Hyundai i20 review - Reliability and safety

Take one look at Hyundai’s five-year warranty and it should give you a pretty good idea of how the brand sees its reliability, which in turn is reassuring for the customer. The latest i20 is too new to have appeared in the Auto Express Driver Power survey, but its predecessor’s 68th place out of 75 cars, while not quite up to the standard of some rivals, wasn’t bad for an older model nearing the end of production. Hyundai as a whole has seen improvements in recent years and the old i20’s 4.2 per cent fault rate in the first year of ownership is usefully lower than the Ford Fiesta’s 17.3 per cent figure for the same metric.

The latest i20 has not been crash tested by Euro NCAP as yet. When it is, there should be a sizeable improvement on its predecessor, last tested in 2015, which already received a four-star rating (out of five) and achieved fairly impressive scores for both occupant protection and, admirably, pedestrian protection. The i20 range packs plenty of useful safety tech, from autonomous emergency braking, forward collision assist, lane keep assist and blind spot collision warning to the usual stability control, six airbags, and an eCall system that alerts rescue services in the event of an accident.

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Warranty

Hyundai has one of the best warranties on the market with a five-year, unlimited-mileage offering that should cover the length of most lease deals and offer plenty of peace of mind for customers buying and intending to keep their i20 for longer. Only a few companies, including compatriot Kia with its seven-year guarantee, offer more security.

Servicing

Much like the warranty situation, Hyundai’s servicing packages are pretty good too. The fixed-price options cost around £500 for three years and £1,000 for five years, which can be paid monthly and include all routine maintenance over those periods. Hyundai also offers “Essentials” service plans for used cars out of warranty, though used and nearly new i20s still currently have plenty of years left.