Hyundai i30 Active 2017 Long-term Review - 1

Foolishly, I have been doing a lot more racing in 2017 as I try to train-up for my first ever multi-day event in 2018.

The sport being what it is, there aren’t many mountain bike races in the city, so it’s often a two to three hour drive each way to the race course.

Our family truckster, a Mazda CX-3, is usually my race transporter as it is set up with bike racks on the roof, which negates the slightly annoying process of removing the front wheel from my bike and loading it into the boot, pedals scratching metal and plastic on the way through.

But my most recent race coincided with the new motoring.com.au Hyundai i30 Active long termer spending a few days at our place. So it was out with the Specialized’s front wheel, down with the rear seats and off to the races.

So good and bad news straight up. The rear seat split-folds easily and the parcel board unclips and can be tucked in behind the front seats without a problem. That’s good because it meant dirty tyres won’t be marking the back of the front seat.

The opening into the boot is also high and wide, so no grinding, banging noises as metal hits metal.

But I still had to move the front passenger seat all the way forward to make sure my XL frame could fit and a step where the rear bench folds caught a pedal as the bike was slid in.

One thing about bicycle pedals, as my good friend and fellow treadly operator Tim Britten often muses, is how they have the ability to hook on almost anything anywhere any time.

Unfortunately, I also noted there were no pockets or wet tubs into which, in a few hours post-race, I could toss my smelly, stinky gear.

But there was plenty of storage up-front to fit my bidons, gels and energy bars for the drive to the race and over-sized Gatorade bottles, sausage rolls and choccy bars for the drive home.

So far so very base model. But in so many ways, the i30 Active is more than that. Outside there are such upgrades as 16-inch alloy wheels rather than steelies. Get inside and the size of the 8.0-inch infotainment screen at the top of the centre stack embarrasses the piddly efforts of some luxury car makers charging far more for cars of a similar size. Who? I couldn’t possibly dob-in BMW…

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, again some luxury brands haven’t got this far yet.

Mind you, it is disturbing autonomous emergency braking isn’t even an option for the i30 Active when it’s standard on higher models in the i30 range. Hyundai says AEB is coming as part of a safety pack in February. The cost will be $1750 and it will also include Blind Spot Detection, Driver Attention Alert, Lane Keeping Assist System, Smart Cruise Control, an electric parking brake, rear air vents and a 4.2-inch super-vision centre cluster screen.

Absent AEB is not the only way the petrol i30 Active (there’s also a diesel) currently falls short when it comes to tech. Most obviously, it has a naturally-aspirated 2.0-litre engine in an era when just about everything else is turbocharged. The Active model also gets a torsion beam rear axle, whereas higher-spec SR and SR Premium grades run an independent multi-link rear-end.

But you know what? The i30 Active still drives really well. The engine makes a decent amount of power and torque and punches along with the traffic without drama. It doesn’t get breathless, shrill or vibey and nor does the six-speed auto lose its way matching up to it.

According to the trip computer it even slightly undercut its official fuel consumption claim, which is no surprise really as almost all my running was on freeway.

And the suspension? Well, I reckon the i30 Active behaves itself very nicely. Even on the dirt roads into the mountain bike race HQ it felt stable and sure-footed and steered accurately. It rode comfortably across holes big and small, the taller sidewall of the base model’s 16-inch tyres providing extra cushion.

This car again proves that local suspension tuning makes up for a hell of a lot of theoretical brochure disadvantages.

So, while I put in my usual extremely average-being kind of performance on the race track, the Hyundai i30 Active passed its test as a race transporter with flying colours.

The cramps and pain I was feeling driving home definitely had nothing to do with the comfy driver’s seat.

From time to time, we also take the opportunity to spend even longer with a vehicle.

These longer-term tests can be as short as a couple of weeks, but more recently we’ve settled on a three-month period as indicative of ‘normal’ ownership.

Long-term tests give our staff writers and contributors a chance to get to know a car as an owner would. While the car is with us, we pay for fuel, the servicing, and generally use and live with the car as a new owner would.

We believe long-term tests give car buyers a deeper insight into the vehicle on test, but also the qualities behind the brand and nameplate. The extended period also allows us to touch base with the dealer networks in question.

It comes as no surprise that manufacturers tend to have a love-hate relationship with long-term tests. Three months is long enough to fall out of love with the latest and greatest, and start to nit-pick — just like real owners do.

2017 Hyundai i30 Active pricing and specifications:
Price: $23,745 (as tested, plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol
Output: 120kW/203Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 7.4L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 173g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP

Related reading:
>> Hyundai i30 Old & New Review
>> Hyundai i30 – What you need to know
>> Hyundai i30 2017 Review
>> Hyundai i30 v Subaru Impreza v Volkswagen Golf Comparison