Hyundai i10 Review & Prices

The Hyundai i10 is one of just a few city cars left on the market. When it launched it had a good half a dozen alternatives but since Volkswagen, Citroen, SEAT, Ford, Vauxhall and many others have stopped making their smallest models, it’s left with just the Kia Picanto, the Toyota Aygo X, and to a lesser extent the Fiat 500 Electric and Dacia Spring as compact alternatives.

It’s a bit like one of those persistent garden plants - even when the flowers, the turf and all of the climbing roses have all died off, you’ll still have that one hydrangea that just won’t die.

Having very few other options does mean Hyundai can capture a bigger slice of the market, but it’s not a dead cert. The i10 isn’t priced much lower than larger cars such as the Renault Clio or MG3, and both of those cars can boast much more interior room, greater levels of tech, and more sophisticated hybrid engines.

Neither looks quite as good as the i10, though. There’s something very ‘right’ about its stance - with a wheel at each corner, angular headlights and plenty of sporty-looking detailing. Cool checkerboard-style LED daytime running lights sit in the grille, or if you step right up to the top-spec model you get racy red detailing and vertical strakes for lighting.

The i10 makes a good impression on the inside, too. Though it’s built to a price, Hyundai has given lots of the materials interesting textures that make them feel more expensive than they are. All the switchgear also feels really good to use, and there’s plenty of it - all i10’s get a full physical climate control panel, as well as lots of shortcut keys down either side of the touchscreen infotainment system. It makes everything very easy to use.

For such a small car, the i10 is shockingly roomy. Storage up front is good, with plenty of places to stow smaller items, but the most impressive thing is that you can fit a six-foot adult in the rear seats behind a driver of a similar size. It’s not palatial, but it is possible, and immediately makes the i10 a much more useful prospect than the Toyota Aygo X.

Hyundai’s also given the i10 a very handy 252-litre boot, which is larger than the Aygo X and only a few litres off the Kia Picanto.

There’s even quite a wide range of engines available for the i10, comparatively speaking. You get a choice of three, all petrol, and they range from the gutless entry-level model to the really rather fun i10 N-Line, which gets a turbocharged engine and a sporty makeover.

You can even have an automatic gearbox, though this is best avoided as it’s achingly slow to shift. If you need a small automatic car you’d be better off with one of the best small electric cars. However, if you avoid the auto, the i10 is generally a pleasant thing to drive - it’s responsive, rides bumps well considering how small it is, and is easy as pie to park in small spaces or thread through gaps in traffic.

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The Hyundai i10 starts from over £16,000, which does look expensive when you consider the larger, more powerful Dacia Sandero kicks off at just over £14,000. You do get a fair amount of equipment for your money, though - all models get an 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with smartphone connectivity, air-conditioning, cruise control, all-round electric windows and automatic headlights.

Step up from Advance to Premium trim and you get mood lighting, climate control, heated front seats and steering wheel, projector headlights and keyless entry, while the top-spec N-Line not only gets the most powerful engine but a sporty makeover with 16-inch alloy wheels, red detailing and unique LED daytime running lights.

The Hyundai i10 is good fun to drive around town and not bad on faster roads either - just steer clear of the automatic gearbox

In town

By its very nature the i10 is a fantastic city car. For starters, it’s really compact - so squeezing between width restrictions or backing into narrow parking spots is easy. A reversing camera is standard fare, too, making life even simpler - though visibility all round is really good, so you don’t need it as much as you might in a Mini Cooper.

The steering is light and accurate, and the five-speed manual gearbox is excellent. However, the optional automatic is dire - it’s an old-fashioned automated manual type, which means you’ve time to read a good book in the gap between gearchanges. If you need an automatic, we’d look elsewhere - the Dacia Sandero or MG3 both offer self-shifters which are much better.

All three engines are perfectly good around town, but the 1.0-litre non-turbo petrol is rather gutless - it takes a good prod of the accelerator to get going, and you’ll need to stir the gearbox quite a lot. The 1.2-litre petrol is much more flexible.

On the motorway

You might expect a car as small as the i10 to feel outclassed on the motorway, but there’s a surprisingly ‘big-car’ feel to the way it goes along at a cruise. Obviously, the weedy engines aren’t up to much - avoid the entry-level petrol if you’re going to be doing a lot of motorway miles, as it needs working hard and it’s quite raucous under load.

The 1.2-litre or the 1.0-litre turbo are both much more relaxed at high speeds, although both do still require a bit of a shove to get going down a short sliproad or to execute a decisive overtake.

Wind and road noise are quite well-contained for a city car but most small hatchbacks are quieter and more relaxed. The i10’s light steering feels a bit twitchier than a Renault Clio’s or Dacia Sandero’s, and it’s more susceptible to crosswinds, too. All models do get cruise control as well as lane-keeping assist.

On a twisty road

The i10 is surprisingly good fun to drive down a twisty road. The suspension is quite firm, which means it doesn’t lean a lot into bends - though that does mean that when you hit a bump, you feel it. The same is true of any car of this size, but a Dacia Sandero is smoother over rough surfaces.

There’s plenty of grip in the corners, though, and while light the steering is nicely accurate. The i10 feels quite darty, and there’s a bit of the same ‘go-kart’ character that you get in a Mini Cooper - albeit not so exaggerated.

The baby Hyundai does feel a bit out of its depth with the entry-level engine, but opt for the 1.2-litre and it keeps up with traffic nicely. Or, go for the 1.0-litre turbo, and you have a mini hot hatchback. You won’t be beating anybody off the lights, but there’s lots of power in the middle of the rev range. The N-Line model also gets an upgraded five-speed gearbox with an even nicer action to make rowing up and down the gears a pleasure.

One of the roomiest cars of its type, but the cheaper Dacia Sandero is much better for carrying passengers

The Hyundai i10 is a real TARDIS of a vehicle - looking at it, you’d expect accommodation similar to the Toyota Aygo X, where the back seats are for amputees or luggage only. Not so - the i10 is hugely practical for its size, and quite clever with it.

Storage up front is good. The glovebox is a decent size with a smaller shelf above it, while the door bins are large enough to accommodate a big bottle of water. There’s a shelf in the centre console to hold your phone, just above the USB ports - and below that you’ll find a useful tray for storing oddments.

The two cupholders lower down are a little bit small, but they’re out of the way so that they don’t impede on the gearshift or on the handbrake.

It’s easy to get comfortable - all versions have a height-adjustable driver’s seat, though the steering wheel only adjusts for height and not for reach which is a shame. Still, there’s plenty of room in the footwells, and there’s enough adjustment in the seat for drivers of all sizes.

Space in the back seats

The back seats of the i10 are seriously impressive for such a small car. The back doors open wide, and the windows roll down properly unlike the Toyota Aygo X which has awkward pop-out ones. Once back there, you’ll find just about enough room for a six-foot passenger to sit behind a driver of a similar size.

They won’t have much space to stretch out, of course, but being able to carry four adults like this is a boon even if it’s just for short trips. It also means the i10 has much more room for bulky child seats than most alternatives.

All versions of the i10 do have three rear seatbelts, but it’s mostly a theoretical five-seater. Certainly there’s no room for three adults unless they’re either very slim or very friendly - but you should be able to squeeze three teenagers across the back if you need to. The rear doors even get small door bins.

Boot space

With 252 litres of space in the boot, the Hyundai i10 has more room than a Toyota Aygo X (231 litres) or a Fiat 500 Electric (186 litres). The Kia Picanto is virtually identical with 255 litres of space, while alternatives from the size class up to have all of these beaten, like the Dacia Sandero with its 328-litre boot.

The i10 does quite well for itself, though. The space is very practical as the tailgate is nice and big, so you don’t get a huge loading lip like you do in the Aygo X. The rear seats split and fold in a 60:40 arrangement, and the backrests go nice and flat - though there’s no adjustable boot floor to give you a totally flat area when they are folded.

Built to a price, but nicely designed and wonderfully easy to use

The i10 is the cheapest car Hyundai sells so it’s no real surprise that you don’t have to look far in the interior to find some hard, scratchy plastics - the door cards, dashboard and centre console all use them in abundance.

What’s nice is that Hyundai’s given them a bit of texture so that they don’t look or feel as cheap as they are - a touch that more manufacturers should adopt. All models also get a leather-wrapped steering wheel and gear selector, so the bits you touch most feel good.

As you’d expect from Hyundai, it’s also impeccably well-built - there are no creaks or rattles in the i10, and it feels as solid in this entry-level car as it does in a £50,000 Santa Fe or Ioniq 5.

The i10 has a fully digital instrument panel, but don’t go expecting a big screen and flashy graphics. What you have instead are a pair of LCD displays - like a calculator screen - flanking a small, colour readout in the centre. It’s like having physical dials, but with digits instead of needles. It’s a sort of halfway house, but it’s not as easy to read as gauges and needles would be nor is it as customisable as a proper screen.

There’s less criticism to be levelled at the infotainment display. At 8.0-inches across, it’s a good size - about the right size for a car this small - giving you room for all the interfaces without being too in-yer-face. There are rows of shortcut switches either side which make it nice and quick to get to the functions you want, plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto come as standard on all models so you can easily bypass Hyundai's interface for your own.

There’s also a physical climate control panel, switches by the gear selector for the seat and steering wheel heating, and plenty of buttons on the wheel itself. Everything’s well laid-out and makes a lot of sense - it feels a little old-school in these days of touchscreen everything, but that makes it quite likable.

The i10 should be pretty cheap to run for any driver. Fuel economy from the engines is good, albeit not exceptional compared to hybrid cars from the size class above. Drive gently and you should see well over 50mpg from the entry-level, 63hp 1.0-litre - however, it’s so gutless that driving gently isn’t really an option.

For this reason, you’ll probably see better real-world economy from the 79hp 1.2-litre as it’s less strained - that’s borne out by official fuel economy figures that are a couple of mpg better than the 1.0-litre. Expect an easy 50mpg in everyday driving.

The 90hp 1.0-litre turbocharged engine is exclusive to N Line trim, and claims very similar figures to the other two engines. But it’s so much fun to fling around that we doubt you’ll achieve those numbers with any regularity. If you’re really looking to minimise your fuel costs you should spend a bit extra on a Toyota Yaris or Renault Clio hybrid, both of which can exceed 60mpg in normal driving with ease.

CO2 emissions range from 116g/km to 123g/km, so all models pay over £200 for their first year road tax. This also means they’re not fantastic company car choices, either, with BIK rates much higher than they are for larger vehicles that can be specified with hybrid engines.

The i10 does make a great first car, though - insurance groups are low and prices are quite reasonable.

The i10 only scored three stars when it was tested by Euro NCAP in 2020, which isn’t particularly impressive. The Toyota Aygo X scored four stars under the tougher 2022 test programme, though it’s worth noting the i10 has had some improvements to its driver assistance equipment roster since it was tested.

All models get lane-keeping assist, intelligent speed limit assist, six airbags, autonomous emergency braking and a reversing camera. It’s annoying, though, that there are no shortcuts to turn the more annoying of these features off - you have to dive into the menus on the touchscreen to do so.

There’s a standard alarm across the i10 range plus locking wheel nuts and speed sensing auto door locking.

Hyundai returned a mid-table finish in the 2024 Driver Power survey, coming in 17th out of 32 brands. Sister company Kia came third, however. The i10 comes with Hyundai’s standard five-year, 100,000 mile warranty, which is good but not quite as long as the seven years of cover you get with a Kia Picanto or the ten years you get with a Toyota Aygo X.

The i10’s engines are all very well-proven, and there’s not much in the way of new technology to go wrong, so mechanical issues should be minimal.