6 Things I've Learned From Two Months Of Hyundai i30 N 'Ownership'
We’re just over two months and 1100 miles into our six months of Hyundai i30 N ‘ownership’, and so far, so good. Well, mostly. We have good things to report, along with a few gripes…
Sport and Sport + suspension modes aren't much use on the road
Apparently there are over 4000 potential combinations within the driver settings of the i30 N. Which is absurd. Fortunately, it hasn’t been hard for me to suss out which of the 4000 or so to go for when out for a drive on a nice bit of road: you want everything turned up to full (which is either ‘Sport’ or ‘Sport+’ depending on the aspect of the car you’re fiddling with), with the steering and suspension left in ‘Normal’.
The reason? The steering is excessively weighty in Sport and Sport+, and the suspension is punishingly firm in anything other than Normal. As we’ve found before with earlier drives of the i30 N, the Sport+ mode in particular has a brutally hard rebound stroke. It makes the car uncomfortable, and it means it just never settles down when you’re driving it hard. Fortunately, Normal is more than firm enough, and in that mode the body control is generally very good.
The front end is incredible
The front end of the i30 N is a stubborn old thing. In the dry, even with the traction control turned off fully, it’s very, very hard to reach the limit. Instead, it just hangs on and makes your face hurt as lateral g-forces pummel you.
In fact, we tested ‘our’ i30 N against Seat’s Leon Cupra R (full story soon), and found it was the Hyundai that had the superior front end. To say that this upstart is more capable than the best hot hatch Seat - an experienced hand in this business - has ever made is one mighty achievement.
The autonomous emergency brake needs a software fiddle
It only seems to take a bit of drizzle for the AEB braking sensor to throw a hissy fit. You don’t just get the warning cropping up once and then disappearing, either: on one journey of only around an hour, the display you see above came up five times.
After chatting with Hyundai UK, it turns out this is a known fault - we’ll be booking the i30 N into our friendly neighbourhood dealer soon for a software update that should fix the problem.
I really shouldn’t like all the pops and bangs that erupt out of the i30 N’s active exhaust when in the right modes. It’s all fake and childish, and yet brilliant at the same time. At lower speeds there’s a satisfying burbling on the overrun, while if you really put your foot down and then change up a gear, a cacophony of machine gun-like bangs fire out of the car’s twin tailpipes. I can’t think of any other modern inline-four-powered car that’s as fun to run through a tunnel as this one.
It's not as refined as rivals
To begin with, I was convinced the i30 N’s sound system was just a bit meh. But when the car isn’t moving, it’s actually pretty decent. The problem is the engine and road noise at speed drowning half the sound out: we need to do some more scientific testing, but to my ears it seems a lot louder in there than something like a VW Golf GTI. On the whole it’s just not as refined or plush as its Wolfsburg rival, but then it costs a lot less. Spec-for-spec, the equivalent Golf is £5000 more, and isn’t anywhere near as exciting to drive.
I don't care that it's a Hyundai
Yes, Hyundai has been known up until now for almost exclusively making cars favoured by more mature buyers, meaning the i30 N has no pedigree whatsoever. But it proves that pedigree isn’t actually necessary to build a world-class performance car. Plus, driving around in the thing, I just don’t care that it has a badge that doesn’t quite have a whole lot of kudos.
People who actually know about cars will be aware of what the i30 N is and know it’s awesome, and those who don’t will just see a cool, aggressive-looking hot hatch that’s making one hell of a racket. Will they make a link between it and your nan’s old poverty-spec Accent? I seriously doubt it.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
This is the only new car I would consider buying…
I feel like since 2010 car market hasn’t had a car that I would really like to own…(except Mazdas, I really like Mazdas…)
But this car just thicks all the right boxes…It’s design is simpler but beautiful, it’s performance is really awesome, and the sound is just unreal. And the price is nice for that much of a car…
“thicks” ?
YOU MEAN T H I C C ???
Such a beautiful car. Hyunday ill buy one….bad joke
I honestly hate puns on Carthrottle, but this one was alright… I’ll give it a pass, as it made me smile abit like this:
That blueish grey is such a great colour. I didn’t expect that it would look that well on a performance car like this.
What do you think about the interior? It looks very clustered on the pictures.
As hinted at in point 5 it’s just ‘OK’, really. The layout is fine but the materials aren’t the nicest. Infotainment system is middle-of-the-road fare but perfectly serviceable. Nice having real dials though, and that’s becoming a rarity…
It’s funny, the first Hyundai I would actually buy is a front wheel drive hatchback.
Genesis G70 (if it finds it’s way over to europe)
[DELETED]
I like the British accent more than the American accent
I just hope they don’t do those special edition like i30 N gt, imagine you bought a new i30 n so that u feel special then the next day they revealed a new special edition car. Look at volkswagen, GTI, GTI clubs port
I have a couple more miles already with mine. And yeah that front camera thing is annoying, it even appears after you washed the windows with the cars windscreen washers. Its too sensitive
There it is
“11111 km”
Nice
Has Hyundai contacted you at all about the software fix? Also, do you find that the boot requires a surprising amount of force to close properly…? The number of times I’ve had to get out and have another go at shutting it, having got back to the cabin to find a nice warning on the dash…
The issue with the suspension being too firm is becoming omnipresent in the car world… Why do car manufacturers think that a sports car must be firm?
And the biggest issue is not that it makes a car which is supposed to be a daily driver less comfortable. The main problem is that it actually makes the car slower on anything other than a racetrack with fresh tarmac. I remember one of the reasons I chose a Porsche 718 over the BMW M2 is the difference in the suspension settings: the M2 bounces around like crazy even on what looks like good road surface forcing you to go slower, whereas the 718 absorbs the shocks and allowing for much better control.
Because hatchbacks and sedan-like bodies (including the M2, even though it’s technically a coupé) have their centre of gravity much higher up than classic low sports cars like a Porsche or a Lotus. These cars need a stiffer suspension to prevent them from developing too much body roll, even if that means that the car will bounce on uneven surfaces. It’s kind of an unfortunate compromise, but that’s how it is.
Far better than a gti.
I don’t think so: the GTI is available in North America and most likely better as a daily commuter and more comfortable
Yes and no. The i30 N is better to drive by far, but a GTI is considerably nicer to live with.