Welcome and thank you for your honest comments. I'm part of the old farts crowd here being 60+ and like what I see, but I'm nervous about buying a new first year out model. Although I'm an early adopter of many things, major purchases like vehicles is not normally one of them. Typically I'm a third year out new vehicle buyer, so if I go through with this purchase of a first year out, basically new engine model (with no history - Theta III) and new Hyundai brand for me; it will be a first.
"...What really convinced us was the way Hyundai treated her BFF. The 2011 died. Metal filings in the oil pan. Hyundai gave her (BFF) a new engine. Who'da thunk???"
YIKES! That had me look up known problems with the 2011 Sonata which yielded the "...dubious honor of being the first CarTalk / CarComplaints Turd of the Week..." Engine failure before 100K miles is a HUGE fail for any manufacturer, even if they step up and replace it (typically with the same engine that has a known issue and will likely fail once again).
I had this problem with a 1996 Subaru Outback. Ticking noise at startup. Without going into details, Subaru installed a new engine which immediately failed as well. They put a third engine in, and I simple unloaded the car immediately and walked away from the brand completely...
A couple things come to mind. It appears Hyundai stands behind their 100K warranty if you can prove a problem and they don't blame it on poor maintenance by you. Second thing is that they honored that warranty for a second owner, so I'm guessing the Hyundai warranty is transferable. Do you or others know that to be true?
Getting more excited and nervous at the same time for this vehicle to hit the dealers for an in person inspection and test drive.