2015 Hyundai Genesis 3.8 Long-Term Update: Comfort is king

Comfort is king, and it’s one of the biggest reasons why our 2015 Hyundai Genesis 3.8 is a great luxury car. Take the seats, for example. Multiply adjustable, heated and cooled seats aren’t a rarity these days. But the chairs in the Genesis go a step beyond, with adjustable side bolsters that hold you tightly in corners. The seat padding strikes an ideal blend of softness and support that’s perfect for long road trips, as I discovered when I drove our Genesis to Monterey, California. When you’re in wheel-in-the-lap cruising mode, the softly padded armrests are ideal, even for those with pointy elbows.

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The ride complements this, with a firmness that’s not quite BMW, but far from the float and bounce of old-school luxury car suspensions. Truthfully, this overall softness prevents the Genesis from being an effective sport sedan, but at the same time, Hyundai doesn’t seem interested in marketing it as such. Combine the luxurious ride with things like adaptive cruise control that even works in heavy traffic, and you have a car that’s most of the way to being autonomous, at least as far as throttle usage is concerned.

Then there’s quiet. My route to Monterey was about 6 hours of driving, not including the occasional stop. In the wrong car, such a journey would be accompanied by hours of droning engine, wind noise, and tire rumble. Instead, the only sounds accompanying me was the music coming from the Lexicon sound system in our Genesis. Control placement is great, and even the control knob for the infotainment system is right where it should be.

Drawbacks? Not a lot, really. About the only person who isn’t going to find at least acceptable levels of comfort would be an adult sitting in the center position in the rear.  There’s a pronounced center hump, a taller seat cushion, and there’s no divot in the headliner like there is for the outboard passengers. Basically, it’s for shorter passenger on short trips.

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But that’s hardly unique to the Genesis. What’s more important is how clearly Hyundai grasps what makes a luxury sedan. With Hyundai recently passing many of its competitors in a major quality survey, it may be only a matter of time for its curbside cachet to catch up to the luxury market’s heavy hitters.

See Past Reports on our Long-Term 2015 Hyundai Genesis 3.8…

Introduction

Long-Term Update: Design

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