KevinMD

2015 Hyundai Azera Base Ride Report
PCAR
Standard Features
20/29 mpg
3.3L V6
6 Speed shiftable automatic
293 hp
FWD
18.5 Gallon fuel tank
16.3 cubic foot trunk
10 way power driver seat with power seat extension
8 way power passenger seat
leather/ both seats heated and cooled
rear seats are heated
8 inch touchscreen with built in NAV (SD card)
AM/FM with AUX, USB, and Bluetooth
3 month of SXM
14 Infinity premium speakers including subwoofer delivering 550 watts
Rear view camera
Blind spot monitoring with rear cross traffic alert

Pros
Very well equipped
Incredible sound system
Comfortable ride

Cons
Hard to find

Conclusion
The 2015 Azera is everything a premium car should be!



I was surprised to find not one, but three Azera's at TUL. It had been months since I had seen one. I had driven the 2014 Azera, and did a ride report on it. The 2014 is a great car, but had some shortcomings. I am pleased to say that those shortcomings have been addressed, and the Azera is now my preferred PCAR.

One of the things that I like best about the Azera, is how well equipped the base trim is. There is no need to figure out what trim it is, what engine it comes with. There are a total of two trims, base and limited. There are no optional packages, and a handful of optional accessories, such as cargo nets, and floor mats. The base trim starts at $34,000.



All Azera's come equipped with a 3.3L V6 and has FWD. 0 - 60 is in 6.7 seconds. With close to 300 horses under the hood, there is plenty of available power and acceleration when needed, and the engine is very responsive.

The Azera now comes standard with an 8" touchscreen. The menus are easy to follow, and connecting a new phone, is very quick. There is also a delete all to quickly remove other people's phones. I do like that there are still some knobs, such as for tuning that make it easier to change stations. The Azera has the standard inputs and comes with 3 months of SXM.



One of my favorite features is the sound system. All Azera's come equipped with a 14 speaker package that is Infinity branded. Total output is a shocking 550 watts. Needless to say, you will feel the music when you turn the volume up. The mids are crisp and clear. The bass is powerful and deep, and is not distorted, even at higher volumes.

The seats are very comfortable and very supportive. Both front seats are full power, with power lumbar for the driver. The driver seat also has power seat bottom extension. It will actually extend the seat bottom to give more support for those with longer thighs. Both front seats are heated and cooled, and the back seats are heated. I sat in the back, and there is ample leg room to stretch out for longer rides.



Another thing I like is it takes everything you would want in a premium car and made it standard. It has a large cabin with lots of room, large trunk, comfortable seats, lots of entertainment options, a killer sound system, and is actually fun to drive. I love that if you see one, you don't have to figure out what engine is inside, what optional features does it have, compared to the one next to it.

noah

Thanks for the report.

I picked a brand new (4 miles) Azera off the aisle in LAS a week ago and thoroughly enjoyed my time in it. The audio was fantastic as you point out. I'd always been a fan of the Genesis but hadn't been able to get into a high end Hyundai for a few years, so great to get this and find that it exceeded my expectations.

IsleOfMan

Glad to see NAV now coming as standard unlike the '14 (Hyundai's move, not National's). Now I see the Azera as probably the best of the PCARs, save for maybe the rare Cadenza floating around, even if it is FWD.

MissJ

I had one from CLT a few weeks ago. I hope to see a lot more of these. They are great. I drove mine all over the Carolinas and really enjoyed it.

DonCarpenter

Crossing my fingers one of these will be around next Thursday at DFW.

piper28

I finally got my hands on one of these recently, and for the most part, I do tend to agree that it's a pretty nice car. My wife wasn't quite as happy with it, but most of her frustrations stemmed from dialing the phone with voice recognition, and I'd tend to agree that the voice recognition system in this car is somewhat lacking. Dialing a contact always seemed to require multiple prompts, and often it seemed to have issues distinguishing between different people in the contact list, so there'd be a prompt for which one did we mean. My wife actually said she found it was a lot more reliable for her to tell it to call the number (saying the whole phone number out loud).

On top of that, voice commands in general just seem to take quite a while to process. Maybe they just need a faster processor in the system.

Also had mixed opinions on the blindspot monitoring system. I like that it was there (and I have to admit, the more I've driven cars that have it, the more I've liked having it), but I didn't really feel like I could trust it. I was finding that especially on the passenger side, it didn't seem to reliably pick up a car in the blind spot. Looking at the manual (we broke down to that, because we were wondering if we had something disabled somewhere), it does make a comment that if there's a significant speed differential between vehicles, that it wouldn't pick them up. And I'll admit that when I passed a car more slowly, it would respond. But quite honestly, if it can't pick up the large semi in the lane next to me as I'm passing it, then it needs work. Chevy's system seems far more reliable to me.

Other than that, I did like the car. I'd definitely rent one again if I saw it, but this was the first one I've seen at DTW. My wife thought the auto-folding mirrors were amusing.

IsleOfMan

If It's anything like previous generation Genesis (I owned for ~2 years), the voice recognition for contacts was ~99% reliable IF spoken in the format "Call LAST NAME, FIRST NAME on HOME/MOBILE/WORK". Any other syntax was ~25% reliable or even worse.

piper28

Hmm, don't think we ever tried it doing it in that manner. I'm used to systems working properly with saying the name in the proper order. Don't have the car anymore, but if we get our hands on one again I'll have to keep that in mind to try.