Since my family is considering our choices in buying a new fuel-efficient small sedan, I was glad to have a chance to test drive the Elantra sedan for a week.

I loved the Elantra Touring I recently drove – it’s a strong contender on our short list. However, The Elantra Touring is a hatchback, and there are some drawbacks to a five-door car versus a more refined sedan.

Courtesy (ENLARGE)

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First, when looking to buy a certain kind of car (small sedan, SUV, hybrid, etc), you need to do some research.

Gather information on a handful of vehicles and start comparing.

Since we’re looking for a small sedan, I’d compare the Elantra to a Toyota Corolla, a Nissan Sentra, a Honda Civic and maybe a Mazda 3 or a Ford Fusion.

There are many things to consider like engine size, curb side weight, mileage, room inside, seat configurations and extras for the base price, like CD player, power windows and cruise control.

Right off the bat, I find out all of these vehicles, in the base models, have the same kind of 16-valve, 4-cylinder engine offering up about 138 horsepower. Once you check the horsepower, you also want to check the weight, since a lot more horsepower doesn’t do you any good if the car weighs 2,000 pounds more than the competition. The Elantra is a lithe 2,723 pounds, very acceptable.

I also notice the Elantra has a much better warranty, offering 5-years, 60,000 miles for its basic warranty which is better than the competitors’ 3 years, 30,000 mile basic warranties.

Now, let’s check mileage.

The Elantra gets 24 mpg/33 mpg. That’s okay, but the Corolla and Civic both get 26 mpg/34 mpg. Still very respectable.

I have a very tall husband and two kids and a dog, so I need to eke out as much room as possible in my small sedan.

You can get 40 inches of headroom in the front of the Elantra, compared to 38 inches in the Corolla and Civic and 39 in the Fusion and Mazda 3.

There’s also more front shoulder room, more rear shoulder room, more hip room and more front leg room in the Elantra, versus its competition. It would appear, on paper, the Elantra offers more space inside.

Now, we should compare the list of things that come on the base model. Now the list of things to compare can be VERY long. For my purposes, I want power door locks, a CD player, cruise control, air conditioning and rear head airbags.

I find that the Elantra GLS (the base model) has power locks and rear head airbags, but no CD player, no cruise control, and worst of all, no air.

I check competing vehicles and find about the same thing, with the exception of the Focus and Corolla, both come with air conditioning.

After you have all your paper research done, it’s time for a test-drive. Most of the time, you don’t get to drive a car for a week when making the decision to buy, but I get to give the Elantra a full workout the week I have it.

I detected little wrong with this little car and came away from my week in the Elantra, convinced it should be on the top of our short list of new cars to consider.

The base price for a GLS is about $14,000, but I would have to add on extras to at least include air conditioning. By adding on that package, the price jumps to $15,870, which is still less than what you’d pay for a comparable Focus, Corolla, Sentra or Civic.