Hyundai i20 : Is It The Best Hatchback ?

I20 is a premium hatchback offered by Hyundai in India.

It is one of the most selling hatchback in it's segment.

Recently Hyundai launched it's third generation so lets talk about it.

Lets start it with the pricing of the car.

This car starts at a pricing of 6.85 to 11.34 lakhs INR (ex-showroom delhi)

but in UK, it starts around 18,595 pounds,

Now, lets talk about the design

At front, you get a large grill with headlights merging in it and projector fog lamps.

The headlamps are also projector based with LED's in it which has increased overall visiblity and headlamps also has a cornering lamp which is halogen.

Coming to the rear, it get 'Z' shaped tail lights with i20 written on it and a high mount stop lamp and also a camera but disappointingly, it doesn't get 4 parking sensors as earlier instead it get only two parking sensors so you cannot always rely on parking sensors. It also gets a diffuser sort of a treatment at the lower side.

Now coming to the side, the design of the car looks premium with the chrome door handles an the alloy wheels. The tire size happens to be 195 '55 R16 but the lower variants get 15 incher alloys. It gets a electric fuel lid opener (it will open from outside. no need to open from inside). You can also opt for sunroof and also for dual tone colour options.

Now in the inside, the dashboard design looks good but there is no soft touch material used in the car. Everywhere there is hard plastic but the quality of the material is very good which is a good thing (Hyundai always does that in all it's cars). It gets a continuous running vent treatment. You get some red inserts in turbo variants. You get digital dials as standard and a 10.5 inch screen which largest in the segment.

At the rear, the leg room is excellent. previously it was least in the segment but now it is the most in the segment. It gets a center arm rest and a USB charging socket with 2 ac vents.

Lets talk about the boot

Due to the increase in leg room in the rear seats, the space in the boot is reduced. Now you only get 311 liters of boot space which is of a decent size.

Engine

This car offers 3 engine option. 2 petrol and one diesel engine.

1. 1.2 litre naturally aspirated petrol.

2. 1.0 litre turbo charged petrol.

3. 1.5 litre diesel engine.

All the engine options are derived from Hyundai Venue.

Transmission

There are total 4 types of transmissions offered by Hyundai in i20.

1. Manual

2. CVT Automatic

3. DCT Automatic

4. IMT (clutchless manual)

The IMT is only available with turbo engine variant.

Performance

This car offers very good performance. The turbo engine produces 120 Hp and 172 Nm of torque. The result is this car goes from 0-100kmph in 9.9 sec which is quick indeed. The engine becomes sporty and a bit vocal in the top end of the rev range but performance is very slick from this engine.

The diesel engine is linear in terms of power delivery. With this engine option, you can only get a manual transmission which is a bit disappointing. It produces 100 Hp and 240 Nm of torque which results that 0-100kmph should take around 11.5 to 12 sec.

Suspension

The suspension of this car are on the stiff side. This car is 13% more stiffer than it's predecessor. The ride is good in the most of the parts but if there are sharp bumps then they can be felt inside the car. Hyundai needs to work on it's suspensions.

Steering

The steering is quiet a surprise for a Hyundai car. It is light and you can easily manoeuvre the steering so there will be no problem to drive it in city. On highways, it weighs up well and also gives you feedback and gives you confidence in higher speeds.

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If you want to see the video review of this car then, it's here