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Vehicle Min Max 2004 Hyundai Tiburon $6,995 $9,995 2012 Mazda MAZDASPEED3 N/A N/A 2012 Mazda MX-5 Miata N/A N/A 2012 Volkswagen Beetle $20,965 $28,990 Average $13,980 $19,493 
Used Car Price Range$6,995 - $9,995
Vehicle Min Max 2004 Hyundai Tiburon $119 $170 2012 Mazda MAZDASPEED3 N/A N/A 2012 Mazda MX-5 Miata N/A N/A 2012 Volkswagen Beetle $356 $492 Average $237 $331 Based On: 10% down, 5% APR, 60 months
Estimated Monthly Payment$119 - $170 per month
MPG city hwy 2004 Hyundai Tiburon 20 27 2012 Mazda MAZDASPEED3 18 25 2012 Mazda MX-5 Miata 21 28 2012 Volkswagen Beetle 22 31 Average 20 28 MPG20 City | 27 Highway
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Review Summary
What reviewers liked most about the 2004 Hyundai Tiburon:
Hyundai's Tiburon delivers bold styling and an entertaining driving experience, while offering an exceptional value.
- New Car Test DriveDriver's seat is comfortable, feels substantial, and affords generous lateral support.
- Philly.comOutward visibility is quite good because the roof has thin pillars.
- The Kansas City StarQuite a bit of cargo room beneath the rear hatchback
- Car and Driver
What reviewers liked least about the 2004 Hyundai Tiburon:
More noise and vibration than there ought to be.
- Car and DriverThe five-speed manual gearbox, which feels less precise than some others in this class do.
- New Car Test DriveThe radio's old-style buttons are tiny and tough to use.
- The Kansas City StarRide quality, which is a bit stiffer than most of the coupes in this class.
- Auto.com
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Comparisons:
Superb shifter feel, better even than that of the class-leading Honda Civic.
- Car and DriverBetter value than a Saturn SC.
- AutomobileThe back seats are roomier than those are in the Celica or Eclipse.
- New Car Test Drive
Best one-liners about the 2004 Hyundai Tiburon:
If you're old enough to vote, you may be over the hill as a Hyundai Tiburon customer.
- Car and DriverBasically, the rear seat is there in case you're too lazy to stow luggage in the trunk.
- Edmunds.com
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Introduction
The Hyundai Tiburon delivers style and performance at affordable prices. Tiburon means shark in Spanish and the Hyundai Tiburon looks like the automotive equivalent of a shark, with a flowing profile and gill-like front fender vents.
The 2004 Hyundai Tiburon GT V6 benefits from a re-tuned exhaust for a more aggressive sound a few more horses. The V6 delivers good acceleration performance with strong torque for flexible drivability around town. Tiburon GT's handling is fully competitive for the class. A retuned suspension and wider tires further sharpen the handling for 2004, and the interior gets some nice upgrades. The four-cylinder engine that comes with the base Tiburon also gets a slight boost in power, improved drivability, and reduced emissions, all benefits of a new variable-valve cylinder head.
Compelling pricing makes the Tiburon an attractive proposition. The Tiburon starts at less than $17,000. A Tiburon GT V6 absolutely loaded with leather seats, sunroof, an Infinity audio system, ABS, and a special six-speed gearbox retails for $21,597. A comparably equipped Mitsubishi Eclipse V6 (with a ropey five-speed) lists for $25,667. A six-speed Toyota Celica GTS with all the goodies lists for $23,915 and a V6 isn't available.
Hyundai has emerged the past few years to produce attractive cars with performance and panache. The quality of its products has improved tremendously in the past few years, according to the respected quality gurus at J. D. Power and Associates. Hyundai offers the best warranty in the business: 5 years/50,000 miles bumper-to-bumper and 10 years/100,000 miles for the powertrain.
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Walkaround
The Hyundai Tiburon is attractive and stylish in a field of stylish coupes. It looks good from every angle. The Tiburon looks bigger in photographs; in real life it's dramatically low and compact, comparable in size to the Mitsubishi Eclipse and the aging Toyota Celica.
At the Tiburon's nose, four headlights peer from behind plastic covers. Large turn signals lead up into the false fender line that is actually part of the hood. The front of the hood leads down into a small horizontal grill that is swamped by a large bumper. A much larger five-slot air opening is nicely integrated into the lower part of the bumper and includes two small round fog lights.
The Tiburon looks best in profile. It follows the classic lines of a grand touring car with a heavily raked windshield and a roofline that sweeps all the way to its abbreviated tail, a fastback coupe. Hyundai's designers have added pizzazz to the profile by slashing the front fender with vertical louvers that look like shark gills, and then streaking a sheet-metal crease upward and rearward from the front wheel opening to the high, flared rear fender. In the rear the fenders curve into the large, almost ovoid one-piece taillight clusters.
The rear hatch on this hatchback has no spoiler on the base model but comes with a small lip-type spoiler on the GT V6 with a five-speed manual or four-speed automatic. The six-speed model gets a bigger spoiler that helps differentiate it.
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Interior Features
When the second-generation Tiburon was launched as a 2003 model, its interior seemed less sporty than that of the previous-generation car. That was mostly because everything was finished in black, making it a bit somber. Hyundai has relieved this impression somewhat for 2004, by adding bright trim around the center stack and the switch panel on the door.
The dashboard sweeps across the width of the cabin with just a smallish instrument pod and two heater vents to break up its shape. The fuel and water temperature gauges separate the round tachometer and speedometer.
The stereo system is located in a flat center console panel with large knobs for heating and ventilation located beneath. The manual transmission shifter has a short throw and is well situated for smooth shifting. A proper parking brake is located on the left side of the center console, leaving room for a cupholder and a small storage tray.
The bucket seats are okay, but not as sporty as one might hope for, as they could do with some more side support for spirited driving. We liked the cloth seats because they grip better and are cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Headroom and legroom in front are fine, on par with other cars in the small sport-coupe class.
Like most sport coupes, the Tiburon is really a 2+2-seater, not a full four-seat car. Realistically, the rear seats are better used for storage than for carrying passengers, unless those passengers are shorter than five feet.
The optional 360-watt Infinity stereo features six speakers strategically located and a large subwoofer in the trunk. Crank up the volume and you are enveloped in sound.
Apart from the room taken up by the high-zoot stereo's subwoofer, storage space is quite decent. The wide-opening liftgate and the 50/50 split folding rear seat add to its utility. A cargo net would be a helpful addition to help keep stuff in place when throwing the car around corners after a stop at the grocery store.
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Driving Impressions
The Tiburon GT V6 drives really well. The V6 revs freely to 6000 rpm. The engine has a pleasantly husky sound thanks to its free-flowing exhaust. Slam the power down and the front wheels scrabble for grip, at least until the 215/45R17 Michelin Pilot tires get to work and the car sprints forward. Shift into second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth and the car's cruising. If you get lazy and forget to downshift as you putter around town, it's no problem as the engine has plenty of torque at low rpm. We found it'll pull reasonably well in sixth gear from 35 mph. The low-end torque of the Tiburon makes for a different driving experience than that of cars like the Celica GTS and Civic Si that thrive on revving over 6000 rpm.
If you prefer an automatic transmission, go for the GT V6 and you'll not give up much in performance, especially as the automatic includes Shiftronic manual control.
The power rack-and-pinion steering feels fine. It's precise with just enough feedback for fast driving. With the power of the V6 torque steer is inevitable but it's controllable and actually kind of fun when you're driving round town. On the highway it's barely noticeable. Not unexpectedly the car tends to understeer, what with the weight of the aluminum V6 engine mounted transversely between the front wheels.
During a brief test drive among pylons laid out in the infield of Las Vegas Speedway we found the Tiburon easy to throw around. Like all front-drive cars, it tended to understeer (the front wheels lose grip before the rear wheels), but it was easy to compensate by using the throttle, brakes, and steering wheel.
Overall, the handling is good, with little body roll. Up front are MacPherson struts, with lower links isolated by a subframe. A multi-link suspension with Chapman struts holds up the rear. All models get anti-roll bars and gas-filled shock absorbers. The sport-tuned suspension on the GT V6 has 10-percent stiffer spring rates, stiffer compression in the gas-charged shocks and thicker anti roll bars front (23mm vs. 20mm) and rear (19mm vs. 18mm).
Out on the highway, and on smooth roads, the Tiburon rides well; but the sports suspension and low-profile tires tend to transmit excessive harshness into the cockpit on rough road surfaces. The four-wheel disc brakes worked well and stopped the car quickly.
2004 Hyundai Tiburon Final Word
Driving a 2004 Hyundai Tiburon GT V6 elicits smiles all around. It's a great car or its price. Take the cash you save and spend it on accessories, and you could build a super-cool ride for less money than a stock version of one of the Tiburon's competitors. Perhaps the Tiburon is a shark after all: It may well eat some of the other fish in small sport coupe pond.
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