemingly on it's own, but I guess that's to be expected in a car that's almost 17 years old(Dec 2004). The engine thermostat goes up and down, sometimes turning itself off, and no one knows how to rectify that. But I also have a Volkswagen, and I know enough to be grateful that the electrical gremlins stop with temperature sensors. The ground clearance is too low for some of the places I visit. It could be a suspension problem, but I always thump the underbody going up slopes that the Vento could gracefully ascend.

I've grown out of the phase where I'm trying to maintain the car in pristine condition. I mean, I'm just 23 - I have a lot more in terms of driving experiences that await me that my '04 Elantra won't take me to, many cars that I haven't driven yet, and I aspire to own one of the big 3 at some point, but one thing is for certain. This car has a special place in my heart as well. And when I buy my first car(assuming my finances are in line), it'll be a current model year Elantra. The reliability, the power, the luxury, the ease-of-use : I can't imagine anything else coming close. Not at this price point.

I'm glad to see your car in mint shape, even after all these miles and years, and the FC renewed to hopefully serve you for many miles more.

[clementw]

Wow! 450000 is an amazing relationship. Congratulations! Speaks volumes of this car, IMHO older cars seem to have been built for longer obsolescence periods when compared to modern ones. Like mobile phones newer cars age faster or seem to give up early.

[Sureshmadhan]

Its so inspiring for a person like me who has unsettled mind to change cars. Doing 450000 in a car for 15 years speaks about the very good perseverance you had to do those regular maintenance. Despite the fact that there were many subsequent generations of Elantra you maintained your temperament of not changing your car. Well appreciated. Wishing you many more years of relationship and all the best for the FC.

[AZT]

Phew! 450,000 is even beyond Innova level bullet proof. Great job maintaining it, still looks good