Hyundai i30 review - Reliability and safety

No matter which model you go for, the Hyundai i30 should be a safe and dependable family car. The brand itself finished a solid 11th out of 29 in our 2022 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey, ahead of well-established rivals such as Ford, Vauxhall and Volkswagen but behind Honda, Peugeot and sister brand Kia. Reliability data across Hyundai’s range suggests middling performance, with around 21 percent of respondents reporting a fault in the first year of ownership. These are likely to be minor niggles as no major reliability issues have been reported.

Safety kit on the Hyundai i30 is pretty comprehensive – all cars get Autonomous Emergency Braking, Front Collision Warning, Lane Keeping Assist, High Beam Assist and Driver Attention Alert. Rear Cross Traffic Alert, which scans for hazards behind the car when reversing, can also be specified as an option.

Thanks to all of the standard-fit safety kit, the i30 earned a five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating and an 88 per cent score, putting it near the top of the rankings for safety in the compact hatchback class. 

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Warranty

Like all Hyundai products, the new i30 gets the brand’s five-year unlimited mileage warranty. Depending on how often you use your car, this may prove more useful than sister company Kia’s seven-year guarantee, which is limited to 100,000 miles.

Whichever way you look at it, the Hyundai warranty beats Vauxhall and Volkswagen’s three-year, 60,000-mile offering. Of course, like its rivals, wear and tear items such as tyres and clutches are excluded, and will need factoring in when tallying your lifetime costs. 

Servicing

Hyundai Sense offers owners fixed-price servicing over two, three or five years. You can pay for it monthly, and all the work is carried out using genuine parts and by trained technicians. 

Depending which you go for, the i30 will need servicing once a year or every 10,000 miles, whichever comes sooner.