In the days of my youth, my good friend Clear-Dogg owned a Hyundai Excel, which did not. One Sunday morning, I had the privilege of driving the aforementioned shoddily constructed and underpowered Excel from Rochester to Buffalo, because Clear-Dogg was suffering from a severe hangover.

After dropping my beloved Acura off at Nalley Collision, Enterprise picked me up and supplied me with a Hyundai Sonata. Because the automotive press has been ejaculating praise all over the redesigned Sonata, I was looking forward to driving it. Unfortunately, the automotive press is clearly on industrial grade crack. The Sonata has exactly two good points, which are:

1. It really is mid size; and
2. The head unit actually plays compact discs encoded with MP3s. Somebody at Acura needs to install this cutting edge technology in the TL.

During the decade or so since the infamous Excel was launched on unsuspecting Americans, Hyundai has managed to copy the reliability of Hondas and Toyotas. However, Hyundai still needs to work on duplicating some important features like a four cylinder engine with some damn power. In contrast to other economy cars I have driven, such as the Mazda 6 or Ford Focus, the Sonata would have trouble out accelerating a 1984 Dodge Caravan. The four cylinder version of the minivan.

Not only is the hamster on a wheel in the engine compartment lazy, he is a thirsty little fucker too. So far, I have achieved 22 miles per gallon with the Sonata. For those keeping score at home, that is precisely two more miles per gallon than I get in my Acura TL.

Another highly annoying feature of the Sonata is the serpentine automatic shift gate. Being forced to drive an automatic sucks enough cock, the irritating shift gate is really unnecessary torture. Car manufacturers need to step away from the focus groups and stop with this bullshit already. I suspect the asinine shift gate has something to do with the completely useless sport shift mode. In theory, this feature allows the car to be shifted like a manual. In practice, the Sonata shifts whenever the hell it wants anyway and takes fucking forever to do it.

Much to my surprise, the Sonata handles competently without excessive body roll. Not great, but much better than the Chevrolet Cobalt, which will make a true believer out of the most hardened atheist when attempting to go around a turn faster than the suggested speed on the yellow warning sign. In contrast, the steering reminds me of Pink Floyd - it is comfortably numb.

If anyone needs me, I will be crying myself to sleep because I know I have to wake up tomorrow morning and drive this motherfucking Korean shitbox to work. This should come as no surprise after the previous statement and the numerous paragraphs above, but I do not recommend the Hyundai Sonata.