Hyundai i40 1.7 CRDi
BlueDrive Active review
by David Finlay (15 February 2012)
In a slightly unusual move, Hyundai first made its i40 available in the UK as a Tourer (see launch review), but as you can see the saloon version is now on sale too. For me, it reverses an odd trend in the motor industry in which estates used to be much less attractive than the saloons they were based on until the situation gradually inverted itself during the 1990s.
Now, I'm not saying that the Tourer is an ugly car. On the contrary, it strikes me as being one of the most elegant designs in the class. But the saloon is significantly prettier still. And I'm not the only one to think this. The refuse collection operative who stood gawping at it outside my house a couple of hours after it arrived was the first to do, but many others followed his example in the days to come.
I think the design of the i40 is more attractive than that of the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Insignia, and currently rivalled only by the Kia Optima, a very similar vehicle from Hyundai's sister company.
As with the Optima, it's also perhaps the best thing about the car, and unfortunately it encompasses the worst; if any attention was paid to making the i40 easy to see out of, there is no sign of it. Every pillar on the damn thing is far too thick, with the result that visibility is badly compromised in almost every direction.
Can't argue with the amount of space, though. I'm six foot three, as I may have mentioned in the past, and you could fit four of me in the big Hyundai without the slightest difficulty. We'd all be perfectly comfortable, too, since the seats are more than adequately supportive.
The boot capacity is 525 litres, a competitive figure close enough to what the Mondeo and BMW 5-Series offer for there to be no point in arguing about it. The Insignia has less, the Mercedes E-Class more and the Skoda Superb much, much more. (Some of these are hatchbacks, and of course their load capability balloons when you fold down the rear seats, but if you need to carry more than two people and a lot of luggage the i40 will serve you well enough.)
Access to the boot is good for a modern saloon. The sill is a little high, but the opening is wide and there's none of that silly form-over-function tapering that you sometimes find at the sides.
Our test car was one of three BlueDrives in the i40 range, BlueDrive being Hyundai's badge for particularly economical and low-CO2-emitting models. They're all 1.7-litre turbo diesels, and two of them - one each in the Active and Style trim levels - use the 134bhp version of this engine.
If you want the 114bhp variant you're stuck with Active, which isn't as fancy but doesn't miss out on any piece of equipment I particularly want other than the Style's rear parking sensor, because dear Lord, if there's one thing an i40 needs it's one of those.
The relatively modest provision of goodies keeps the price down to, at the time of writing, £18,395, which is okay. I suggested in the Tourer review that charging more than about £22,000 for any i40 (and there are a few which cost a lot more than that) shows a lot of nerve, but I don't see a problem with £18,395.
Some of you may have stubbed your toes on a comment two paragraphs back and still be wondering why anyone would want the 114bhp diesel when there's an alternative with 20bhp more. Personally, I'm wondering why anyone would spend £800 on the extra power, because while it might be fun to have it there was not a moment during this test when I thought I needed it.
That's largely because this is, for its bulk, a surprisingly capable car on corners. I'm lucky enough to live near a 30-mile rollercoaster of a road, with almost every kind of corner you can imagine, and since - within reason - the i40 didn't need to slow down for them very much, it also didn't need to accelerate away from them to keep up a decent average speed. In real-world driving this is more important than the unimpressive-looking 0-62mph time of 12.3 seconds.
The ride quality is great, too, possibly because the wheels on the BlueDrive are small and the tyres have large profiles. This may not help the looks (not that they need any help) but it makes life very pleasant for the occupants. The only downside is that the steering is over-assisted, so you don't get much of an idea about how the tyres are reacting to the tarmac. This feeling never goes away, but in my experience you get used to it after a few days.
(I should also point out that the gearchange, which I thought was horrible on manual versions of the Tourer, wasn't nearly as bad here. I have to assume it improves with use - worth bearing in mind if you take a very low-mileage demonstrator on a test drive.)
This is the most economical car in the range, with an official EU combined figure of 65.7mpg. I didn't get anywhere near this, though admittedly I wasn't trying to, but my actual result of around 52mpg seemed okay for a car of this size. Real CO2 emissions will be a lot higher than the offical 113g/km, but that's the figure you're taxed on, so Vehicle Excise Duty payments from year two on are just £30. Here it has no advantage over the 134bhp car, though, since its 119g/km rating means it costs the same to tax.
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