Faults:

Nothing so far.

General Comments:

Lovely relaxing car to drive. Very smooth. Auto box delivers very smoothly on changes. The dual clutch option is nice to have, but 99% of my driving is in full auto. My only gripe would be that there is a slight delay between pressing the accelerator and getting a response. Slight, but annoying. My previous car was a 2.0 D4D Toyota Corolla and it had instant response and strong delivery of power over a very wide rev range.

Back to the Hyundai. No squeaks, rattles or creaks. Everything still works. Love the Bluetooth connectivity and the MP3 player. The steering has 3 levels of resistance to suit driving style. Parking sensors are wonderful and I love the daytime running lights. Passenger cabin could do with more practical and economic use of storage space. There are quite a few wasted spaces that could have been better utilised. Inside the top of the centre arm rest, for one. Some areas in and around the dashboard could also be made available.

Faults:

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

General Comments:

I took this car as a leasing car from work. Drove it for 1 year and then had to leave my employer for another one. Thus, I bought it off the leasing company and I am driving it as my private vehicle ever since.

This is the somewhat simpler trim - the leasing version. However, it has all the necessary things and does not have the things that I can certainly do without. So here goes:

- It has rear parking sensors (very useful) but does not have a rear view camera (nice to have, but parking sensors do just fine).

- It has simple in-dash radio/CD/MP3 player (but I had to install for some extra money the USB/AUX port pair, the firmware of the player already had MP3).

- It does not have Bluetooth though I had a Bluetooth handset from the leasing company; after a grand total of 6 years (it was transferred between leased cars) I had to remove it; I bought a simple cable that has a mike, goes into AUX in the car and earphone jack in the cell phone - works like a charm and as a bonus I get to hear the people with whom I talk from the car radio.

- It has rather simple 4 speakers but they do the work just fine; given the surprisingly quiet ride, I rarely bump the volume above 15 (maximum is 50 if I am not mistaken).

- Flexi-steer system where you can change the resistance of the steering wheel (comfort/normal/sport) is a blessing. Parking it in comfort setting is a breeze.

In terms of ride and performance this is relatively relaxed car - the 1.4L 100 BHP normally aspirated petrol engine is modest, but paired with 6 speed manual gear box there is certain fun in it, especially given that 99.9% of nowadays motorists drive automatic gear box cars. The system that holds the wheels when starting uphill is extremely useful.

This car has ISG - Integrated Stop and Go system. The engine goes off when you release the clutch on the stop. After some time (between 1 minute if you use A/C and 3 minutes if not) the engine re-starts on its own. Or it re-starts when you depress the clutch. Some say this is bad for the engine. So far I've been using it all the time (except when the battery was getting weak, then it automatically disables) and found it very useful. The idea of being stuck in traffic and for 1 hour drive having your car actually not running 5-10 minutes sounds like a good idea in terms of fuel economy and air pollution.

For fuel economy having driven for a tad more than 100,000 km, I get on average 6.4 l/100 km on mixed cycle. The figure is based on Android aCar application that I use to record all my car related expenses. I even was able once to score 4.9 l/100 km though it was an extra smooth ride.

Here in Israel, Hyundai gives 3 years or 100,000 km warranty. I drove my car for 3.5 years, 102,000 km, serviced it in an official service center and had no problems whatsoever - it's been absolutely 100% reliable. The recommended service interval is 30,000 km. I take it in each 15,000 km in order to replace oil, filters, etc. The costs are there, but they are certainly worth it, because of the reliability and relatively low fuel consumption of this car.

Finally, in terms of general comfort, the engine noise is handled extremely well. The wind noise is also very low. Less so is noise from the wheels and wheel arches. To remedy that somewhat you would have to buy tires with lower noise rating or just settle for what you have. Having said that, on reasonably new and/or smooth tarmac, it is really very quiet and very comfortable.

All in all, having owned two Corollas, Kia Ceed, Peugeot 308 and others, I should say - this is by far my favorite car. It offers modest promises, but it over-delivers and I cannot possibly recommend it enough for small family hatchback.