Looking at pulling the trigger on a new car. Narrowed it down to the Suzuki Swift and Hyundai i30. I'm not going to post all the specs for comparison. Just wondering if anyone in the Atomic world would like to throw their 5 cents (rounded up) in - I'd appreciate it. Testimonials (lol "testi") and horror stories both welcome!!

Thanks in advance.

The Swifts look better and have a good reputation. I have driven a i30. It was a very boring experience.

Rented an recent model i30 for a few days a while back. It was a nice car, although I got the automatic and it could have used a bit more oomph ( I can't remember what engine it had though). I understand the diesel version is a bit of a gem, though. My folks have had a manual petrol i30 for a few years and really like it, country driving and all.

I don't know much about the Swift, but isn't it a class smaller than the i30? The i20 is probably a better comparison. I agree the Swift looks nice.

Are you a boi racer?

http://www.carsguide.com.au/site/news-and-...car_of_the_year


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look at the resale values on both. I would bet good money that the Hyundai doesn't hold anywhere near as much value as a Suzuki would.

Putting it bluntly, Hyundais are crap.

I'm not sure if Hyundai's are still crap as Antraman suggests, but I'd be looking closely at which you prefer. I've heard good things about both so I don't think either would be a mistake.

Hi, its not 2001 any more.

Just a heads up.


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The i30 sedans look nice...

Sorry Antraman, I agree with Mac Daddy and Ms Foods.

If you're happy with the size of the Swift, have a serious look at the VW Polo as well - it's regularly rated as the best in that class, if you can find a few extra thousand.

Err yeah also one here to refute Hyundai's are crap. Had an Excel which ran perfectly fine for over 8 years, and since then have had a Hyndai Tucson Elite for the last 7 and its still going strong. Apart from having to get the Excel regassed for its aircon never had a single problem with either. In terms of serviceing the Tucson is cheap. The little guy clicked over 100K Km's about a week and a half ago.

Not a bad V6 either. I have a bit of a lead foot, and get pretty good mileage out of him. Plus I have had people who have owned Jeep Cheokee's comment on how much better finished he is and what a better ride they had compared to their own car.

Now Hyundai will most likely never come out with something the equal of a Holden SS, or Falcon XR8. But thats not the target market for them. They are going for the mid range buyer, and bang for your buck they are amazingly priced with quite a deal of good features. They also seem to have a habit of just going and going and going.

The newer Swifts look girly, they're going the way of the Micra.

Do you want a Micra lookalike?

Unless you're super rich, you have to use a bit more smarts when buying a car (not implying you're not now). It's less about looks and more about fuel efficiency and resale value. I know Hyundai have lifted their game a lot (I'd be happy with a recent model i30) but I think you'd get better resale value with the Swift (I'd be even happier buying one). The VW Golf would be my pick if I could find a reasonably priced one. My girlfriend drives a 2001 model and it's got plenty of grunt for an auto and has all the features you'd need.

My brother is a panel beater and he has recommended the hyandia i35 to me, he said the hyandi's have faired a bit better than some other similar cars when it comes to repairs and cost of parts

2 points.

1. Cars are she's, not he's.

2. IIRC Hyundai actually have made a rear drive 8 which sadly is not going to be exported here :-(

Apart from that Hyundai's are a lot better than they used to be.

there is only 1 car... 1984 Toyota corolla


I doubt anyone will get the joke though so im going to say if the OP can stretch to a golf 77TSI (21990 atm) they are better than both of the 2 options listed however are a bit boring and sensible, mazda 3's are pretty fun to drive to and only like $21490 I think, ford focus ambiente is only $19990 so you have plenty of options, just go drive as many as you can, most will drive like shit.

Never owned a Suzuki but between the husband and me we've owned 4 Hyundais and have an i20 ATM. Even back when I owned a Hyundai Lantra in 1998 - 2002 or so, I was happy with it.

Drove a new Focus, VW Polo and Swift in around November last year - and bought the Swift.

Polo was nicely built and fun to drive, but more expensive up front by a good few thousand, and ran exclusively on Premium Unleaded so more expensive every single time you fill it up.

Focus was nice but the bottom model Ambiente, which is the cheap one, really was boring as hell. It's got the engine out of the Fiesta in the bigger Focus body = sloooow. Also has bog standard plastic wheel trims and ugly as sin, grey plastic door handles. Well built - but meh.

Swift was well built, smoother and quieter than the Polo while not being quite as "zippy", and was fun to drive. Top model which we bought had mag wheels, fog lights, blue tooth, ipod integration, etc etc, and still came out around $4000 cheaper than the Polo. Also cheap to run and service. I can vouch for the resale on the Swifts as well, as it's the second one we've owned.

A slightly girly but altogether fun, two thumbs up.

Ha a look at the Skoda Fabia or Octavia range?
http://www.skoda.com.au/
Or they out of your price range?

Oh and my younger brother just bought a runout model Corolla Ascent 5-door auto which he seems to like. Auto because his wife is the main user and can't drive a manual.
It's replacing a ~92/93 Camry wagon that cooked it's engine at 390,000Km.

;)

I like both actually, as runabouts, a friend has a Swift though and says you have two choices - drive or run the aircon - it can't do both. He might be jesting, but Barinas were like that.

Out of interest because I'd heard so many good things about them I drove an i30 a few months back, very nice car, a bit twitchy if you push it hard in the corners.

I'll stay with my euros, love my Pug 307, but I'd say you probably can't go wrong either way if its a long term purchase.

That didn't help much, sorry, but you are on safe ground either way.

Cheers

hmmm, I like the Suzuki Swifts, and I like the Mazda 3 - my eldest daughter drives a Golf Diesel, which she's had from new - it's about 2years old now - the only problem she's had is 1 flat tyre - she drove over a dirty great bolt - the tyre was repaired.......she's gone up to Qld a couple of times, goes out to Picton regularly etc
it seems to have a lot of get up and go, is fairly cheap on fuel, and super reliable - the GTI's are great........
personally, if I had my pick of new small cars, I'd love one of those Fiat 500 Abarths - the true modern Mini Cooper S
there's a helluva lot of great options for you (the 2x you mentioned would not be my first choice.......or my 2nd, for that matter)
personally, I suspect that the VW Golf, in whatever guise, petrol, diesel or GTI, would be the all round pick of them
my 2nd choice probably would be the Suzuki Swift
my heart's choice would have to be the Fiat Abarth, but they're a pretty crazy car, and the Italians aren't really renowned for reliability.......possibly not a real sensible choice
but

Ha you aging boy racer you.
:P

:)

I had Fiats for decades, but you are right, less than reliable, have to know how to work on a car yourself.

I have a friend who is an Alfa fanatic, services it himself, my Pugs I took one look at and found a good mechanic, ex Peugeot factory, there is nothing I am competent to do under there apart from change/top up fluids. I've owned the latest over 12 months and still don't know what half the dash does :)

Modern cars are strange things sometimes, I built a couple, Lotus 7s, in my youth, never needed a mechanic, these days the electronics alone bemuse me.

I have a classic example in my 307 - every now and again it pops up an engine diagnostic light, for a while I took it to my mechanic, a good guy, never charged me to plug in the computer - nothing wrong, re-sets it. It's an "anti-pollution fault" yeah right, an over sensitive sensor somewhere, go for a longer run it goes out, I've stopped worrying over it and currently it is off :)

Thing is most of my driving these days is short distance, I'm guessing the sensor doesn't quite understand that :)

Cheers

imho, all you should really need to tune a car is something that'll work as a screwdriver (a screwdriver is handy, but not necessarily needed if something else will do the job) a spark-plug spanner/socket, a packet of Tally Ho ciggy papers, and a gum leaf to do the job......
aaah! the good old days - when you could do virtually everything yourself, at home (or on the side of the road)
I remember getting a blow-out, and discovering that the jack wasn't in the car, we used a good stout tree branch, and a great lump of sandstone to raise the car - not likely to work these days (not without severely damaging the body work) they're too low, and there's too much body work hanging down there.
once the manufacturers started using those black boxes (remember the Valiants - evil black boxes!) it was all downhill - now cars are virtually all computerised. this is great while the cars running okay, but, as soon as anything goes wrong, you're pretty well fucked. it's rare to find a naturally aspirated vehicle on the road, everything's either fuel injected, turbo or supercharged, and everything's covered up so that you can't get at it without removing most of the contents of the engine bay, even if you could do the job.
I hate that aspect of newer cars.

I have had an i30 for the past two years. The only thing which has gone wrong was the drivers side window, but that got fixed under the 5 year warranty. They were really good with that too, I took it in there, they fixed it straight away. No hassles, they even washed the car and filled the washer bottle for me.

Still modern cars are a hell of a lot more reliable than the old ones, rare to see one stopped on the side of the road these days.

Yeah I know right.




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I don't think that modern cars will take the beating that older cars took - you think our roads are bad now.......
maybe modern cars are more reliable (I think that there are good and bad cars in all eras....) but the cost of servicing them, and repairing them when they do break is way, way more expensive, plus there's generally no way of doing it yourself.
I remember when I was a kid about 15-16 and 4 of us threw in and bought an old 1938 Pontiac that was still registered and quite driveable - we loved it because it had running boards - one day, not long after procuring the Pontiac, we ploughed into a Datsun table-top
the Datsun was virtually written off, and was completely undriveable - the Pontiac had a small ding in the front guard, the separate headlight thingo that attaches the headlight to the guard was broken, one of the front wheels got a bit out of alignment, and the solid steel bumper was bent back a bit - it was driven home, and totally repaired in a couple of hours (not counting sourcing the headlight thingo - that took a few days)
I have many memories of fixing vehicles (fond, and otherwise)
yeh, vehicles these days are neither made to last, or to be worked on - everything's made to be replaced, rather than repaired, right across the board, if you think about it.
as much as cars perform better, are much safer, and are arguably more reliable, I preferred the old ones that could be kept going with some fencing wire, and chewing gum.
:)