Hyundai i40 Touring Review

I have a theory, the bigger the accelerator pedal the more inclined you are to tailgate. For example, the accelerator pedal in BMWs, Audis and the Hyundai i40 are large foot size pedals that makes you want to tailgate on the motorway. It might not be true but just a theory I’m going to investigate. I do like a big accelerator pedal.

As for the Hyundai i40 Touring, my two-word summary is “perfectly adequate”.

That’s it, nothing noteworthy, the Hyundai i40 drives absolutely fine. Cruises down the motorway with ease. It took me a moment or two to get used to driving it. Getting out of the car park wasn’t graceful. Going over rough ground to get to a customer house it took the bumps smoothly.

The Hyundai i40 isn’t an aggressive looking car, it’s classical European styled that is designed and will appeal to the Far East market. I think the car just looks meh!

Inside the Hyundai i40 I couldn’t really find a comfortable driving position. Being a short-ass (5ft6”) I usually like driving Japanese cars as they appear designed for my height but trying to get the seat in the Hyundai i40 into a comfortable position wasn’t easy. I felt a little too close to the steering wheel. I did like the deep hug from the seats.

In the past I’ve have driven higher spec versions of the i40 with reversing cameras but this one had nothing to write about. I mean it didn’t even have a DAB radio which ruined my Sunday morning motorway drive as I couldn’t listen to Cerys on 6 Music. I mean it’s 2017, they keep threating to switch off analogue radio so why wouldn’t a DAB radio come as standard? It came with Bluetooth that worked well and all the controls are perfectly laid out being exactly where you’d expect them to be.

My passenger friends really liked it inside, there is loads of room in the back, even more than an Insignia.

The boot easily took two large rucksacks and 3 small rucksacks without even squeezing. It drank more diesel than I expected, and Enterprise Rent a Car only gave me three quarters of fuel in the tank. So, filling it back to three quarters took two stops. I Googled the fuel tank size (70 litres) and I needed quarter of tank so worked out I needed £23.00 worth of fuel. Looking at the petrol gauge as I was driving out of the garage I was an eighth short. Not wanting to be charged for fuelling (it’s usually expensive if you get the rental company to add fuel), I called at the second petrol station and added £7 worth of diesel. Driving down the road the gauge hadn’t moved. I need to get that gauge up without adding more fuel as there are no more petrol stations now en-route.  Tactic one, hard brake! Coming up to a set of traffic lights I braked hard hoping the fuel would move and put up the amount of diesel showing. Result – nothing. I then went around a roundabout and success, up to three quarters of a tank of diesel. Everyone is happy.

The Hyundai brand has made gargantuan progress in the last few years and will make some interesting cars soon. The one thing I think Hyundai do as good as if not better is the Day Time Running Lights, they just look well designed and cool.