I HAVE A HARD RIDING 2010 HYUNDAI ELANTRA. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE DONE TO MAKE IT RIDE SMOOTHER?
Are your tires properly inflated?
Are these the base tires and wheels or something that came with a sport or performance package?
First thing, check the air pressure in your tires. If someone has over-inflated the tires, the ride will be hard. The manual will tell you what the correct pressure is. You can go a few PSI below recommended pressure, but I wouldn’t go below 28 PSI. Below that you start running the risk of blowing out a tire.
Another thing you can do is to replace the original tires that came on the car. The original tires are probably not very good. Go to www.tirerack.com and read buyer’s survey results for different tires. You’ll find “ride comfort” ratings for each tire. Do your own research and don’t let a tire salesman sell you a tire he says is good, just because he says so.
Assuming the tire pressure is ok is it possible the car really does not ride that hard and this is a matter of how this car feels as compared to your previous car?
An aged car often has weak shocks and struts. This leads to a softer ride and then once behind the wheel of a new car that new one feels harder because you were acclimated to the cushy ride of the old car.
The tire profile also has something to do with this. Compare the size of the tires on your current Hyundai to the tire size you had on your previous ride. A lower profile tire will ride firmer.
Let me guess.
You just recently bought a Elantra SE, after test driving the other versions, but didn’t test drive the SE before you agreed to buy one?
Someone else did this a couple months back, and it turned out for them that the dealer had set the tire pressures to be over 40 psi on the car to prevent flat spotting, but didn’t lower them for the car set up when the car was given to the owner.
Once that owner got the pressures adjusted properly, they were very happy with their car after that.
BC.