How Reliable are Hyundai Cars in India?

Hyundai Motor Company has been operating in India for nearly 3 decades now and has garnered huge goodwill for its quality and reliability. The question is, how reliable are they? Since they are the 2nd largest carmaker they sure sell feature-loaded and quality cars, but are they reliable like the top carmaker Maruti Suzuki or Toyota?

Hyundai has always been a reliable brand in India

Now, Hyundai rose quickly through the ranks in India thanks to cars like Santro and Accent, which are considered pretty reliable cars. But these cars were also cheap to own and maintain, making them sell like hotcakes alongside other established names during those days. If we go back in time, we might have seen a marginal difference between Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai in terms of reliability. The gap has now become closer. Suzukis in fact were “okay” reliability and despite them being a Japanese brand, they never had the “super duper reliable” tag with them just like Honda and Toyota.

So, to say Hyundai lags behind Maruti Suzuki in terms of reliability would be wrong. Yes, they are behind Toyota and Honda but Hyundai is just as reliable as Maruti. Maruti does have a slight edge in long-lasting engines that provide more mileage but that’s about it. Hyundai furthermore provides affordable ownership and maintenance costs similar to Maruti while making their cars of top-notch quality and thanks to this they provide a very stiff competition to the other top brands.

Now, you might wonder why Toyota or Honda aren’t at the top if they are so reliable. They are at the top, just not in our market. Toyotas and Hondas have a huge market in the US and Japan while Suzuki and Hyundai are the exact opposite. If we also start getting a broad service network and healthy availability of parts, then Toyota and Honda will climb up the ranks pretty fast.

Forget Japanese, if we talk about our Indian brands like Tata and Mahindra, do they lag behind Hyundai in terms of reliability? The answer is kind of yes, let me explain. Some models from the two brands like the Sumo, Bolero, Scorpio (old) and Safari (Old) are pretty well known for their reliability but their recent models seem to have loads of problems. For example, Tata cars are one of the safest cars available in India, but nowadays many buyers complain about electrical problems or engine problems in their Tata models. Mahindra is also known to be a hit-or-miss for reliability.

Although Hyundai’s build quality is behind the above two brands, it is the superior one when it comes to reliability. Also, Hyundai cars have more resale value in the used market compared to other brands because of their reliability alone.

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