My brother works in a brake/muffler/suspension shop for a long time and has seen many cars come and go, obviously. He also does side jobs working on people's cars in his home garage.
Since he's a car nut (not just some high school kid who does brakes for a living), he actually checks out the cars.
When his friend told him that he was buying a 2002 Sonota, my brother flipped because of the old reputation from 80s and early 90s Hyundais that were probably made to break soon in their life.
He gets it up on a lift to check stuff out and was very suprised in the build quality of the suspension and underbody components.
For an example, my sister had a 1995 Elantra. They somehow blew all 4 tires at the same time on the highway and went into the ditch. When the tow truck came to pull them out, they attached to a piece of the rear suspension and bent the sh*t out of it. Reminds me of the rear control arms on our cars!
On the 02 Sonota, he said the suspension parts were way thicker than any other Hyundai he saw, plus were nicely designed and looked like they could hold up for a long time.
Same thing on the brakes. Larger, better designed/built stuff than previous designs.
