Well, the holiday is over and reality will soon start to set back in (although a few beers tonight should hold that off for a while longer yet…) so here’s a quick rundown of the i40’s time in Queenstown and the run back up the West Coast of the South Island!
After a day relaxing in Queenstown (for both us and the car) a quick run down to Te Anau and back the next day offered the i40 a sniff of a few more corners and hills than it has seen lately. A rather limited constabulary presence also gave us a chance to open things up a bit and enjoy the Hyundai’s sweet chassis.
While the ride is comfortable, it is also firm enough to suggest disciplined body control through the corners. And that is exactly what you get with the i40.
Throw it into a corner and the nose tracks through nicely with the rear falling compliantly into line with no hint of the extra bulk provided by the wagon body.
The slight vagueness of the steering can be countered to some extent by the “Sport” button on the dash, which adds weight to the steering and does make it feel better too.
It also changes the slick six-speed automatic transmission’s shift points, prompting it to hold gears longer. It all works well and makes the i40 a decent thing to throw around the twisty bits.
But the real top marks have to, again, go to the brilliant seats. Superbly comfortable and remarkably supportive, the Hyundai’s leather pews always seem to be grabbing you in the right spot when you hit a corner and are never jabbing you in the wrong spot.
In fact, if the perfect seat is one you have absolutely no complaints about, even after spending 4,000km sitting in one, then the Hyundai i40 has perfect seats…
The next day saw the i40 pointed to the other end of Lake Wakatipu and settlements like Glenorchy and Kinloch. This introduced the Hyundai i40 to something previously un-encountered on the trip – gravel roads.
While the rough corrugations on some of the surfaces showed a little of the Hyundai-of-old steering rack rattle was still evident over rough surfaces, it was nowhere near as bad as it used to be in previous Hyundais.
Other than that, the i40 was as delightful on the gravel as it is on the sealed stuff. Although one issue with the stability control was slightly annoying – it is actually a finely calibrated set up that isn’t particularly intrusive and, most importantly, doesn’t descend into a power-killing, understeering panic when anything happens, an unfortunate feature of a lot of Korean cars.
In fact its intervention points are just right and the amount of intervention equally so, but for one thing – it stays intervening for a bit too long… and not just on gravel, it is something we have since encountered on sealed roads as well.
For example – you are pushing on and hit a patch of loose gravel or a bump in a corner. No problem, the chassis is capable enough anyway and the nicely judged stability control kicks in subtly as a nice backstop. As it is supposed to do.
Things under control, you push the throttle down to accelerate away, except nothing happens. You look down and see the stability control light is STILL flashing, even though the situation is resolved and it is no longer needed. This is mildly annoying and more than a little unnecessary… still, it’s vastly better than the unbridled panic that was the stability control reaction of previous generations of Korean vehicles.
Another feature that shows the incredibly fast learning curve of the Korean manufacturers (and Hyundai in particular has to be said to be at the top of this learning curve) is the interior quality of the i40, which is probably the highest of any Korean car to date, with good plastics and fantastic fit and finish, the interior of the i40 is impressive indeed.
I have long been critical of the “leather” (always in inverted commas) in Korean cars, but the leather in the i40 is impressive. Soft and lacking the artificial feel the majority of other Koreans, it is a pleasant feeling, quality finish on the seats, steering wheel, centre console lid and gear knob.
The trek up the West Coast was dulled somewhat by the low cloud present, but again the i40 was faultless, making the two day trek between Queenstown and Picton an absolute breeze. A bit of competitive spirit to beat the time I set and the distinct lack of visible policing on the West Coast saw speed limits stretched to breaking point (okay, and a wee bit beyond…) but the i40 thrived here too, seeming to hold an even lower average on the instant fuel consumption readout. Honest officer, I was trying to be as economical as possible…
While average fuel consumption had stayed steadily locked on 6.2L/100km from the North Island down to Queenstown, the shorter trips and hillier landscape down there had seen it rise to 6.3. The equally hilly landscape and tighter corners of the West Coast saw that creep up to 6.4 by the time we hit Picton to catch the ferry back to Wellington.
A day in Wellington and a blast back up the North Island to Auckland saw the consumption stay the same for an overall average of 6.4L/100km for the 4,147km we covered in the i40.
For more than 4,000km the i40 performed strongly and faultlessly. It was startlingly economical – despite being driven in a style that didn’t even begin to take fuel economy into account – and almost ridiculously comfortable.
It is certainly a very easy car to recommend…
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