SOUTH Korean car maker Hyundai and its sibling Kia are now both making very acceptable cars. Take your pick, because mostly they are the same model with some altered imagery.
The only irritant is their naming policy. As an owner I don't think it
matters too much that you have, say, a Kia Pro_c'eed or a Hyundai i10. The Kia's mucking about with words doesn't get copied to the car's badging anyway. It's the in-print thingy that makes them awkward. I have recently driven a Hyundai estate called the i30, in which the "i" is meaningless, and references to it in print make the brain stumble.
Hyundai means modernity, and the company began in 1947 in construction. Hyundai Motor is now number five in the world. Its i30 sells against the Focus, Astra etc.
The estate test car was black, had a 1.6 diesel motor which pulled like a 1.8, gave more than 50mpg, looked smart enough for village high society and generally was well liked.
In 1987 Hyundai took me on my first visit to South Korea. Seoul was being geared up, and in many places torn down, for the 1988 Olympics. And yes, I may have eaten fermented dog at a massive hotel buffet.
Hyundai went bust. Now it's okay again. I have been back since and their hospitality drink at nightspots for journalists is whisky, as in half a bottle in front of you.
The PR teams take care of all that fun, leaving the shop floor and the designers sober enough (presumably) to plan and make the cars. There have been times when the stylists must have been given a shot of Dutch courage. Of the contemporary South Koreans, the SsangYong Rodius stands aloof from the herd with its bizarre rear cabin and, indeed, a value for money deal that woos us from more expensive European people carriers.
i30. You can't really start a sentence with an i, can you. Anyway, I scribbled a few notes on literally the back of an envelope and I got out the tape measure, a feet and inches steel reel. It showed that the i30 has a shoulder width between the doors of 56 inches. That's a match for the yardstick Focus. It fell away a bit on the size of the tailgate, which lacks by a few inches the load aperture available on the Focus estate. Most of the time this doesn't matter. It's those occasions when you need that bit extra for a large canvas or a struggling tup that size counts.
Hyundai's estate has to offer more for your money than the better-known European and Japanese makers. For £13,155 you can have the 1.6 Comfort version with a 124bhp petrol engine and five-speed shift returning 45.6mpg, 152g/km of CO2 and a 0-62mph time of 11.5 seconds. Move to the 1.6 Style and you pay £14,155 and gain 16-inch alloy wheels, air conditioning, roof rails, some leather in the seats, heated and folding door mirrors, tyre pressure monitoring, automatic headlamp operation and electronic stability control.
It is a convincing package, and for an additional £1,000 the 1.6 Style can have a four-speed automatic gearbox.
The test car was the Style five-speed manual, fitted with a 1.6 diesel engine. At £14,855 it carries a £700 surcharge over petrol, but in time you will recoup some of this, plus a premium when you sell. Its theoretical average economy advantage over the 1.6 petrol is 12mpg, but with diesel costing around 70p a gallon more than petrol the payback time in fuel bills is many years for the average motorist. A rough calculation based on Hyundai's own mpg averages and current fuel costs indicates that at 100,000 miles the diesel will have saved £460.
This diesel is, though, a refined engine, giving 113bhp and 188lb ft of torque. The combined fuel consumption is 57.6mpg, composed from 47.9mpg in the urban test and 65.7mpg out of town. Carbon emissions are 128g/km and the 0-62mph time is 11.9 seconds.
This engine is offered with the automatic box too. The 0-62mph time drops to 13.4 seconds and the average thirst is 47mpg. The 16-inch alloys carry substantial 205/55 tyres and grip is good.
The steering and handling is fine, not as sweet as the Focus but nothing alarming. The ride is good, most of the time. It fails the test over dilapidated surfaces, with noises and impact in the back suspension.
These things are probably not of importance for most users. They may like the demure face, which eludes the gauche brashness of previous designers at Hyundai and its South Korean ilk. The tailgate and rear corner shapes are interesting and imaginative.
Vehicle Hyundai i30 Style• Price: £14,855
• Engine: 1.6-litre diesel
• Top speed: 117mph
• 0-60mph: 11.7 seconds
• Fuel: 48mpg
The full article contains 860 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
