2019 Kia Cerato vs Hyundai I30

What's the difference?

The drive-away pricing and big features list makes the Cerato great value, and then there’s the practicality and warranty. Also, you have choice between something a little hardcore or more comfortable.
 
To me, the Sport Plus is the sweet spot in the range. The leather seats, dual-zone climate control with rear air vents, proximity key and heated seats clinch it.
 
The Kia Cerato could be the smartest choice you’ll make this year. Or there’s the Mazda MX-5. 

There is no denying the Hyundai i30 Fastback N will appeal to a certain type of customer - probably someone who is a bit older and wants the steer clear of the 'boy racer hot-hatch' scene. This is a good car for someone who is young at heart, no doubt about it.

But I'm convinced the best version of an i30 Fastback N is still to come - one with a dual-clutch auto transmission, a bit more sound deadening and a 'comfort' mode for the suspension. Yeah. That'd help build the brand.

What a time to be alive: small cars have never looked better. Have you seen the new Ford Focus or the Hyundai i30? Even the current Toyota Corolla looks sexy.

But does the same go for the new Cerato? The sedan is certainly attractive, but the hatch looks hot from some angles and not from others. The hatch has whiffs of BMW X4 around the tail-lights, although its side profile is not as pleasing as the sedan’s. 

Both have the same angry Kia face with signature ‘tiger nose’ grille, while all grades in both body styles have the glossy black diffuser and lower bumper with integrated exhaust.

And that’s a bit of a tip for you right there. See, despite there being four grades and a $12K price difference between the entry level and top-of-the-range Cerato, the difference in styling is almost zilch. 

Really, the only way you can tell the difference visually between an S grade and a GT is the wheels and exhaust (the S has hub caps and one tail pipe, not two). 

All Cerato hatches have that same body kit, including the roof top rear spoiler. The Cerato sedans don’t miss out – they have a little boot lid spoiler.

If it came down to it, I’d say the sedan is a better-looking car than the hatch.

The cabins are also almost identical although the cloth seats in the S and Sport aren’t as premium looking or feeling as the leather ones in the Sport + and GT, and there are other similarly luxurious elements on these grades such as the push-button ignition and soft-touch plastics. Have a look at the interior photos, I took them myself.

What colours can you get your Cerato in? There are 10, but one ('Sunset Orange') is exclusive to the GT. 

Only one is a non-cost option, too – it’s 'Clear White'. The rest are premium paint colours and will cost you extra. You can have 'Aurora Black', 'Gravity Blue', 'Horizon Blue' (which was the colour of my S hatch and looks great), there’s also 'Runway Red' (that was the colour of my Sport hatch and it was hard to keep looking clean), 'Steel Grey', 'Snow White' and 'Silky Silver'. No green and no yellow.

The Cerato is a small car, but not the smallest Kia – that’s the Picanto and it’s tiny. Nope, the dimensions show the Cerato hatch to be 4510mm end-to-end, while the sedan is longer at 4640mm. Both are the same height at 1800mm tall, but their widths are different with the hatch being 1445mm across while the sedan is 5.0mm narrower.

I'm really keen to hear what you think about the design of this car - tell us in the comments if you're a fan, or if - like me - you're just not quite sold on the styling.

It is truly polarising. At the launch, you could almost split it down the middle of Australia's motoring scribes as to which were in the 'like it' vs the 'not so much' camps. Some of the older journos rated it. The younger ones weren't as convinced.

To my 34-year-old eye, the swoop of the roof is just a bit too hunched to make me go 'wow, that's like an Audi Sportback', but I can see plenty of Mercedes-Benz CLA and CLS influence in the rear end.

Hyundai reckons it's more mature looking and will likely appeal to that demographic of customer, too. The drive experience is aimed more at that buyer as well.

That said, it is considerably larger than the hatch model. Overall, the Fastback is 120mm longer (4455mm) and 28mm lower (1417mm) than the hatchback model, while the width (1795mm) and wheelbase (2650mm) go unchanged.

It's the wheelbase perhaps makes the design look a little less streamlined than it could be - if it were longer, the brand would have had more to play with in terms of the rake of the roofline.

Either way, though, it has a better drag coefficient than the hatch (0.297 Cd compared to 0.320 Cd), so it cuts through the air more cleanly.

That new roofline has had an impact on space for second row passengers - check out the interior pictures to see for yourself.

You can get the Cerato as a four-door sedan or a five-door hatchback. They’re the same size, but which do you reckon has the biggest boot? The hatch? Nope.

See, the Cerato hatch’s boot has a luggage capacity of 428 litres and the sedan’s boot space is 502 litres.

Thing is, the hatch is the more practical of the two because of its tailgate which opens high and gives you a big aperture and you can fold those rear seats down to open up the cabin as a cargo area.

Another practicality win for the hatch is the segmented storage area under the boot floor. The sedan doesn’t get this which is a shame because it’s like a big bento box for wet clothes or muddy shoes. 

Storage throughout the cabins of both the sedan and hatch is excellent with two cupholders in the fold-down rear armrest and another two up-front, while the centre console bin is deep (there’s a USB charging port in there, too) and the shelves under the dash were a great place to plonk my wallet and phone. Also hiding in there is a USB charging port, a USB media port and a 12-volt outlet. That top shelf under the dash in the GT also doubles as a wireless charging pad.

Room for people is also outstanding. I’m 191cm tall, and mainly all limbs, yet I had no elbow or legroom issues up front and I can even sit behind my driving position in both the sedan and the hatch with about 20mm of space between my knees and the seatback.

The Sport Plus and GT have directional air vents in the second row, but the lower grades don’t get these. That’s something I find pretty frustrating – my four-year-old sat for two weeks in the back of the Cerato S and Sport through the killer summer of 2019 and it was hot back there.

If a hatchback is a vehicle with five doors including one at the back that opens to a decently practical boot, then this is a hatchback. Just don't tell Hyundai I told you that, because the brand labels it a five-door coupe, or a Fastback. And one of the arguments for the existence of this car, apparently, is that isn't a hatchback. But, er, it is!

The boot is bigger in the Fastback - it offers 450 litres of cargo capacity, which is 55L more than the i30 hatch. Got kids? This is the next best thing to an i30 N wagon. Oh, how I wish there was an i30 N wagon... But I guess it'd actually be an i30 wagon N, based on the naming convention?

That boot space is a good size, even if it isn't the most practical - you can lower the back seats down, but there's a strut brace that sits behind the seats and seriously impinges load-through room.

The back seats of all so-called 'five-door coupes' are typically less comfortable than they could be, and the i30 Fastback N slots into that category, too.

The headroom is tight for anyone taller than six-foot, particularly for ingress and egress as the roofline is low but the seat is actually rather high. Legroom, knee room, shoulder space and toe room are decent for the size of the car, but not class leading. The seat is comfortable enough, but there are no rear air-vents.

The back has amenities such as mesh map pockets, bottle holders in the doors and a flip-down armrest with cup holders. Up front there's another pair of decaf-soy-latte grippers, big door pockets, some loose item storage and even a Qi wireless charging point if you get the Premium Pack.

The media screen is Hyundai's top-end 8.0-inch touchscreen unit, which has Apple CarPlay/Android Auto smartphone mirroring, built-in sat nav, USB and Bluetooth connectivity and the N computer system (which includes a lap timer, and also allows you to configure the car's settings, but you have to trigger the buttons on the wheel to get there).

Buying the Hyundai i30 Fastback N will set you back $1500 more than the hatch version, with the list price set at $41,990 plus on-road costs. That equates to $27 per extra litre of cargo room, FYI.

Competitors? It's a broad mix. I think a Subaru WRX deserves to be on the shopping list if you're considering this model, and so does the regular i30 N hatch. It's hard not to include a VW Golf GTI, Golf R and even the Skoda Octavia RS in the mix, too.

Standard equipment for the i30 Fastback N includes 19-inch alloy wheels with Pirelli P-Zero HN tyres, LED daytime running lights, auto LED headlights, LED tail-lights, tyre pressure monitoring, a reversing camera, and a temporary space saver spare wheel.

Inside there are alloy sports pedals, black headlining, red stitching (as opposed to blue in the hatch), sports front seats, a leather-appointed steering wheel, a 4.2-inch driver info screen, an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Bluetooth phone and audio streaming, USB connectivity and built-in sat nav. Further, you get dual-zone climate control, cruise control, manual seats (driver's with power lumbar adjust)

The $3000 luxury pack adds front parking sensors, LED courtesy and puddle lamps, power folding side mirrors, rain-sensing wipers, electric seat adjustment up front (driver's with memory settings), leather and suede trim, auto-dimming rear view mirror, heated front seats and steering wheel, smart key entry and push-button start, rear tinted glass and Qi wireless phone charging. Add $2000 and you get a panoramic sunroof, too.

See below for the safety specs.

So, you can get a Cerato S, a Cerato Sport and a Cerato Sport Plus, but only the top-of-the-range Cerato GT is the true sporty one in the family.

The GT has a 1.6-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol making 150kW/265Nm. It’s a great engine and Kia has given it a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission for quick shifts.

The rest of the Cerato line-up shares a 112kW/192Nm four-cylinder petrol engine. If you want a manual gearbox, then you can only have it with the base grade S, otherwise the six-speed automatic, that is standard in the others, does the shifting for you.

Both are good powerplants, the 1.6-litre is smaller but more powerful and responsive and uses less fuel. How much less? Which we’re just about to get to. 

As with the other N model, the Fastback is powered by a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine producing 202kW of power (at 6000rpm) and 353Nm of torque (378Nm on overboost - from 1450-4700rpm).

At the time of writing it is only available with a six-speed manual transmission, and is front-wheel drive that features an electromechanical limited-slip diff.

There will be a dual-clutch automatic transmission added to the mix at some point - I'll talk more about that in the driving section below.

As mentioned above, the GT with its 1.6-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder is the most fuel-efficient member of the Cerato family and after a combination of open and urban roads Kia says you should see it using 6.8L/100km in both the sedan and hatch. 

When I tested the GT at its launch in January 2019 the trip computer said I was using 7.6L/100km after driving the hatch on mainly country roads and 8.4L/100km in the sedan on similar open roads.

As for the other grades Kia says the combined fuel consumption for the S, Sport and Sport Plus grades with their 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engines and six-speed auto is 7.4L/100km. My own testing in the Sport hatch saw me measure bang-on 7.4L/100km (measured at the petrol pump), while the S hatch did 8.6L/100km (also measured at the bowser).

A manual gearbox is available on the S and Kia says you should see it using 7.4L/100km in the hatch and 7.6L/100km in the sedan. Along with that good mileage it's nice to know both engines are also happy to run on regular unleaded petrol.

Official claimed fuel consumption is rated at 8.0 litres per 100 kilometres, using 95RON premium unleaded petrol as a minimum.

On our four-hour drive loop through South Australia - which included a few spirited mountain roads, some highway cruising and B-road bruising - we saw 9.1L/100km indicated on the dashboard. That's a good result, I reckon.

Fuel tank capacity is 50 litres.

This is simple. There are only two types of Cerato when it comes to driving. There’s the fast and hard one, or the comfy and easy one.

If you’re looking for a Cerato which is pretty quick and has great handling, then it’s the GT for you. The catch is, the GT’s ride is firm and jarring over potholes and speed bumps.

If you’re looking for something which has a comfortable ride and is fuss-free to drive then the S, the Sport and Sport Plus are for you.

See, Kia set out to make the GT a bit more hardcore – it has a more powerful engine, firmer suspension (the torsion bar set-up in the other grades was swapped for a multi-link system in the rear of the GT), it also sits lower and rides on 18-inch wheels with low-profile Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres. The result is a hatch which is knocking on the door of Golf GTI territory.

I drove the GT in hatch form at its launch on twisty country roads and it felt planted, with excellent body control and impressive grip. The only thing lacking was more grunt.

This chassis is now so good it feels like it’s in search of a more powerful engine to match it. The steering also felt a bit ‘lumpy’ in places. Still it’s accurate and not a deal breaker.

That lumpy steering feel is also present in the S, Sport and Sport Plus, too but it becomes irrelevant because these grades don’t have the performance bent of the GT. Instead they have a ride which is composed and comfortable, with an engine that provides plenty of oomph for highway cruising, overtaking and city sprints – especially when you select 'Sport' mode which sharpens throttle response.

And while they don’t have the handling and agility of the GT, I was impressed by how controlled and planted the Sport felt when I tested it over the route I normally take sport cars on.
 
More importantly, the S, Sport, and Sport Plus are easy and enjoyable to drive. I clocked up hundreds of kilometres in the S and Sport and found the seats to be wide at the base and supportive around my back, and they could be adjusted to find a great driving position.

Kia tunes most of its cars for Australia roads and the job its local engineering team has performed on these lower grade Ceratos is outstanding – the ride is compliant and comfortable and the car has good body control over bumps and corners.

If I could change anything it would be to improve visibility in the rear corners – those tiny porthole-like windows aren’t big enough.

Honestly, the changes described in the press material had me hoping for a pretty different drive experience to the i30 N hatch... but without a back-to-back drive, most people would be hard pressed to pick up on the differences. I'll admit it - I struggled, and Hyundai didn't give us the chance to sample the regular model against this one.

According to Hyundai, the Fastback N model rolls on a "new global chassis calibration" that was honed on the Nurburgring to reward the driver with "controlled and comfortable" handling - the very same tune that will be rolled out on the hatch sometime in 2019, according to the brand.

That tune incorporates a softer front suspension with reduced roll stiffness, which apparently makes it more comfortable but also more chuckable in corners. I thought the i30 N hatch was already pretty good at that, but oh well.

There are longer, softer bump-stops, as well as a new, narrower front anti-rollbar, plus the adaptive dampers are revised as well.

As for drive modes, you can choose from Eco, Normal and Sport drive modes, as well as N mode with an ESC Sport setting, and a configurable N Custom mode (my fave: Normal steering, Normal suspension, everything else in Sport+).

But I found that the Normal mode was still a bit too firm in a lot of situations, with the rear rebound after a bump making for a pretty bouncy ride over rough back roads, and sharp edges around town still upset progress to a reasonable degree. Put the suspension in its hardest mode and the ride is even more punishing, but that's to be expected. The steering weight is a bit too stiff, and though the rack is only two turns lock to lock, the turning circle is pretty large at 11.6m.

The i30 Fastback N is marginally heavier (12kg) mainly at the rear, which affects the weight distribution - the company says the ratio is 59.7 per cent front and 40.3 per cent rear, where the hatch is 61.8/38.2. That probably won't matter to the vast majority of owners and customers, but it theoretically helps with the more tail-happy character of the Fastback.

Unleashing the grunt of the engine and throwing the shifter between the gates, allowing it to do the throttle-blipping for you on downshifts - it takes a while for it to get old. But like most other front-wheel drive hot hatches, you can induce understeer if you approach a bend with too much heat, and there's also a bit of a battle to be had with the steering wheel under hard acceleration, with some torque-steer tug noticeable.

On the road you will still find yourself smiling stupidly when you lift off the throttle and hear the pop and fart of the exhaust system... provided you can hear it. If the surface is coarse - like a lot of highways and main roads in Australia - you might struggle, because there's a lot of road noise intrusion into the cabin. Some extra sound deadening wouldn't go astray.

Many of my criticisms are more around the perception of the new body type than the actual drive experience, which is still great for a high-powered hatch... fastback... coupe... whatever.

But with Hyundai's own marketing people telling us that this is a softer and more grown-up offering, I expected its character to match its more mature appearance a bit more than it did.

The Hyundai i30 range is covered by a five-star ANCAP rating that was handed out in 2017 - but the i30 N was exempt from that rating, and the Fastback hasn't been scored.

That said, there are seven airbags (dual front, front side, full-length curtain and driver's knee) plus electronic stability control. Of course there's a reversing camera, plus there are rear parking sensors. Front sensors are available as part of the optional pack.

There is auto emergency braking (AEB) with forward collision warning, driver attention alert and lane keeping assist (above 60km/h), but the vehicle lacks pedestrian detection, cyclist detection, blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, rear AEB and adaptive cruise control.

The i30 Fastback N gets dual ISOFIX child-seat anchor points and three top-tether hooks, too.

The Cerato is covered by Kia’s seven-year/unlimited km warranty. Most carmakers are only just making the move to five-year warranties, but Kia has had this offering in place for years. The Cerato also comes with seven years of roadside assistance.

There’s also seven years of capped price servicing. Kia recommends you service the Cerato S, Sport, Sport Plus annually or every 15,000km. You can expect to pay $275 at the first service, $469 at the second, $339, $623, $309, then $596 and finally $328 for the seventh.

It’s good to know that after seven years of regular servicing you can expect to pay no more than $2939.

As for the GT Kia recommends servicing it every 10,000km or annually. Servicing is capped at $282 for the first service, $476 for the next, then $346, $630, $317, $604, then $640 for the seventh.

The aftercare Kia offers is outstanding and so the Cerato gets full marks for its cost of ownership.

The standard factory warranty offered on all Hyundai models is five years/unlimited kilometres and that extends to the i30 N models, too. It covers "non-competitive racetrack driving, and the fitment of high-performance semi-slick tyres" - so unless you start modding your i30 N, you will retain your warranty.

Plus there's a lifetime capped-price servicing plan, with intervals set at 12 months/10,000km, whichever occurs first. The costs are very low for the first five years of ownership, with the first, second, third and fifth visits costing $299, and the fourth set at $399. So, a total over five years of $1595 (before consumable items are added) at an average of $319 per annum. Not bad.

And if you service your car at Hyundai, you will get up to 10 years' roadside assist included. It rolls over for every year you remain loyal.