Gas-saving sedans: the refined Elantra SE beats the very thrifty Corolla.(Product/service evaluation)

With record-setting gas prices and an ailing economy, more people are turning to small cars to ease the strain on their budgets. The good news is that you don't have to make as many sacrifices as before.

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Even with prices under $20,000, the best of today's small cars provide many convenience features, comfortable interiors, good refinement, and improved fuel economy, our road tests show.

For this report, we compared the Hyundai Elantra SE, which we named our small sedan Top Pick in our annual April Auto Issue, with five other cars, including the redesigned for 2009 Toyota Corolla. Despite excellent fuel economy, the Toyota doesn't measure up to the Elantra SE, which remains our top-rated small sedan.

Rounding out our group is the redesigned Subaru Impreza, the freshened Ford Focus, and Chevrolet's Aveo and Cobalt. Only the Impreza earns the top-level recommendation in our Ratings of 31 small cars and subcompacts. We predict good reliability for the Impreza based on past Subarus. The Elantra and Focus are also recommended in this group. We don't have reliability data yet on the Corolla. The Cobalt and Aveo scored too low in our tests to recommend them.

The Elantra's top Rating in this class shows how far Hyundai has come in the last decade. Its cars used to be unreliable and unrefined, with low scores in our testing; now some compete with the best in their classes. Like the Elantra GLS we tested for our October 2007 issue, the top-of-the-line SE delivers a comfortable ride, a roomy interior with nice fit and finish, and good fuel economy. And the SE provides better braking and handling than the GLS, thanks to wider tires and standard electronic stability control, an important safety feature that's either optional or is not available on the other sedans here. Yet the SE is very competitively priced.

Prices for the six cars in our tested group range from $16,205 for the subcompact Aveo LT to $19,106 for the Impreza 2.5i. All but the Aveo have standard head-protecting curtain air bags. In insurance-industry side-crash tests, side and curtain air bags have been shown to significantly reduce the potential for injury, especially in small vehicles.