Hyundai i30 N-Line Review: Which suits you, sedan or hatch?
It’s quite a pleasant experience getting out of either of my family’s two stilted modes of transport and swap for about two-and-a-half weeks of regular, normal cars - and that’s exactly what the Hyundai i30 is. A perfectly normal car.
These vehicles were loaned to BestFamilyCars courtesy of Hyundai Australia, and I was allowed to let my family loose in them. ‘Do your worst,’ it was implied to me by their PR department. The blue i30 is the hatch, obviously, but it’s no ordinary garden variety runabout. It’s the new N-Line.
If you haven’t been paying attention to the rise and rise of Hyundai (and Kia) in recent years, the short version is: They’re at the top of their game; ‘N’ is like the brightly-coloured speckles on Amazon dart frogs, only for Hyundai cars. ‘N’ represents the company’s track-focused product development at the Namyang racetrack in South Korea. And Nurburgring (the big famous racetrack in Germany, also where Hyundai does some engineering work).
Essentially, there’s the hardcore i30 N which is the halo wannabe racing-driver-spec and has capabilities 90 per cent of people will never be able to exploit without performance driver training. You can have an N in either Fastback, Hatch or Sedan configuration - personally the Fastback is king for me.
The next model-tier down is the ‘N-Line’, which is what you’re here for. It means more cabin refinement like sound deadening, slightly softer suspension, nicer interior materials and some very engaging performance from a vigorous 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol four-cylinder that isn’t quite as eager to rip your face off as the ‘N’. It’s more Bond, less Wolf Creek.
Or if you wanna put it in Dad Joke terms, the ‘N-Line’ is N-Line for the throne, but will probably never be king. Like Prince Harry. Get it? N-line for the throne…
Anywho, the N-Line hatch is a bloody quick little car, ideal for that dads out there who either miss their fun driving days as a lad, or can’t face the prospect of ever fully growing up. Probably explains why I liked it. It’s supposed to be a kind of stealthy predator for the Golf GTI and their standard-issue fanboys who drive them. Now, if you’re the normal family that couldn’t give a rat’s arse about performance and you just want a well-behaved, practical, affordable and reliable small car, you simply don’t need the N-Line.
And lastly, on background for this review, what Hyundai previously called the Elantra, is now the i30 Sedan. New model, condensed nomenclature, makes more sense. (I just wish they’d bring back the old i40 wagon as an i30 wagon to content with Mazda 6, Skoda Superb and Subaru Levorg, but I realise wagons are a dying breed, sadly).
SEDAN: A Bootful of Space
Dimensions of the i30 Sedan are quite good for a notionally ‘small’ car. It’s easily going to swallow a twin stroller pram plus a week’s worth of shopping, long before you need to fill the footwells. Or alternatively, you can just reserve the 474 cubic litres of volume purely for the heavy duty stuff and avoid squashing the bread by using the ample back seats and said footwells - that’s what I found myself doing.
One of the nice designs of the boot is the fact there’s a decent horizontal aspect of the boot’s aperture; it’s not just vertical like in a hatchback. Considering how limited some mid-size SUVs are in their boot space dimensions, I found it was quite impressive knowing our Kia Sportage and Subaru Outback don’t offer monstrously bigger dimensions of usable space (without obstructing the driver’s rearview mirror). So you can fill the boot of i30 sedan and still have 100 per cent rearview mirror visibility.
The i30 Sedan’s boot aperture is 1000mm wide and 430mm high. I know because I got out the high-tech miracle called a measuring tape.
As for the boot itself, it’s 1420mm at its widest and 1000mm at its narrowest, and 1065mm between the wheel arches. Length is 1100mm along the floor, and at the top of the rear seats to the point at which the bootlid would close is about 930mm in length - so think about what items you’re going to be carrying and assess if they’ll fit lengthways if no widthways.
The boot height up to the fixed parcel shelf is 560mm, and you’ll have to forgive me because I was busy supervising the kid when taking these measurements so I wasn’t prepared to close myself into the boot (leaving him unattended) while I measured the available height to those bootlid hinge arms, which you’ll need to watch as they do intrude into the boot cavity. Also, just while we’re here, considering how futuristic and bold this vehicle’s design is, I’d have liked if Hyundai could’ve found a slightly more elegant way of affixing the wiring loom for the boot lights other than crudely sticking it to the hinge - and yes, I’m being picky because it’s equally excellent of Hyundai Australia to specify a full-size spare wheel on this vehicle. You don’t get that on the rival Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla and nor on the hatch version of i30.
Now, onto child seat installation, which was relatively easy, aside from getting reacquainted with the height difference dropping from an SUV where most things are at my average arm height. In the sedan there was a bit of bending down and kneeling on the rear seats, but I’m fit so this doesn’t bother me. If you’re something of an excuse-maker on the fitness front, perhaps you shouldn’t A) solve that problem and B) get a mid-size SUV failing A). Yes, I’m being a smart arse here, and no, don’t take this too seriously - it’s not like trying to fit a child restraint into an original Leyland Mini. It’s actually pretty easy.
The ISOFIX points are easy to locate, if a little off-centre to the little plastic markers, but I find this is becoming fairly common and it’s purely an observation, not a criticism. The top tether is easy to find because it’s literally right there directly behind the headrest on the parcel shelf. And thank you, Hyundai, for making the top tethers red. There’s actually a chance you can find the bloody things in dodgy lighting.
This was a joyous change from the SUV horde which all have their top tethers somewhere, down there, behind the back of the seat, meaning you not only have to repeatedly loosen the straps but also, you either have to climb into the boot sometimes, empty your stuff to find the tether point, or even lean over the backseat to locate and clip it in, sweating like crazy on a hot day, or if it’s raining and your shoes are filthy, you traipse mud all over the carpet. Top tethers should be roof-mounted for fear of jailtime.
The i30 Sedan has one moderate drawback with a child seat installed in its semi-liftback style rear window design. On a particularly sunny day, if you don’t have a jacket or muslin wrap or some kind of blanket for shade, the sun can beat down on the back of junior’s head through the glass. Fortunately, for both top tether installation and curing this sunburnt scalp problem, the headrests fully detach so you can clip the tether in unobstructed and lay said shade cloth across the top of the child restraint. See pics.
The i30 Sedan has some quirks and perks which you’ll want to decide if you love or loathe, but i’d encourage you to not be too hasty in scorning this car for its quirks because they’re minor and don’t spoil and otherwise very good car.
For example, the central instrument clusters ahead of the drive contain the speedo.and tachometer on the left and in the centre respectively. And the normally central rectangle screen is on the right.
This seems disorienting at first, but it’s not that bad. In fact it makes perfect sense in many ways because you’re predominantly looking at your speed while driving, not the various vehicle info. Speaking of the latter, I like the little graphic of the car which marries in with the rear parking sensors and reversing camera, blinking in certain areas where there’s an obstacle or potential object. That reversing camera is also quite good resolution, even for a base model.
Other nice touches include the font on the speedo, which reminds me of Gone In 60 Seconds - a distant dream I might have for how quickly I can get the kid out the door and into the car someday. I also like the snazzy touches for the various rotary dials to make them feel like the bezel on a fancy watch. And the general cabin layout is simple and functional, with enough storage space to hold the most important stuff, and good news: all the cup holders work. I also love the big grab handle built into the centre transmission tunnel - although I realise I may be alone in this appreciation, however it’ll be entirely functional in the Sedan N-Line.
But there are some minor ergonomic issues. The transmission shifter, which admittedly looks cool, but putting it in park kinda closes up the space forward of of it where you might put your phone and wallet, so it’s difficult to extract them once you’ve shut everything off and you’re ready to go. It’s not an existential crisis, but you feel stupid doing it the first time, and like a complete moron the second time for forgetting.
The Active variant we drove for a week gets a conventional turn-key ignition barrel instead of a push-button start, which was actually a nice change. No more finding a random hole to put the bloody key fob.
And then you get to the air-conditioning, which got a proper workout. If you leave the car in the sun for a long period of time, the A/C has a hard time getting the car’s temperature down when you get in it. And the vents are poorly
- they’re obscured by the steering wheel, and indicator/wiper stalks. so you end up trying to move them around to distribute the air at least somewhere that makes sense. But if you aim them too far to the left or right, you close the vent entirely. This is stupid. I would prefer a dedicated open/close scroll wheel and leaving the positioning toggle independent. It might seem petty, but when it’s 35-plus degrees Celcius outside and the cabin temp is around 50, and you’re trying to get the kid cool, given that the sun has been beating down on his seat all morning - these little things matter. This was probably the most severe of any criticism I had for this car.
Fortunately, when the A/C does kick-in and pumps cool air into the cabin, there are vents in the rear for the kid, which is nice to see on a base model.
I didn’t think the four-spoke steering wheel would work, on the eyes, but it’s actually pretty cool. I think, anyway. You’re entitled to disagree. Same goes for the exterior styling, a topic which I usually avoid unless it’s particularly awful - the edgy, sharp lines do grow on you, much like the angular door wedge lines some people will find brash and others will probably pay little attention to. They certainly don’t look as prominent in real life as they do in photos. I barely had time to notice them, frankly.
The rest of the controls and dials are all easy to find, reach and see, and Hyundai deserves praise for resisting the temptation to over- use bloody piano black plastic. There’s a little bit of it, but it tends to be rearward of the dashboard facia, so it’s not gonna reflect beams of light into your retinas. The week of driving this vehicle was primarily sunny and I never encountered the problem, even during the late afternoon.
The seats are really comfortable and I’m an average height, average weight male. I have a report coming up that will delve into this topic in more detail, but rest assured, the i30 sedan is a comfortable place to sit, even for moderately tall people. And it’s interesting how ‘legroom’ works differently in a conventional sedan compared to the SUVs which dominate our driveway (much to my 25yo self’s disgust). The wheelbase is 2.72m, which is 200mm longer than the Mazda CX-5 which is one of the best family cars on the market right now. To most ordinary car buyers i30 sedan will feel fairly premium, and offer really good leg room and cabin space, without feeling excessive for headroom like many SUVs.
In sedans, your legs sit elongated out in front of you (albeit slightly bent for optimum positioning). But in SUVs, you sit more like you’re sitting on a conventional chair at home, more upright, your legs bent more acutely. I would argue you have better blood flow in a sedan for this reason. It’s easier for your heart to pump blood if you’re more horizontal than you are vertical. A medical professional will probably correct me on this, to which I’m happy to be proven wrong.
Driving the sedan is enjoyable thanks to a very cleverly designed drive mode selection which tailors sportier, higher revs and a more weighty steering tune to those who haven’t lost their inner car enthusiast despite having kids and bags under the eyes.
This is the joy of this car - it’s so light (only 1300kg) that actually tweaking the drive modes can result in a tangible difference in performance. (Although, I don’t like the ‘Drive Mode’ button being place at the top of the row of buttons beside the transmission shifter; this puts it kinda out of reach, means it can be confused with the reversing camera button, especially when you need to switch back quickly.
Anyway, using ‘Sport’ does noticeably change things and you feel the benefits. Pushing ‘Sport’ mode in SUVs usually just means more noise (revs) and a dramatic increase in fuel consumption in exchange for slightly less-crap response. SUVs are big, heavy and slow, so as a result, they are largely pretty crap to drive, comparatively - it doesn’t matter if they’re tuned to ‘feel car-like to drive’. They’re all relatively cumbersome, lofty, heavy vehicles and they will never have the delicacy of a vehicle half or a third their weight and half their centre-of-gravity or height. SUVs are excessive and going back to a regular sedan, even a mid-size one, is quite enjoyable - different, yes - but adequate, often even pleasant. A Mazda CX-5 in its lightest variant starts at 1500kg, and it’s a very nice SUV to drive. The Kia Sorento feels taught and composed, sure, but it weighs two tonnes with a driver. Putting my arse in the i30 sedan doesn’t even tip 1400kg. That’s half a tonne less.
I thoroughly enjoyed driving the i30 sedan. It’s not what you’d call fast (the N-Line version would be), but it’s fast enough, it turns corners very crisply, it doesn’t lean over like an SUV either. Nor does it feel like an over-eager front-wheel drive trying to spin its wheels or understeer - not that I was driving it in any manner to encourage this, but it does feel connected to the road in a way SUVs have become more insulating from it.
If you have an average size family but you refuse to sell your soul for an SUV like I did some years ago, firstly, I hear you. And secondly, there are still options out there. If you can move beyond the juvenility of looking at Hyundai and Kia as those brands you once ridiculed because as a younger man you only thought about Holdens and Fords or Volkswagens and Audis or whatever, then you’re going to find some serious advantages. Holden is dead, Ford doesn’t do sedans anymore, and you’ll pay a lot more for the Germans for similar performance, ergonomics and safety.
I have been so impressed by Hyundai’s and Kia’s cars in the last few years. You can have an affordable family car that is still fun to drive. I encourage you to test drive the i30 sedan and Kia Cerato GT if you haven’t been forced to hang-up your enthusiast hat. I’ll live vicariously through you.
Hatch (N-Line)
It’s a motoring journalism cliché to say ‘I didn’t want to return this car’. The more I drove it, the more I wanted to keep driving it. This is the kind of accessible, useable performance missing from most mainstream brands today. And I don’t just mean ‘accessible’ in terms of the driver being able to utilise the dual-clutch, precisely apply throttle and add the perfect amount of steering lock. I also mean ‘affordability’.
Almost all motoring journalists rave about the Volkswagen Golf GTI as the so-called king of hot hatches. Being able to go fast-enough on the public road, but remain civilised and not look like a bogan trying to kill someone by driving like a Neanderthal. But to be honest, I’ve never driven a Golf GTI, so I can’t tell you if the N-Line is better to drive (or not). What I can tell you is, if you’re on an average salary and you need to buy a new car that makes you enjoy driving it because it’s not boring and it’s reliable, and you can afford it (both upfront and ongoing), then an N-Line hatch is going to cost about $33,000, and the sedan is about $34,000. That’s it.
Doesn’t that just blow your mind? Why, as a driver bound by the same road rules, the same state governments and police, paying for fuel, tyres, insurance, registration and shopping to feed your kids like everybody else, - why the hell would you buy a Golf asking another $15,000? I’d be putting fifteen grand into my mortgage. Because screw being in debt.
You won’t regret getting and N-Line to appease your inner driving enthusiast. The seven-speed dual clutch transmission is superb for this. It’s always got the next gear in the chamber, s to speak, ready to electronically snap its fingers the instant you twig that paddle-shift. And if you have it in ‘Sport’ mode you’ll appreciate having to work that little bit harder to dial in however-many degrees of left or right steering lock as you enter or exit a bend.
In traffic, going between sets of lights, you have to be sympathetic to the DCT in terms of not trying to be that knob who’s always changing lanes and darting in and out of various traffic flows. DCTs are awesome at predicting what gear you need next. But if you’re constantly shifting your driving behaviour - demanding hard acceleration and then suddenly coming to a halt, or slowly getting up to speed then repeatedly braking late and hard - you’re going to create excessive wear on the clutch. Just drive calmly and try to give the car fewer inputs: gradually getting up to speed, looking as far up the road as possible, and respond to red lights and slowing traffic early and be progressive. This isn’t a fault or inadequacy of the DCT, because it’s a very good unit; it’s simply a nuance of DCTs. More on transmission suitability here. You can also have a six-speed manual if you’re all about DIY.
The engine is full of power, especially when you need it, without much turbo-lag, and because of the R&D I can feel Hyundai has put into that DCT, there’s not tendency to surge if you do come across a slow vehicle or have to dial it back and revert into ‘easy tiger’ mode. When you’re driving into a carpark and go from crawling to needing to brake and drop it into reverse, there’s no thumping or clunking; it’s perfectly silent and there are no lurches. There’s that electronic finger-snapping again. Just, done. Although, you do have to watch that you don’t overload yourself and fail to pay attention to what’s behind you before dabbing the throttle to reverse into a space. Because it will go once you tell it you’re going backwards - again, this isn’t the fault with the car itself, you’ve engaged a reverse-first-gear and this car is mapped for acceleration.
Just quickly, while we’re on reversing. You get a nice clear camera resolution, dynamic guidelines to show where the wheels are pointing you, you can see the bumper in relation to objects, and the parking sensors get a concise, easy-to-understand graphic display to tell you what regions of the sensors are being triggered by said object - glowing red when you’re about to flatten someone.
Also on safety, you get driver attention warning, forward collision avoidance, adaptive cruise control on the DCT models which is awesome for freeways, including a ‘stop/go’ function that’ll bring you to a stop in congestion\. There’s also lane keeping and ‘lane following’ assistance (if you’re completely inept at basic driving) and you can turn this function off by holding down the button on the steering wheel. But it defaults on every time you get back in the car - I have this problem with ignition stop/start, but it’s just one of those things we just have to accept and get over in modern cars. Try to make it part of your muscle-memory routine starting the car in the morning.
Let’s get back to performance, because the N-Line is such a sweet spot.
I have a specific road not too far from my house where I go to drive punchy cars like the i30 N a few years ago, the Cerato GT, a couple of Mazda MX-5s, the SS V8 Commodore, the Kia Stinger, and the Nissan GT-R. (Tough gig, I know.)
Anyway, this road takes about an hour to do an out-lap and return. It’s got twisty corners, long uphill sections, off-camber crests with fast downhill sections, it passes a winery or two, I think there are some cows, there’s a flat S-section where you can see far up the road, and there’s a convenient shoulder at the end where I can turn around and blast home. There’s even a quiet dual dog-leg T-intersection where I can (responsibly) test standing acceleration. I haven’t been on this road in ages. Why?
Life. Real life. It gets in the way, doesn’t it? We all have these aspirations of going for a long, enjoyable drive with your brain, hands, feet and eyes all dancing and working in perfect sync. It’s called ‘flow’, and it’s a state-of-mind where the human being is performing a task with precision and in cognitive harmony. But it rarely ever happens for mere mortals like you and I. We have kids. We have work. There are birthdays and appointments and stuff to do.
The reality of life is that even when you do get to your fun roads, you’re bound by the speed limits, by white lines, police around the next corner and the most visceral fact of all - you’re on public roads with other cars. One mistake and you could easy kill yourself, your kids and worst of all - you might hurt or kill someone else and their kids. You’re not Mark Webber. I’m not Mark Webber. And I loved Mark Webber; he was the only F1 driver I cared about, he was the reason I sat awake at 2am watching telly with exams the next morning. But the reality is Mark Webber didn’t win a driver’s title and nor was he going to race F1 forever. (When Webber left, F1 died for me.) This is real life.
Driving an N-Line on the public road is appropriate levels of fun, it’s proportional and it’s about as good as your inner racing driver potential is going to get in the real world on normal roads among other regular families all trying to get to the same destination alive and safe. So I implore you, if you’re looking for a punchy, sporty car to put your family in, because you specifically don’t want an awkward, slow, heavy SUV - get an N-Line in either sedan or hatch. Because it’s such a brilliant balance of manageable, palpable performance without blowing the budget (and actually saving thousands of dollars), and without buying something so extreme you’re going to regret trying to use it in the real world.
Dislikes: There are one or two
The centre transmission tunnel creaks and flexes when bracing one’s self with their knee. I don’t know if this is a result of a thousand motoring journalists using my particular press vehicle or if it’s a (relatively minor) fault in the vehicle's design. Either way, I didn’t expect it from a modern Hyundai. I personally don’t regard it as a deal-breaker, but it did catch me by surprise because it was out of character with the rest of the hatch and the sedan.
The dashboard feels solid, the doors feel light but strong, everything feels appropriately hard or soft where it needs to be, and even the red stitching and seatbelts are tastefully contrasting to the fairly black/charcoal interior.
I was a bit miffed to find only a space saver spare wheel under the boot floor, knowing full-size spares are in Hyundai’s SUVs (bar Kona). But I guess the benefit is less added weight to haul around - although I would counter that by saying that a family car is going to be full of so much additional crap, a full-sizer is going to be a bigger benefit than a few extra millilitres of fuel. Once could argue it allows for a lower boot floor and thus more space for the aforementioned kid-related crap. To which I would agree.
While the boot is a really good size and the parcel shelf is blissfully removeable and able to be untethered from the bootlid, it needs a small gap between it and the top of the seatback in order to feed the top tethers through for child restraints. Speaking
Also, when fitting said child restraint, you can’t actually remove the rear headrests because they hit the roof before the spokes have completely come out of their guides.
I also struggled to get the baby capsule to fit in position behind the driver’s seat in my position (and I’m average height). While this might strike anger and hatred into your heart, dial it back a bit, because you would typically install a baby capsule on the left-hand side of the car, behind the front-passenger. I just couldn’t be arsed removing the kid’s restraint just to fit the capsule for five seconds and re-install the restraint. Not when it’s easy enough to ascertain that there’s enough room for capsule behind front-passenger (who has more legroom than the driver and can happily slide the seat forward a fraction), and the big kid in a regular restraint can easily go behind the driver and everything will be hunky-dory. Basically, there is enough room in the hatch for mum, dad and two kids (whether they’re pre-schoolers or toddlers in restraints, or even still in a capsule. However, if you’re a particularly tall family, don’t bother with the hatch and stick with the sedan unless you’re able to make it work in the hatch; just don’t compromise on your ideal driving position because that’s your modus operandi. Driver must be comfortable at all times.
Gallery
Summary
I really did try to live the hell out of the i30 hatch and sedan while I had them. Even took the dog for a walk. (We’re not really supposed to have pets in press cars, in case they tear the seats - but I’m OCD about putting towels down to avoid this).
I think if you really don't want to go for an SUV, or perhaps you’ve had enough of yours and wanna downsize, A) I envy you and; B) the i30 N-Line is an excellent sporty mode of transport that isn’t a excessively high-performance.
Not only that, there’s just enough room for an average size family, within a reasonable budget, with good boot space and legroom to spare.
It’ll make a great second car if you’ve already got the family bus, or if you’ve long moved the kids out and might even have grandkids down the pipeline (but you haven’t lost your nerve behind the wheel yet), there’s equal levels of sensibility, safety and outright grunt to get your hips shakin' all over.
The i30 N-Line in sedan form is probably my pick if you're in the midst of full-throttle parenting. It’s the ideal blend of fast-enough to make you sweat and sufficiently elevate your heart rate, with a big boot, adequate cabin comfort, and it is reserved enough that you can be comfortable in traffic, also sweating.
Just try to park in the shade.