Hyundai i10 Magna 1.2 Kappa. Review on Hyundai i10

I had an Alto which I was using for three years. It covered 37000kms and was giving me a very good mileage. But, I got tired with the power it was giving, especially when the AC is on. Finally, in January 2009, I decided to go for a car which would give me better power. I wanted a small car and my budget was below 5lakh. I compared between Zen Estillo, WagonR andi10. When I had almost made a decision, Maruti's A-Star came to market, so I did a test drive of that too. I liked A-Star, but the lack of boot space went against it, and I felt it was a bit overpriced. I didn't like Estillo's looks and WagonR was quite an oldmodel. So, after reading a lot of reviews at mouthshut and doing abit of drive around in an i10(my cousin has one, although it was1.1), I decided to go for an i10 1.2 Magna. In hind sight, I feel I made a mistake in deciding a model to buy, which I'll explain below.I bought a white i10 Magna 1.2 in March 2009 and have been using it since then.

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the car. There are some small issues with the car which I felt Hyundai could have done away with. But, after all, nothing comes perfect.

Cons:

1. I made a mistake of not checking the car before getting it registered in my name. There was a manufacturing defect in the car which I failed to notice initially. Even if the AC blower is in the default position so that the air flows only through the vents near the instrument panel, there is significant air flow through the vents positioned near driver's leg. Thus, there's cool air flow towards your leg all the time. I felt very uncomfortable with it and tried to correct it. They told me that it is a manufacturing defect and they have seen it in couple of other cars. They told me it is not an easy problem to fix and wanted me to leave the car with them for a couple of days.

   
   




2. Magna 1.2 has just a two speed wiper. When it is raining lightly, you just can't switch on the wiper and concentrate on your driving. The minimum speed is quite high for light rain. There is no'intermittent' position. I've heard this is true only for Magna model and for higher models(and for Magna 1.1), there are three positions, the first being'intermittent'. The worst part is, this is not mentioned anywhere in the specs and I had no way to find it before buying the car.

   
   




3. Magna 1.2 does not have a'door ajar warning'. I missed this when checking the specs. I felt this is an important feature in any car.

   
   




4. I feel the car has a fairly major blind spot on the right side. The shaft connecting the car roof to body(Thanks to Wikipedia, I learned that the technical term for it is'A Pillar'.) comes in the way. I feel this shaft is thicker in i10, compared to other cars. May be it is to improve safety. But, especially when making a sharp right turn, you can't really see what is ahead. I haven't yet heard anybody else commenting on this, so, may be it is just me.

   
   




5. For me, it gives very less mileage in city driving – it is 11-12kmpl with AC on 90% of time. But, my trips in city is maximum 5km in a stretch. Also, the traffic is too high where I drive. So, this may not be a bad mileage after all.

   
   




6. During the initial days of driving the car, I felt the second gear to be lacking power. I felt it to be something wrong with the gear ratios. The first gives too much power and the second gives too less. Now, I'm used to it.

   
   

7.Dash board's top is reflective. This is again a minor issue. I got used to it.

Pros:

1. The riding comfort is quite good. You can feel the gear snapping to position and the ride is quite smooth. It is quite true that the console gear frees up lot of space.

   
   




2. Interior is free of noise. You might feel the engine is off when you are idling.

   
   




3. Gives good mileage in highways. For me, it gives around 17kmpl with AC on all the time.

   
   

Overall, I feel i10 is a good car and I would recommend buying one. But, I would suggest to buy the 1.2 Sportz model for those who are planning to go for Magna 1.2. I feel Hyundai tried to do some cost cutting on Magna when they made their Kappa engine available with Magna. 1.1 Magna and 1.2 Magna were available at the same price when I bought this – I'm not sure if that is the case even now. If there are significant set of features cut down on the noticeable parts, I wonder how much of cost cutting has gone into the not-so-visible areas of the car. The difference between Magna and Spotz is around 30, 000, for which you get an integrated music system(although I'm not sure how good it is, which is why I decided to go for Magna) and a host of other features – in other words, a complete car.