Took a Hyundai i20 for a test drive today

A

alkit

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Hi,

After reading a few posts recently on MyBB raving about the i20, I decided to take it for a test drive today. I drove the 1.6.

If I were to sum it up in 1 word - PLAIN!

1) Handling wasn't amazing at all, car wobbled a bit
2) Engine over-revved every time I put my foot on the clutch to change gears (and yes, my foot was off the gas pedal when changing) - I'd be interested, has anyone else experienced this?
3) Car goes smoothly, but I didn't feel extremely "comfortable" driving the car.
4) Has a nice amount of power, but I was expecting 91kw to do a hell of a lot better than that.

So I'd be interested to find out - Did I maybe get a bad demo car, maybe the route wasn't so good?
I dunno - hard to believe it would have such good reviews when I just can't see anything amazing about it? Yes, it's great value for money, but for less than R20 000 more, one can look at mazda 2, ford fiesta, citroen c3, etc.

As car finalist of the year, I was really expecting it to WOW me.
Am I missing something?
 
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Car journalists aren't known to be unnecessarily nice about cars so I cannot fathom why almost every review is extremely positive yet your experience is quite the opposite.

You don't drive a top of the range car as you every day car do you and you failed to factor in that this is not in the same segment?
 
ya, thats exactly what I'm thinking - How can all the reviews be so positive? What am I missing here?

Also, I drive a 1992 BMW 316i and 1990 Corolla 130i, so can't really call those top of the range :(
 
alkit said:
Hi,

After reading a few posts recently on MyBB raving about the i20, I decided to take it for a test drive today. I drove the 1.6.

If I were to sum it up in 1 word - PLAIN!

1) Handling wasn't amazing at all, car wobbled a bit
2) Engine over-revved every time I put my foot on the clutch to change gears (and yes, my foot was off the gas pedal when changing) - I'd be interested, has anyone else experienced this?
3) Car goes smoothly, but I didn't feel extremely "comfortable" driving the car.
4) Has a nice amount of power, but I was expecting 91kw to do a hell of a lot better than that.

So I'd be interested to find out - Did I maybe get a bad demo car, maybe the route wasn't so good?
I dunno - hard to believe it would have such good reviews when I just can't see anything amazing about it? Yes, it's great value for money, but for less than R20 000 more, one can look at mazda 2, ford fiesta, citroen c3, etc.

As car finalist of the year, I was really expecting it to WOW me.
Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Guess that's your opinion of the car, many others would disagree, including myself, who is i20 1.6 owner so I might be a bit biased. For your points 1 & 2, I think that was just the car, I have neither of those problems. Point 3, its very smooth when its on the open road, I do admittedly find it's low rev performance to be irritating when stuck in traffic which thankfully is hardly ever for me. Point 4 I was also a little disillusioned at first but once I got past about 1500km it felt like it opened up a bit.

Costs, there's always another car out there for another R20,000. The car fitted my budget perfectly and I am/was more than happy with what I was getting for the price. There are no other competitors in the same league at the same price.
 
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