i30 MOVES HYUNDAI INTO THE FAST LANE

Road Test as published in the Sunraysia Daily Auto Guide
9th August 2008

Until recently Hyundai used rather boring and certainly quaint names to distinguish their cars – like Elantra, Sonata and Tucson, which actually sounded more like stage shows than cars.
The i30 changes all that however. What’s more, the i30 doesn’t look like a Hyundai and doesn’t drive like one either. Now, don’t get us wrong – Hyundai have come a long way in recent years and have been producing a fine, popular range of vehicles – they’ve just been pretty, well, boring – until now.
The i30 though, is a horse of an entirely different colour, available with a 2.0L petrol or 1.6L turbo diesel engine.
The base model is designated ‘SX’ followed by the ‘SLX’ and the top of the range ‘SR’ which is only available with the petrol engine. A 5 speed manual or a 4 speed auto transmission is available across the range. Our test car was a 5 speed manual SR. The i30 SR is really well stacked. The leather and woven cloth seats are comfortable and provide good lateral support. The driver’s seat is also height adjustable and has lumbar support. The steering wheel is adjustable for both tilt and reach – not seen often enough in cars within this market segment.
Air conditioning is standard across the range, but the SLX and SR go one better with real climate control – albeit un-zoned. The 6 speaker sound system is better than most, with a 6CD in-dash stacker and an auxiliary audio input jack, plus a USB port, neatly contained in the centre console for connecting iPod type devices. There are steering wheel controls for the audio system and for the cruise control (the only place for them in this driver’s opinion). Other nice little luxury touches include an air conditioned and illuminated glove box with dampened opening, fade-out interior lights and illuminated vanity mirrors.
Outside, the i30 is strangely appealing. It’s actually a head turner but I suspect a lot of people don’t really know what they’re looking at until they spy the prominent Hyundai badge on the i30’s backside. The SR has good looking 17” alloys and totes a full size spare. Electronic stability control and traction control are standard in the SR. ABS with EBD is also standard across the range.
Driver and front passenger side airbags plus front and rear passenger side curtain airbags are standard in the SLX and SR. Headlights can be set to operate automatically in the SR and there is speed sensing auto door locking across the range, although instead of a nice Audi-style ‘plunk’ when the doors lock, the i30 goes ‘plink’.
The i30’s engine revs to the 6,500rpm red line willingly and is surprisingly smooth. Now, the i30 might not have the refined handling of an Audi or a BMW but, in our humble opinion it handles very adequately. We mainly drove the SR around town and found it was actually fun to drive – not something we can say about a lot of cars! We’re not into speeding on public roads, but quite enjoy getting up to the speed limit as quickly as possible, and this was the fun bit with the i30 – it’s not going to win any world records for acceleration but it just does it smoothly and efficiently, with a gear change to match.
Over the 300 or so kilometres we drove, we averaged only 37km/h. That combined with our penchant for acceleration resulted in our fuel consumption figures not being all that impressive. We averaged 10.6l/100km compared with Hyundai’s quoted 7.2l/100km. We would expect, driven somewhat more conservatively, the i30 would get much closer to the latter.
The SR will set you back $26,490 plus $320 for metallic or mica paint. The auto adds a further $2k.
Hyundai’s standard warranty is hard to beat, offering 5 years with unlimited kilometres.
In our view, having experienced Hyundai vehicles for the past two decades, the i30 is taking Hyundai to the next level and will appeal to the upwardly mobile 30’s something market as well as the younger set. With Euro style features that the market is now looking for, and neat performance, the i30 is destined to do somewhat more than simply ‘Excel’!

Tested July 2008
Vehicle provided by Hyundai Motor Company Australia