We drove a 2006 Hyundai Sonata LX for a week, commuting to the office, getting groceries, running errands, and taking a road trip from Los Angeles to Phoenix to find out if Hyundai’s got the right product to take on the big dogs of the family sedan class…and win. As it turns out, the Sonata does win, in some respects, but there is still work to do refining this car and improving the quality.

The Sonata’s available 3.3-liter V6 puts out good power. It’s not class leading power, but it’s better than what several competitors produce. Hyundai’s refinement efforts can start here, under the hood, because this engine isn’t as smooth as the bogeys from Honda, Nissan, and Toyota. Plus, throttle tip-in is too abrupt, and it’s easy to accidentally squeal the Sonata’s front tires. Refinement efforts can then extend to the five-speed Shifttronic transmission, which features smooth upshifts under normal conditions, but when you’re battling for holes in traffic, suffers an incredibly aggravating delay when downshifting. At least we managed an average fuel economy number of 21.9 mpg, smack dab in the middle of the EPA’s usually overblown results.

Maybe the same guys who tuned the Sonata’s outstanding brakes can work their magic on the powertrain. The four-wheel discs feature terrific pedal feel, response, and modulation. It’s too bad, then, that the rest of the underpinnings are such a mixed bag. The steering is easy to twirl and responds nicely off center, but lacks road feel and heft. The suspension needs tuning, too. It feels like the Sonata LX has stiff shocks and soft springs, which produces a ride quality not unlike a 1975 Cadillac Fleetwood rolling on over-inflated rubber. The Sonata has a busy ride, pitching and wallowing on dips but with lots of harshness on bumps. Grip from the 17-inch Michelin Pilot touring tires is impressive, and rather than howl as the Sonata’s nose pushes wide at the limit, they produce a strange, hushed, scrubbing noise as they lose adhesion.

Compared to the “Big Three” family sedans, we think the 2006 Hyundai Sonata is more entertaining to drive than a Camry, less entertaining to drive than an Altima, and lacks the Honda Accord’s dynamism. And, to this writer, it’s less comfortable than all three. But duking it out with those class-leading models on equal footing ain’t easy, especially when you want to create a compelling value equation. As critical as we might be of the new Sonata, the reality is that this car needs only minor tweaks to make executives at other manufacturers whimper in their sleep. Indeed, the 2006 Sonata represents a huge leap forward for Hyundai. If other entries in the automaker’s lineup since the 2001 Elantra debuted haven’t convinced you that South Korea is poised to become a global car-building force, this Sonata will.