Best First Car 2022: Comfort and convenience

The purchase of a new car brings certain expectations, and Australian first-car buyers armed with a budget of up to $30,000 have every right to look for a well-considered level of comfort and convenience features.

You certainly don’t want to lay down 30 large for something that feels basic and lacking in equipment.

We’ve already detailed the safety and technology features that are – and aren’t – fitted to our nine contenders for carsales’ Best First Car 2022.

In this section, we’re considering the sweeter things in life and the practical elements that can make all the difference to your ownership and driving experience.

For example, all cars on test have remote central locking, air-conditioning, power-adjustable exterior mirrors and power windows.

The steering wheel also adjusts for both height and reach, which helps the driver find an optimum position behind the wheel.

While still in the driver’s seat, there’s no power adjustment found across our contenders and the upholstery is typically cloth – except in the case of the Hyundai i30 Active, which has leather-appointed seats as standard.

That’s classy, although we hasten to point out that Hyundai, in its fine print, notes that “finishes specified as leather may contain elements of genuine leather, polyurethane leather (leather substitute) or man-made materials, or a combination thereof”.

Beyond standard air-con, only the Subaru Impreza 2.0i-L has the set-and-forget convenience of dual-zone climate-control. It also has separate air vents in the rear compartment, which is something only the Hyundai i30 and the Kia Cerato S also offer among our Best First Car cohort.

Automatic dusk-sensing headlights are an excellent feature and fitted standard to seven of our nine models, the outliers being the Mazda2 Pure and the Subaru Impreza.

At the other end of the scale of lighting tech, there are four cars that offer an automatic high beam dipping function – the Kia Cerato, Mazda3 Pure, Toyota Corolla Ascent Sport and Toyota Yaris Ascent Sport.

Perhaps surprisingly, rain-sensing windscreen wipers are hard to find among these cars, with only the Mazda3 including the useful auto-wipe function as standard.

Auto-folding side mirrors is very useful for when trying to avoid the risk of other drivers clipping them in tight urban enclaves. They’re widely found, but again, there are a couple of cars that miss out of them – the Kia Rio S and the Suzuki Swift GL S Plus.

For those frosty mornings or humid days, the Hyundai i30, Kia Cerato and Toyota Corolla go a step further in offering a heating function for the exterior mirrors.

We’ve mentioned that electric windows are a given, but if you like having one-touch power window operation for all windows, you’ll find this only in the Hyundai i30, Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla.

The convenience of a manual-set speed limiter is also only offered in the Kia Cerato.

Although no models here have the ultimate convenience of keyless entry – yes, you still have to press the lock or unlock button on the key fob – but we’re pleased to report that on a few of our Best First Car contenders you don’t have to stick a key into the ignition barrel.

Push-button start is provided on the Mazda2 and Mazda3, the Subaru Impreza and the Suzuki Swift.