Hyundai i30 1.6 Premium

Bought this used, unexpectedly finding a diesel auto. Very comfortable leather seats, driver's fully adjustable for height also. Drives well, the auto gearbox being well suited to the torquey diesel and operating without any jerkiness. The actual selector could do with being illuminated, as its gate is rather oddly shaped. Folding down the rear seats provides a very usefully huge load area. Plenty of storage cubby-holes for sunglasses, sat-navs etc. Comfort over long distances is fine. The 17 inch alloy wheels mean pricey tyre replacement, and I'm personally none too keen on low-profile tyres which are standard on the Premium model. They mean that one has to be careful traversing sleeping policemen and other road obstacles to avoid damaging the alloy wheels. Got to admit they look good, though! There's rather too many internal reflections in the driver's view through the windscreen. I get around 42 m.p.g + on a longish motorway drive, not too much less in town.

Some features are unexpectedly present, such as some kind of electric front windscreen de-icer (not yet tried), and seat heating (2 settings!) also the electrically dimming rear-view mirror is excellent; yet other features I would have expected are absent, such as heated wing mirrors. There's an electric wing mirror folder, and all 4 windows are electric, with 'auto' feature like the driver's. The fully automatic setting for climate control is useful as you just 'let it get on with the job'. My model has radio/ CD volume control on the steering wheel (nice), but oddly, the FM/ LW selector is also there (useless).

I imagine the later models would continue to improve Hyundai's market share. I think they are where the Japanese car manufacturers were 10-15 years ago in terms of reliability and design, although I haven't had the car long enough to comment upon longer-term reliability.