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No to Mud Flaps

When I bought my present car, mud/stone flaps were recommended. Would anyone recommend them for the Ioniq?
I'm not convinced of the benefits of mud flaps had them on a Skoda Fabia, didn't seem to reduce mud down side of car, and on Ioniq the body has been shaped to reduce drag, and adding flaps is likely to increase drag and reduce fuel efficiency.I have had my Ioniq ceramic coating treated with Gen3 Glasscoat (sorry Rene) and I have found that mud rinses off with a quick squirt with a hose.
 
Discussion starter · #22 ·
yep, mud flaps are not a list accessory for the Ioniq, so they would have to be generic ones and then you would need to try and fit / fix them to the car
 
Thanks for the review. I will be putting similar miles on mine but you are 13k ahead of me. No issues with the car so far except an odd "pinch" inside the drivers side door. Auto window up will hit the resistance and go back down so I have to do the manual window up to make it go past that point. Will get it addressed at next service.
 
Well I got my marina blue hybrid premium 19th November last year with 938 miles on it as a two week old ex-demo car, I passed 20,000 miles today so what are my thoughts, likes, dislikes and issues with it and Hyundai

lets start with the outside,

considering the number of miles I do on the motorway I have a bit of stone rash on the lower half of the front bumper but apart from that surprisingly few stone chips on the front, had a few fairly heavy hits from stones etc on the windscreen and so far all ok, couple of chunks out of it only so the paint seems fairly resilient, it polishes up nicely as well,

the wheels with the wheel trims don't seem to suffer with brake dust accumulation and when I had to take the wheel off due to a puncture I didn't see much in the way of brake dust on the wheel either. The wheels are black powder coated basic chunky alloys under the very expensive wheel trims

the headlights are plenty bright enough at night on motorway and side roads, one thing I do notice is there is not as much difference when you flick the lights onto high beam as other cars I have had, but as I said more than adequate, one thing I would change on the headlights is the HID bulbs seem to be warm white 2700-3000k colour, this is very obvious when next to the LED lights of the EV which seem to be around 4000k

I love the rear lights but I am puzzled by the fact the indicators are standard filament bulbs when side/tail lights, fog light and stop/brake lights are LED

The lack of rear wiper on the top half of the rear window is not an issue all it needs is a coating of your favourite rain repellent the rain beads off as speeds about 30-40mph, the lower half of the window does suffer with spray and dirt in bad weather but this is not a major issue as you don't really look through this half , the bar that splits the two rear windows is not a major issue I find it actually sits just at the right level to block headlights of SUV's if they try and push you up the road

I sit fairly high when I drive and the interior mirror is right on the limit of its adjustment for me to a get a good view out the back window, the side mirrors are a reasonable size but there are a few blind spots, nothing major, but you are aware even when correctly adjusted you could do with a little more visibility to the side of the car, a slightly wider angle on these mirrors would help

Interior
the room in the boot is plenty large enough to fit several suitcases and all the stuff a family of 4 would take for a weeks holiday the only down side is if you fill the boot you block the sound from the Sub Woofer in the boot which does affect sound quality if you have the infinity sound system, the hard grey plastic at the sides of the boot / trunk does seem to mark relatively easily but a bit of cleaner it does come back pretty much to new

space in the rear seat is adequate for most people, I have two fairly tall daughters (18 and 24) and a 6'2" son in law and I get no complaints about room or the centre seat being hard, they do at times find the rear seat belts fiddly as the buckle connected to the seat can slip down, when only 2 in the back the pull down middle section with cup holders is well liked on a long run

the interior light for the rear seat passengers is nice touch

front seats are comfortable and supportive on long runs, both front seats have height adjustment, as well as the normal movements, the only thing missing is adjustable lumbar support, I can get comfortable to drive easily, the steering wheel has reach and height adjustment, the arm rest on the door is just right, but I find the centre arm rest a fraction low but still comfortable

The strange honeycomb pattern on the top surface of the dashboard works surprisingly well at preventing excessive reflections in the windscreen / windshield

Controls and dashboard
the steering wheel is well layed out, I was concerned about the flat bottom of it being a pain when driving, but to be honest even on my initial test drive I have never found it an issue, all the controls have a positive feel, due to there being so many switches and buttons it does take a few weeks to get used to the most common ones you use to be comfortable making changes at night, but one good thing they all have a pale blue back light at night making it easier to find the correct control in the dark

the dashboard is bright and clear, but in bright direct sunlight from behind your shoulder you can find it a little dim, but it is clear and readable, the matt anti reflective coating on the dashboard displays works well,

the dashboard can be overwhelming when first seen, there are 5 sections to the display.

The left section is the power display, the bottom section is blue and this area shows when you are generating power from coasting and braking to help charge the battery, the middle green section is where you should be in normal driving this is the amount of power the electric motor and / or the petrol engine are providing, the top white section is when you are using the highest power levels from the engine to accelerate hard

the next section has all the various normal warning lights for the various systems on the car

the middle section is the main speedo, in normal ECO mode you have your speed units (mph in UK) round the outside like a normal speedo inside this you have the range to empty, the alternative speed units (km/h in UK), you also have the fuel gauge at the bottom and various other info for cruise and speed limiter

the section to the right of the speed is the most complex as you have 20+ different screens of information split into 4 groupls (driving / trip information, basic navigation info, tyre pressure and LKAS, settings (safety systems, convienience and units of measurments), some of which you can't access / change unless you are stopped and in park, you will find you will soon find there are only a couple of screens you will swap between while driving and these and they tend to be in the same group. This section by default (you can turn them of) show you when you make changes to wipers, and gear selector position

the final section at the right hand side show you the state of charge of the main traction / high voltage battery it normally stays in the middle section, many new drivers are concerned this is a fault, but the battery management system trys to maintain the charge level in the middle section to maximise battery life by not taking the charge level to the extremes of full and drained, but long down hills, or long time in sport mode can get the charge level to the top of the graph, at this point the battery management system stops charging and if on a downhill you will drop down to engine braking and mechanical brakes to protect the battery from over charging

Media / navigation unit

the media nav unit is fully featured but many function relating to phone control are limited unless you have a modern android or apple phone, voice control don't work unless you have an apple or android phone connected via a cable, I have a windows phone so have no voice control options available

the navigation functions are good but limited by out of date maps, map update are only available about once a year and seem to up to a year out of date when the update is first available and a dealer only update, the live traffic and speed camera warning (where legal) require the nav unit to be tethered to a phone or LTE dongle, once this is done it uses very little data and traffic data and speed camera locations are accurate, but speed limits can be wrong so keep an eye of the signs

the radio and audio functions are fairly intuitive, audio is clear with no noticable distortion even at higher volume levels

media playback from USB or phone is good with the ability to navigate by track and folder

Engine and gearbox

both are smooth in general operation, the transition between EV / ICE tends to be smooth under normal driving conditions, if you give it a bit of go peddle up into the *********** band of the left display the gear changes can be a bit more noticeable, but this is no different to a manual gearbox

I do have one issue with the DCT on my Ioniq, if I am on a slope of 5-10% gradient and speed between 50-62mph the change down from 6th to 5th is smooth, but if the car decides it needs to go from 5th to 4th the change is slow and very noticeable, I am fairly certain this is a software issue as if I do the same changes in sport mode both changes are smooth and normal speed, I have it logged for investigation during my service next week

if you surprise the gearbox with a sudden need for speed / acceleration it can take a few seconds to sort its cogs out, if you are a little slower and smoother pushing on the gas / accelerator peddle it changes down and accelerate a lot smoother and quicker, bottom line is look ahead to be smoother with gas / accelerator peddle to get the best out the car

in general the ECU does a good job of managing the electric motor, petrol engine and battery charge to maximise economy, but once you understand how it all works and the best use of petrol and electric power you can get eye watering economy, my best so far is 95mpg UK

Safety systems / driver aids

AEB


I have mine on normal, it beeps at me now and again, but believe me it works, had it brake at 60mph and at lower speeds and it does a good job, at high speed it brake hard but not hard enough to cause the ABS to work, at low speed it throws the anchor out well and truly, but as soon as you hit the brake peddle it disengages and you take over control

LKAS / LDW

this is a marmite system, you either love it or hate it, I have mine set on active which provides maximum assistance, it uses a camera behind the mirror to see the road markings and it actively tries to keep you in the centre of the lane with many small steering inputs, but it is easily confused when the marking are a little faint and where the kerbs more noticeable than the white lines, in general it is good, the LDW (lane departure warning) is good as well I find I now use the indicators more when changing lanes so as not to get beeps at by the car

Smart Cruise

this I tend no longer to use, one reason is I enjoy the challenge of getting the best mpg out the car, but also due to the fact the smart cruise in my mind need a software update to brake more smoothly, I have the smart cruise set to slow, this setting means it is not trying to accelerate to quick to catch up to its set speed and reduces how often the car changes down to increase speed

if you speed up to pass a vehicle then lift off it can brake sharply to get the cars speed back to the preset cruising speed, also if something pulls into your lane within it sensing range which is slower than you it can again brake sharply, also if you are going down a hill which causes the car to pick up speed it can brake sharply to reduce speed, the braking on the EV version of the Ioniq does seem to be better under smart cruise

with a software update I think this could be smoothed out more and make the system more usable

there are ways to mitigate these issues but you can find yourself having to spend a lot of time managing the system in heavy traffic, but on long open roads with light traffic it is great

Speed limiter

this is very usefull when you first get the car as due to how quiet the car is you can find it easy to end up faster than the speed limit and risk getting a ticket, after a couple of months you retune your sense to use visual rather than engine tone to maintain a steady speed on the road

I use this less now than when I got the car, but still use it in average speed camera areas as a safety from exceeding the limits

Driving the car

in general it is a smooth and quiet car to drive, there is plenty of information to monitor the car if you want to get the best out of it, or you can just drive it and let all the electronics take care of everything for you

some complain of lack of feeling from the steering and brakes, I find no issues with either, both take a while to get used to as the brakes have a long travel on the pedal due to the first part of the travel is the regen braking for recovering energy back, the second part is the mechanical brakes, the transition between the two is smooth, the only thing I found was until I got used to it I was not braking sharp enough and having to brake sharper than normal at the end to stop the car

the accelerator / gas pedal has a long travel and at times seems to have a bit of a dead spot in the middle, but sport mode brings this back to a more normal pedal travel to power that people are more used, but the long travel when in ECO mode does make it easier to be more light footed when trying to drive the car economically

sport mode helps some areas as it shorten the peddle gas / accelerator peddle travel to get a certain level or power from the drivetrain and gear changes are more predictable and less assistance is provided to the steering making it slightly heavier to drive

this is good at times on hilly roads as it makes more aggressive use of the battery for both charging and assisting the ICE on hills, some people have found there is little actual impact on economy which may seem counter intuitive, but at the end of the it is not using any more petrol as it don't give the ICE more power, just makes better use of the motor and keeps the battery charged as much as possible so there is plenty of electric power available

Heating / climate control

the heating and cooling both work quickly when you start in the morning, where the aircon compressor is drive by an electric motor it reaches maximum cooling in about 30 seconds and works regardless of whether the ICE is running or not,

the heating only take a mile or two to start providing warm are on a cold morning, this is about half the time / distance of my previous cars,

the front button demists the front screen very quick by using the aircon to provide dry air to clear the screen quickly, the rear window heater at times can struggle to clear the top section of the window but generally does a good job

the driver only mode is good, it drops the fan speed which reduces the noise of the fans as not as much air required as only half the vents open

the heated mirrors work well, clear quickly but you they operate only when you turn on the rear window heater

the vents in the back of the armrest also means the rear passengers get the benefit of the aircon and heating as well

one thing I do find annoying is you have little fine control over where the air come out, unlike cars with manual controls where you can turn the control part way between two setting to fine tune the amount of air coming towards you or the screen or your feet you just have 3 or 4 combinations and now fine control apart from the motor speed

getting the best out of the car

the key to getting the best economy out of the car is being smooth and watching the road ahead to avoid sudden changes in speed and coasting rather than braking at the last minute

you will find the car will coast long distances on the flat will little loss of speed, all the time putting a small charge back into the battery and braking gently using the regen braking instead of mechanical brakes will help recover energy and reduce the need to use the petrol engine

watching the road ahead to gain battery on uphills and coast downhill, and use the electric motor on slight down hills and on the flat maximises the distance you can travel without using the petrol engine and improves economy

currently my best mpg is 95 mpg UK calculated, but my average is about 70mpg and still improving, the 83.1 mpg is easily attainable on a long run at a steady 60-65mph on motorway, this is the first car I have had which has easily achieved the economy figures stated in the brochure

Likes

  • love the styling
  • love the way it drives and the smoothness of the drive train
  • very comfortable on long runs
  • dash board is clear and easy to read
  • safety equipment works well, not to many false alarms, never had AEB activate without a need for it
  • grip in the wet is good, if you push it to the extremes it will understeer in a controlled manner
  • braking is impressive
  • economy is great
things Hyundai could do better

  • smoother braking under smart cruise
  • fine adjustment of the climate control air direction
  • stop the noise from the brakes if the car tries to creep when only light pressure on the brakes
  • better / more up to date mapping data in the nav unit
  • ability to update the maps yourself using home WiFi when parked at home
  • better voice control without the need to plug an android or apple phone in via cable
  • ability to customise the information in the centre of the speedo
  • both trip meters to have their own MPG calculation so you can have an mpg for a trip as well as the whole tank / long term
  • the UK mpg display bar chart maxes out at 75 mpg, needs to be higher
  • tear drop wipe to do a few intermittent wipes after you have washed the windscreen
  • cool air duct directed down on wireless charge area as phones get very hot when acting as hotspot and charging at same time
  • a clear space behind the rear view mirror to mount a dash cam, and possible a USB power port behind the mirror and on the bar in the back window to power dash cams and prevent the need to run cables for power round the car
would I buy another Ioniq hybrid when I come to replace this one in 3 years time

honest question is its unlikely to be the hybrid, I would most likely replace it with the plugin as that would have been my choice had it been available when I bought my Hybrid, or an EV if they can get to real world range of 250-300 miles / charge

now the $64000 question

would I go back to a normal petrol or diesel car, simple answer is a big NOPE, never going back, now I have seen how well even this first attempt by Hyundai at a dedicated hybrid / plugin / EV platform works and how easy it is to drive and get really impressive economy there is no going back for me

whether I stick with Hyundai or swap to a different manufacturer will depend on how Hyundai develops their range and how competitive it is both in initial purchase cost and warranty, currently in my opinion here in the UK price and warranty are hard to beat, I was disappointed to see a 20% increase in servicing costs by Hyundai across the board this year this may affect my decision when I come to replace my Ioniq
Really enjoyed your experiance with the ioniq, I notice with the PHEV AND EV it's possable to use blue link app on a smart phone to preheat your car on a cold morning is this possable with the petrol hybrid
 
Discussion starter · #26 ·
no, the hybrid and i thought the PHEV didn't have the preheat as it uses the electrical power to preheat not the ICE

and the PHEV there is not enough charge capacity to preheat, or at that was the case pre MY20 models
 
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