A little gem! (The Hyundai i10)

I recently purchased the baby of the Hyundai family – the I10, and it is a great little car.

Having been a very happy owner of the Volkswagon Lupo for over 10 years, when choosing it’s replacement, I was faced with a difficult task.

My wish list was simple, a small car, reasonably priced and one that offered excellent fuel economy, was cheap to insure, and little or no road tax.

These days, there are many small cars available on the market – the Citroen C1, the Aygo, the Peugeot 107 – although these 3 are basically the same car, just different manufacturers.  Having test driven the C1, I quickly ruled that out as the road handling was not great, and as the car was so low on the road, I also found it very noisy .

I then read some reports on the i10, each one suggesting that it was a car I should certainly take a look at.

I’m not much of a believer in buying a brand new car, it depreciates in value as soon as you drive it off the forecourt.  So, that meant looking at the second hand market.  

I trawled through various listings, and came across one of interest at Car Giant in London.  They were offering a March 2011 Hyundai i10 with just over 2,000 miles on the clock for a shade over £5,000.  I was sceptical about this, as it did seem too good to be true, so decided it needed a closer inspection.

My husband drove me to Car Giant, and we eventually located the little car in a distant corner of an unbelievably large forecourt.  

First impressions were mixed, it was a tiny little car, with an very small bonnet ; but it did have 4 doors – which was 2 better than my last car!  We sat inside it, trying out the front and the back seats.  As a fairly tall lady, I was also anxious that it should offer decent head room; and was pleased to see that it most certainly did.

Overall it had promise, so I arranged a test drive; it was love at first drive.  I knew this was the one for me, so I went to the office and put down a deposit.

One week later, the car was mine.

I have now been driving it for around 6 months.  For a small car, the road handling is excellent – tight bends are no problem ; the car feels stable.  Parking it is a joy, no problems slotting it into a small spot.  Turning the car round is a doddle, you could turn it on a postage stamp!  The boot is relatively spacious for something so small.

I drive the Active 1.2 model, which has a fuel economy of 61.4 mpg; and £20 per year road tax.

I should also add that all Hyundai’s come with a 5 year manufacturer’s warranty, so I am able to take advantage of the remaining time on that.

My score :-

Out of 5 would be 5.  Just perfect to me, no complaints whatsoever!