The mentioned phenomena raised a question in my head, if I'll be one of those people who is willing to buy a new or relatively new affordable vehicle but won't know what to look for because I'll be concerned about reliability and service costs in long terms what would I choose? Looking around and seeing what the European car companies offered us in the last 5 - 10 years and how "great" they turned out to be overtime made me double check everything because the sad truth is that one or two engines may be less problematic than the others in case of various brands but despite these small outbursts of success the overall situation is pretty bad. To demonstrate the seriousness of this situation take a look at the TSI engine family of Volkswagen Group, their timing chain and chain tensioner broke damaging the engine, the 1.8 TSI is burning oil while carbon is building up on the internals and even the cylinders cracked after 150000 km (93205 miles) in case of the 1.4 TSI, Ford's EcoBoost engine family which took fire in case of the 1.0 and 1.6 L versions along with cracking the engine block and cooking the cylinder head or there is PSA and BMW's commonly developed 1.6 Prince engine which is also famous for snapping the timing chain, clogging the valves with built up carbon and burning oil due to the poor quality sealing of the internals. The overall conclusion started to seem like that the best way of avoiding a such troublesome ownership is to turn to the Japanese alternatives which proved to be as reliable as their predecessors but than I bumped into an issue. These once highly affordable, rather simplistic and cheap feeling - which could be observed in their interior - economy cars are no longer what and how they were between the 80s and 00s and by saying this I mean that they started to be positioned much higher than in the past - nowadays competing in entirely different class -, they're more prestige inspired - with better material used in their interior and nicer finishing touches than ever - while their list of features is containing some which would have been unimaginable once, a phenomena which is also responsible for their increased price tag... This transition might be a beneficial our policy because chasing the Volkswagen Golf - one of the most popular hatchbacks which is the pinnacle in its class - created a tough competition and lead to better quality and more refined hatchbacks than ever before due to the fact that most rivals are trying to live up to the Golf's level but the downside of this process is that those simple and inexpensive Japanese eco boxes of the past which except regular maintenance and filling them up doesn't require anything disappeared, leaving nothing behind than the satisfaction of their owners who are still claiming to this day that nothing will be as good in its segment than these vehicles once were.
So if the answer neither can be found in the European or Japanese market than what is the best alternative if you are wishing to own a reliable, modern and affordable daily? The result wasn't obvious at first sight because as I mentioned before here and there were some good models but the overall reliability of that manufacturer was still low so after a certain time spent on the research the perfect combination started to show up. Hyundai and KIA, these rather blend, undesirable, average and in most cases boring looking and feeling vehicles, which are not doing anything better than their competition, are the most rational choice because first of all they are having the best reputation of being reliable. This statement is not only underlined by the satisfaction of the owners or opinion of mechanics but it's also accentuated in the research done J.D. Power (which is an American data analytics and consumer intelligence company founded in 1968) which is making a list every year of the most reliable car manufacturers on the market and both Korean companies are in the top since 2017 while even before they managed to score better than such bigger names as Ford, Chrysler, Mini, Subaru, Mitsubishi or Volvo for example. Than there is the 7 year warranty which is another class leading advantage, they're offering it in an era when the competition is usually done with 3 or maybe 5 in an ideal condition and last but not least they're both offering anything from a sub compact hatchback to a plug in hybrid SUV to an EV which is also a smart step because they're ahead of most of their competitors, being able to offer anything which a future customer might look for. So if we're adding up all these characteristics than the verdict is that the products of Hyundai Motor Group - KIA is also owned by them - are the new Japanese vehicles of the past! Their entry level and even affordable models are inexpensive compared to the competition, making them easily reachable for the masses, their overall reliability is one of the best - which is one of their strongest selling points - while their design language and interior quality is a bit behind the competition's level, reminding me of a Corolla or Civic from two decades ago. Neither one of them was the most luxurious, best equipped, best to drive or best looking in their class but despite not being the ultimate hatchback on the market, sale figures were indicating that they're the ones who nailed it because everybody who needed nothing more than an affordable transportational device which will take them from point A to point B without any issue bought one without hesitation, refusing even to consider anything else. From my personal opinion Hyundai and KIA is duplicating the old Japanese car recipe and by saying this I mean after they earned the trust of new customers with offering them a 7 years warranty - suggesting that even if we're a smaller car company than the rest of the competition we are ensuring you that for 7 years nothing will go wrong and even if so we're taking care of it saving you a decent amount of money - they also managed to prove that any of their models is a long lasting and easy + cheap to maintain one - pretty much like when the Japanese car companies entered the U.S. -, offering a very long forgotten and underrated feature which you won't be able to find even in much expensive vehicles which is reliability.
Facts are indicating that a car manufacturer don't necessarily have to be the best in every single territory and don't have aim to be +2 in every measurable way compared the competition just to create a successful product which sales because creating a reliable, easy to reach and to live with vehicle is much more appealing to the public than "blinding" them with features, a nicer design language and interior quality. So if you're deciding with the brain and inner peace combined with not paying a fortune to the local mechanic is the your thing than consider a Hyundai or KIA.
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