Detailed review: 2020 Hyundai Kona – it's small and fun, but is it a bit cheap? | 4K CarExpert

G'day, I'm Paul. That's the Hyundai Kona and I wasn't 100% sure how to open this video because, come here, look at that, there's just, there's a lot going on there in that whole front end section. So people either love or hate this car, but we'll get to the styling in just a second. In Australia, this here is the Kona Active, one up from the base model. It starts at a little over $25,000 and you can see the rest of the pricing in the comments below. I'm curious, in your home country, if you're not from Australia, are you surprised at how expensive or cheap this car is? I always wonder about that stuff because in Australia, this is sort of roughly a little bit more expensive than an i30, which it's based on. Before we get into the review, you can click on the time codes up here to skip ahead or if you're watching this on YouTube, use the hot links in the description below. I would love for you guys to also subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon because that will tell you every single time we post a new video. Let's talk about styling. One, two, three, four, five, six colours available, but there is a secret colour. I'll tell you about that in a second. Have a look at this design. So a lot of the cars in this segment, they just look literally the exact same. So Hyundai had to step out and do something completely different and I think they've achieved that because there are a stack of grilles here, almost as many grilles as there are colours. You've got like this bottom one, this giant one here. This is a Euro plate, so in Australia, this is the biggest number plate you can get. You can imagine here, if you had a slimline plate that takes up that much room, that grille would be even bigger. Then you've got this one here, which is like a fake grille. It's entirely pointless because no air goes through that and you would think that you could just blank that off, but anyway, that's there for whatever reason. Style, design, stuff I know nothing about. LED daytime running lights. The actual headlight is in here. Bit of a nasty halogen projector light in there. Now I mentioned in a previous video, I think it was with a Hyundai as well, that the halogen projector lights are a little bit nasty because if you are driving in the country in Australia, you've got animals and stuff tucked away in the trees there. It just doesn't have enough projection and you can't see all that far. So that's why LED lights or a bi-xenon light is a much better option. Now, over here, 16-inch alloy wheels, very chubby tyres as well. You can kind of tell when you are at the base model or near a base model because you're getting smaller wheels and chubbier tyres. Here, have a look at this as well. There's like an aero-type thing through there. It pops in here and then comes out just near the tyre. Handy when you're doing 250 k's an hour. Did you know there's actually a version of this car, and this is the extra colour I mentioned before, called the Ironman Edition? It's about $40,000, so it's expensive, but it's a matte grey finish. And because it was done in conjunction with the movie, it has like pinstripe highlights and all these Ironman bits on it. So that is kind of cool if you do want this car to look different. Now, here's another thing as well. This car itself, you think to you, I mean, if you compare it to something like a Mazda 3, you think that it's bigger because it has those SUV proportions, but this is actually 100mm shorter than a CX-3. So it is fascinating that it looks big, but it isn't actually that big. It's around that 4.2 metre mark. Have a look around the back here. So, similar story, they've broken up all the lighting elements. So the indicator is actually here in the bottom of the bumper bar. You have these cladding highlights here. Makes it look rugged, even though you would never ever go off-road in anything like this. And then that top section is dedicated to things like brake lights and also the running lights when you have the lights on. So, I don't know, I kind of like it. It is different enough in this segment, and that's what you need for a car like this to succeed. Okay, interior styling. Before I get stuck into all of this, I wanted to introduce you to this. Hyundai has technically gone back in time about 15 years and said to themselves, well, no, we don't need a proximity sensing key. So what we'll use instead is an old-fashioned key and then also a standard key slot next to the steering wheel. So that is a little bit frustrating for a car that isn't even the base model. This is one up from the base model. So let's go to the rest of the interior and the way that it's styled. It actually looks nicely presented, but what you'll notice here is there is acres of black. I mean, it's kind of broken up a little bit with this chrome brushed highlights, but the rest of it is just black and it kind of, it all just gets lost in itself. Head of the driver, really nice sort of looking steering wheel. But let's get to the plastics. Now, only motoring journalists seem to care about the hardness of a dashboard. I know when I've mentioned this to other people, they're like, I don't care how hard the dashboard is. So I went out and bought this, it's called a durometer and this is on the shore scale. It goes from zero to 100. And the way that it works is I push that little nib into a dashboard and then it tells me how hard the dashboard is from zero to 100, where 100 is the hardest. So let's give this a crack here. That looks incredibly firm. I'm going to push that down. That has maxed it out entirely. Try it on this part of the dashboard. Almost maxed it out there at 94. And to give you a reference point, this is quite soft. If we use that, that's at around 57. So it shows you that the dashboard and all the plastics in this car are extremely hard and that brings down that perception of quality. Now, in terms of build quality as well, it all appears good on the surface. But as you start playing around with things, look at how much flex there is there in that center console. It kind of feels like it isn't attached properly and that is a little bit disappointing when you are paying a premium for this car. Let's talk infotainment. This is a 7-inch infotainment screen. It's at the entry level to Hyundai's infotainment systems. The car itself comes with six speakers and then the infotainment unit comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There's no inbuilt navigation, so that has to be done through smartphone mirroring. Pet hate of mine with all Hyundai products is this voice recognition button. I've mentioned it a million times, but you press it and it does nothing. Most other cars on the market at least have an inbuilt voice recognition system that allows you to bark commands at the car, whereas this requires your phone to be paired with screen mirroring before that button does anything. It's kind of counterintuitive. Now, if you want a full in-depth review of this exact infotainment system, make sure you click on that link up there and that will give you all of the details about the system and exactly what it does, but it does have some handy features in there that you're going to find out about. In terms of connectivity, Bluetooth, audio streaming, you have an auxiliary plug. Despite the fact that that has been killed from a lot of cars these days, you have two USB ports. One of those is for charging, so it's like a higher powered port, which means it'll charge your devices quicker. You have a 12 volt outlet there as well. In terms of other features specific to this car, you've got a lane keeping assistant, so that will keep the car within its lane, helps with the steering a little bit. Not a great system. It's quite sort of tuggy at the car and I'll explain that a bit more when we do go for a drive. You've got a reverse view camera, rear parking sensors. The reverse view camera quality is actually really surprisingly good as well. Even at night time where a lot of these systems tend to struggle, you have autonomous emergency braking, but keep in mind that it only works at city speeds. So once you get above city speeds, it really isn't going to do a great deal, which is a little bit disappointing. I don't like it when they skimp on safety technology and this is one example of where they really could be fitting a better system to this car but aren't because they're trying to save cost. I don't know, am I being pedantic here? I always talk about the AEB systems and I cop a lot of flack from people because they're like, oh, just learn how to drive, but genuinely this will be activated the one time you're not concentrating or the one time someone pulls out in front of you or a kid runs out in front of you. You can seriously save yourself, not so much saving your life, but saving yourself lots of money and just wasted time with having to fix your car when you've run into something or if someone's pulled out in front of you. It doesn't always come down to your driving skill. Let me know in the comments below, am I being oversensitive with this stuff? If you're buying this car for your kids, would you want a better safety system there? Would you buy a different car if they had a better safety system? Let me know in the comments below. Okay, let's talk practicality and comfort. You will notice cloth seats here. Normally cloth seats are fairly cheap and nasty, but they're kind of nicely textured and they look pretty cool. You've got these little square things on them, so it makes you feel like you're not driving an absolute base model. Almost as old school as the key is the single zone non-automatic climate control, so you've got to change all of these yourself. So it's not a system where you can set a temperature, hit auto and then, you know, just wait for it to do its own thing. In terms of cup holders, you have two here, but while you can fit a bottle of water into that one, you can't fit it into that one. I actually don't know what you can fit in there because even coffee cups are going to have the same sort of base width as this. Actually, we've got a coffee cup there. Igor, can you pass that to me? He obviously drinks cheap coffee. Oh no, that fits okay. There you go. I stand corrected Hyundai, sorry about that. You've got cup holders in the doors as well. In terms of other storage spaces, your phone can live virtually anywhere here, which is fantastic. My big phone fits nicely there. No wireless phone charging. There's another slot for it in there. You've got storage here in the centre console that's fairly deep as well and then a big glove box here as well, so that fits that giant manual plus anything else you need to store in there. So in terms of storage, you are very well catered, despite the fact it's not a massive car. So when I get myself comfy into my driving position, it's actually quite nice here because the steering wheel is a good size. I feel comfortable in the seat. Everything is easily adjustable. I can reach all the critical controls on the screen and I don't really need to take my eyes too far off the road if I need to catch something on the screen. And then you're backed up by all the steering wheel buttons. So you've got your volume controls, call controls and a cruise control and trip computer here as well, so that everything ahead of the driver there, including that little trip computer screen, is easy to access and easy to read as well, which is important for the critical task of driving. R.I.P. leg room if you're going on a long distance road trip. It's actually not terrible, but for a car that looks like an SUV on the outside, there isn't a great deal of knee room there. I've kind of got to squeeze in. There is plenty of toe room though, which is good, but it is a bit disappointing that there's no mat pockets, no rear air vents, no charging back here. It is pretty barren and basic. You do get some creature comforts though. Center armrest with two cup holders. And then if you've got little ones, you can install ISOFIX car seats here. Outside of that, with plenty of headroom, there's really not too much to see back here. Oh yeah, also make sure you avoid abrupt maneuvers and excessive speed because there is a higher rollover risk with a picture of a car on two wheels. So SUV shape, does that mean you get plenty of boot space? No, not really. It's not that much more than a hatch, so you are limited to 361 litres in that cavity there. I'll show you what that means in just a second. And then if you drop the rear seats, they sort of fold flat with a hinge in between. That'll boost it to 1143 litres. So that kind of makes that space a little more cavernous. Let me show you under here. So this is your load floor. You can see that it works well there because it is quite low, means getting things in and out is going to be straightforward. But when you lift that, you have this little secret hidey spot. So because this doesn't have a full-size spare tyre, you can see the space saver in there, you get this section. So it means if you do have any valuables, you can stick them here and you can't see them through the car, which is pretty good. And then if you do want to ever put anything in here that needs to be tied down, you have these tie-down hooks. You can also remove this cargo blind. That is a very straightforward process normally, and that will just sit down there. So you then can load things onto there. So how much is 361 litres of cargo space? Let's try on in. This is a big one. That fits in if you go sideways, that fits in nicely actually. And then our laptop bag sneaks in just next to it. Top of that, you have the top tether points on the back of the seats, there's three of them, and then a little hole on this side of the boot as well, just for little bits and pieces. So it's driving time in the Kona Active. Yeah, look, I like this thing. It is nice and nimble out on the road and it doesn't feel like a big SUV, despite the high rollover warning. Under the bonnet is a 2-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder petrol engine, 110 kilowatts of power, 180 newton-metres of torque. Now that doesn't sound like a lot, and you're right, it isn't a lot, and that's because it uses what they call an Atkinson cycle engine. If you want to see what that is, just click up there somewhere for our Veloster review, and in there I give you a detailed explanation of what an Atkinson cycle engine is. But the main theory behind it is that it's less power and torque, but also less fuel use. So it's only using a little over 7 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres, so this is a really good economical option. Mated to that engine is a six-speed automatic transmission. Now the reason this is good is because it's not a dual-clutch gearbox. I'm kind of just over manufacturers using dual-clutch gearboxes in small cars like this. It really doesn't help performance at all, it's only there for the benefit of a fuel saving. So that means your gear shifts may not be as razor sharp, but this gearbox is more than quick enough, and it means that if you do step on it, it drops down and then it propels you along nicely. So it's got plenty of punch for what it is, and you're never going to be really wanting for more power. This is a small entry-level SUV, remember? How's the ride and handling? It's actually really good, and the reason for that is Hyundai Australia takes the Korean tune and then does all of their own work to it here in Australia. So that means it handles bumps, potholes very differently to the Korean cars. Generally, the Korean-tuned cars are very soft and can be quite floaty. Here they're a slightly tauter tune, and with the chubbier tyres that this is running, it means that it's very compliant, it's soaking up bumps nicely, and it's not going to be tiring or fatigue-inducing if you are going for a long country drive. Only thing I'm not loving here is the amount of noise inside the cabin. The engine is pretty thrashy, hear that? And then on top of that, you also get a fair bit of tyre noise as well. I mean, that's partly due to the insulation not really being fantastic here. So while you are paying a price premium for an SUV like this, you're really not getting the premium drive experience. This car plays a few tricks on your mind. Visibility is actually really good out of it, despite the fact you're not sitting that much higher than the standard i30. So it gets big ticks for great visibility out the front, the sides, the wing mirrors are really big. It's just the rear visibility that isn't fantastic. It's quite a narrow window opening, so it's a little bit tricky to see out the back there. Now I mentioned earlier as well the lane-keeping assistant. That's the technology that basically uses this camera to look ahead, look for the lines, and then keep your car within them. Well, it's really not that great. So when you've got it switched on, you go through a corner and you think the system is not going to react, but then it all of a sudden detects a line and it starts sort of pulling you a little more violently than you thought it would. Then sometimes when you expect it to pull the car around a corner, it doesn't notice the lines at all. So it is a pretty counter-intuitive system and it just doesn't fill me with confidence at all. So I just switch it off and there's a button down here to do that and just do it all yourself. Let's talk drive modes for a second. You've got three to choose from. There is Comfort, Eco and Sport. The differences between Comfort and Eco, I genuinely couldn't tell you. I do notice though as I go into Sport mode, the gearbox starts behaving a little bit differently. You get a slightly sharper throttle response and you also get heavier steering as well. Despite everything that I've said about the way this engine lacks torque and power, because it's an Atkinson cycle, I can tell you it's surprisingly fun to drive. So if you do find yourself a couple of corners, when you tip it in, the steering is so responsive, it has plenty of traction and the brakes bite nicely as well. You would think that this would be a snore-inducing car through corners, but it is surprisingly fun to drive. I started off the video not really knowing where to start and I kind of finish it not really knowing where to finish, because you're either going to love or hate the design of this car, which means you're either going to love or hate the price. Because it is more expensive than an i30, which is exactly what it's based on, and it is virtually the exact same car, which just looks slightly different. But people aren't immune to paying extra for things that they like. I mean, people buy branded handbags, watches, all sorts of stupid stuff that they don't need but they pay extra for. And that's kind of where these SUVs fit. They don't go off-road, they don't really have any extra room, they're not any more practical than something like a hatchback. You do get a fairly basic interior, but you get all the tech, bells and whistles that you would expect. So from that point of view, it's a good car. But just keep in mind that you really are paying extra for, you know, I hate to say this, but a tarted-up i30. And it's the same as any other SUV in this segment that is based off a small hatchback. Now, I want you to tell me, did you buy this car? Let me know in the comments below what you thought. How much did you pay for it? And what are you thinking of it so far? What's Hyundai like to deal with from an ownership perspective? If you did like the video, hit like. Make sure you subscribe as well and also hit the bell icon because that will tell you each time we are driving something new. Until next time, take it easy.