I have owned the Hyundai Azera for more than 1 year now and have added 14K miles on mountain roads of east Tennessee. While it is a well-rounded car, the steering-wheel is rather badly designed and a safety concern.The turning radius is great. But it takes a VERY significant effort of hand to turn it.

For small steering movement the car does not steer at all. Most annoyingly, the steering stubbornly returns and "locks" in the central location at high speeds. The roads never are really straight, there may be cross-winds, and occasionally the wheel-balance is a bit off. In any of these scenarios the car will need constant course adjustments at high speeds on freeway(). To make matters bad, it will need planning, and then significant upper-body strength to turn the steering for even the smallest adjustment. The "power" in the power-steering is non-existent. It is impossible to move the wheel with one hand, and requires a constant and tight use of both hands. The result is highly fatigued fingers and hands after some time driving, and a safety hazard.

When I contacted the dealer they told me that it is a safety feature to artificially tighten the steering at high speeds by taking some power off it. The only way to bypass this feature is going into "Sports Mode" like in Sonata(), which releases the lock. In Azera, that is not possible using the computer. The only way to go to sports mode is changing the mode to manual transmission. Indeed when driving in manual transmission, the steering behaves correctly. But there is no way to keep the steering in that mode when using automatic transmission. So the buyer has to compromise either having a safe steering, or driving in manual transmission. At any rate for the US roads and cars, a tight steering is unacceptable and unsafe.

(*) c.f. Sonata also has the same steering issue for 2012-14 models. So steering design is a problem of the company and not specific models.

This ongoing steering problem was noticed within the 1st thousand miles. This is a top of the line 35 to 40 thousand dollar car. It is attractive and always rec's great remarks from onlookers. The problem is with the steering. When traveling on the open road (interstate) the steering when turned ever so slightly doesn't want to turn. It is a rock hard response that only subsides when additional pressure is put on the wheel.

I've had the car into the shop several times with the same reply, "we cannot adjust the steering.." I requested to see a dealer rep and then the dealership asked to bring the car in again to try and calibrate the computer according to the service manager. At that visitation I asked a salesperson to try a 2014 Azera and mister, there is a night and day difference. In fact I commented to the service guy about the difference and he said"yeah, I know." This car is a pain in the ass and todate I've only put on 7000 miles in over a year." P.S. the new Azera has both the electric and hydraulic together for the power steering assembly. Maybe quality control found out what I'm talking about. This dealership is Washington PA. Hyundai .