Hyundai Kona N review (inc. 0-100) 2022

CarExpert

We've had so much interest in the Hyundai Kona N and we finally had one through for a test drive! Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of Hyundai's i30 N on stilts to figure out if it's any good.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2022-hyundai-kona-n-review  More Hyundai content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai More Hyundai Kona content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai/kona  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 00:57 Interior 04:04 Infotainment 05:50 Safety Tech 08:33 Practicality 09:11 On Road 12:41 0-100 km/h 19:43 Verdict 22:00  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #hyundai #kona #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. It is summer in Australia, which means there are flies everywhere.

00:04 So this whole review you're going to see me doing this. But anyway, we're here to talk about this.

00:07 It is the Hyundai Kona N. A lot of you have been asking about it. It's kind of an i30 N

00:13 in an SUV form. So you still get the i30 N internals, but it's all within an SUV body.

00:20 It's priced at a little under $50,000. This one here is the base model. There is a slightly nicer

00:25 version with a few extra bells and whistles for a couple of grand extra. This competes with things

00:30 like the Volkswagen T-Roc R when it eventually arrives in Australia. And it kind of competes

00:34 with the Audi SQ2 in a sense. Today, we're going to do a detailed review of this car. So if you do

00:40 want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there.

00:44 Or if you're on YouTube, scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,

00:48 buy me a Flysquatter. Subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon, so that'll tell you every

00:53 single time we drive a red car. Righto, let's talk exterior. You've got seven external colors

01:00 to pick from. All but white, red and blue are around $600 extra. You can also get a matte color

01:06 for $1,000. And I think this would look really cool in a matte finish. I actually remember the

01:10 Iron Man edition they did of this, and that actually looked really nice with all the little

01:14 design highlights on it. Now, in terms of the design highlights, this looks very similar to

01:20 the N-Line. And you can be mistaken for thinking this is just an N-Line, because they both have

01:26 an N badge here, except the N-Line says N-Line. This is a fully-fledged N badge.

01:31 Up the top here, you've got some fake air vents. And then through this center section and the

01:35 bottom section, you've got a stack of cooling there. I quite like the red. It really pops.

01:39 It stands out beautifully. And I think that if you're going to go for the N, you may as well

01:42 go for a color that stands out. The other differentiation here is that the front lip is

01:47 10mm longer. So, I mean, aside from that, though, it looks very similar to the N-Line,

01:52 which means over here you've got your headlights down the bottom. So that's LED

01:55 headlights. You also have an LED daytime running light and an indicator built into there as well.

02:00 You have a little air vent down the side here that kind of kicks out just in front of the wheel

02:05 there. In terms of wheels themselves, 19-inch forged alloy wheels. You've got a big set of

02:11 stoppers behind there as well. They measure in at 360mm, 314mm at the rear. They're also red here

02:18 on the fully-fledged N version. It is also worth pointing out here with the Pirelli PZero tyres,

02:23 they're 235 wide. This is front-wheel drive and these were designed specifically for the car. So,

02:28 it means that if you are going to get replacements for these in the future, it is probably worth just

02:31 sticking with the OEM tyre because that is what it has been engineered on. Also, it is worth

02:35 pointing out that this has a 173mm ground clearance and it's 120mm taller than an i30N. So,

02:43 I think that should be interesting when it comes to handling because, you know, physics. I'd be

02:48 interested to see whether this does feel as engaging as an i30N given how much bigger it

02:52 actually is. You'll notice here we don't have any black coloured wheel arch protectors. No one

02:56 thinks you're going to be going off-road here, which is good. So, it is all just that body colour.

03:00 Over on the wing mirror, you have an indicator built into there with a piano black top on it.

03:05 And then up the top here, you have a set of black roof rails. Privacy glass. You've got an N

03:10 etched in down here and then come around the rear. Now, around the back here, you have a pretty

03:14 aggressive sound. You've got this boot lip spoiler. You can see down there that actually

03:18 directs air through that bottom section. So, it is actually functional, which is nice to see.

03:23 A big old set of cannons there with this giant diffuser on the rear. You also get an N badge

03:28 there to signify that this is indeed the fully-fledged N version. You have a set of LED

03:33 tail lights. This cluster's interesting because when you follow this car, you'll notice that they

03:38 are in two separate sections. So, look, I think it looks good, but I don't know when you're following

03:43 this whether it's actually functional enough to be able to understand exactly what's going on at

03:48 the rear. So, let me know in the comments section below, have you followed a Kona before and found

03:52 it a little bit confusing? I'm keen to get your feedback. And also, I want to know what you think

03:55 about the design. Should they have gone a little further above and beyond the standard N line to

04:00 make this a bit more aggressive, or do you reckon this is aggressive enough for the full-fat N

04:04 version? So, we are inside the Kona N. Let's start off with the key. Here it is. So, you have lock,

04:09 unlock, remote start. You have a boot button. Then on the back, you have Hyundai and then

04:14 the N logo there so that everyone knows you're driving a fun, fast Hyundai. Over here, you then

04:19 have a start button. It's a proximity sensing key as well, so you just grab the door handle to get

04:24 inside the car. So, in terms of design, I've mentioned this previously in our Kona reviews.

04:29 This car's starting to feel a little old now in terms of the design, and I say that because,

04:34 have a look at this, it's all just black. They do have piano black around there, which I'm not a

04:38 huge fan of, but outside of that, it's all just sort of pretty scratchy. I mean, that stuff's

04:43 soft through the centre there, but for the most part, it's pretty scratchy and it doesn't really

04:47 feel all that premium, especially when you look at something like a Kona N, which is right up at

04:50 the very top of the Kona tree. So, I think it could be a little bit nicer, but it does mean

04:54 that the next generation of this car is probably going to be a big step forward in terms of that

04:58 premium fit and finish and that feel behind the wheel, but they do add some cool Kona elements.

05:03 So, you've got these paddle shifters attached to the steering wheel, two N buttons here that

05:07 I'll go through when we go for an actual drive, plus the N-Grin shift button, but on the rest of

05:13 the car, you do have N insignia on the seats. You also have N logos here and on the gear shifter as

05:19 well, so you do know that you're driving an N car, which is good news. Now, in terms of your

05:23 touch points, though, so in the centre here, that's a little firm but soft, and then on the door,

05:27 it's just rock hard. How soft are they? Well, we've got our durometer, we've tested the main

05:32 surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested

05:36 before, have a look at the link in the description. Build quality. Give this our shake test.

05:42 Actually, it all doesn't feel too bad, and final test that we do is...

05:46 Sounds okay. Yeah, it's not too bad. Now, let's talk about infotainment. So, you have two 10.25

05:54 inch screens, one up here for infotainment, and then one ahead of the driver, so I'll run through

05:58 that in just a sec, but start off over here. So, shortcut buttons down the bottom if you want to

06:03 jump to any of those menus. You get inbuilt satellite navigation, and if we go back to the

06:07 home menu, you can see all the other items you can pick from. I do like features like quiet mode,

06:11 so it keeps the speakers only running in the front and not in the back, so the kids can have a kipper

06:17 if they need to. Voice memo if you come up with any revolutionary ideas while you're out on the

06:22 road, and then you also have an inbuilt manual within the infotainment system. On the radio front,

06:28 you have AM, FM, and DAB plus digital radio, and that's all plumbed through an eight-speaker Harman

06:34 Kardon branded sound system. Pretty good sound system, so impressive as the standard kit for

06:39 Kona, and especially for the base model, I thought. In terms of smartphone mirroring, you have both

06:43 Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. This is what Apple CarPlay looks like. Both of them are wired,

06:48 so no wireless here, which I find just bizarre, because you can get wireless in entry-level

06:52 versions of Hyundai and Kia products, but not in the upper spec versions, but it is a nice

06:57 integration. It's full screen, it's a big screen as well, so really nicely set up there, and this

07:02 is what Android Auto looks like. So disappointingly, it's not a full screen integration, so it sort of

07:07 all gets plumbed off to the side here, and this just stays as this Android Auto panel, telling you

07:13 it's Android Auto, which I know, because I plugged it in, so very strange. But this is the other menu

07:18 I wanted to show you, N mode. So this will be active when we go for a drive, and I'll run through

07:23 some of the sort of driver-oriented sections of this later on, but look at this, you've actually

07:27 got some interesting things here, like your engine oil temp, you can see throttle change as I push it

07:31 on and off there, brake pressure as well as I push the brake pedal on, but you also have a lap timer

07:38 and a circuit timer. Look at that, so it actually gives you an idea of the circuit, the time that

07:42 you're going to set around there, and then you can download additional circuits into there if you need

07:46 to. And then finally as well, you also have a G-Bubble and the ability to configure all of your

07:52 drive mode settings at the same time. Now there is also a screen ahead of the driver, let me quickly

07:57 run you through what you can do on that. So ahead of the driver is another 10.25-inch display. On the

08:01 left-hand side you've got a speedo, and on the right you have a tacho plus warnings, but because

08:06 this is the N model, if you go over to the flag, you can actually get your engine oil temps,

08:10 plus your turbo pressure, lap timer and also a little G-Bubble as well. And I love when you do

08:17 switch between the drive modes, you have drive and traction, it changes the way the screen looks,

08:22 but if you press the N button, you get this fire display and it really just customizes everything.

08:27 So really cool setup and I love the fact that this is standard on the entry-level Kona N.

08:32 Let's talk safety. So you have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection,

08:38 you have lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant, radar cruise control,

08:42 you've got a blind spot monitor built into that wing mirror, but you don't get the cool sort of

08:46 camera that you get on some Hyundai and Kia products that projects the side image onto the

08:51 screen here ahead of you. You do get rear cross traffic alert though. Then on the parking front,

08:56 you get rear parking sensors and a reverse view camera. So I'll show you what that looks like,

09:00 slot that into reverse. So the quality is actually not terrible, sort of takes up that

09:04 portion of the screen. This side has the sonar and you can also change the view as well to be a top

09:09 down view should you require it. Moving on to practicality, we'll talk about your connectivity

09:13 options. So let me get rid of this quickly. So you've got two USB-A ports down the front here,

09:18 one's behind a little cover and one is for your smartphone mirroring. You've got a 12-volt outlet,

09:23 a wireless phone charger. Then in terms of storing your phone, where's it going to live? So you can

09:28 whack it down there on the wireless phone charger or it can live here in the cup holders. Now in

09:33 terms of your coffee cup, so I am pleased to report it easily fits in there without being

09:38 de-lidded if you try and pick it up while you're on the move. There are no teeth though, so just

09:43 keep that in mind when you do slot something like a bottle in there, it might move around a little

09:47 bit. Fit your bottle inside the door and we'll try our big bottle as well. We'll see if we can

09:52 whack that inside the door. We know that fits in there too, which is really good news. For the

09:57 storage, you have this slot here. Now it's interesting because this has a regular handbrake,

10:02 it actually eats into the storage space in the centre console there. You've also got a glove box,

10:07 reasonably sized there with enough room to put things in once your manual's in there. And finally

10:12 you have a sunglasses holder up the top here. And finally, what about your comfort? Well,

10:18 you have single zone automatic climate control. I would have thought they'd be dual zone here.

10:22 Come on guys. But it does actually work pretty well. Today's been stinking hot and this has

10:28 been pumping out some cool air, which is good news. On the seat front, again, manually adjustable.

10:33 Yes, I understand this is the entry level Kona N model, but the seats are fully manually adjustable

10:37 for the driver and front passenger. But they do look pretty cool. They are cloth, you do get the

10:42 N logo and then this blue stitching around the edges. They hug you in really nicely. So when

10:46 you do go for a bit of a drive, you won't be moving in the seat at all, which is good news.

10:51 And then in terms of your steering, big chunky wheel that sits nicely in the hand and that

10:54 offers both tilt and reach adjustment. And on our reach test, all of this stuff is easy to reach

11:00 while you're driving. Okay, second row of the Kona N. I've got to be honest, I'm a little surprised

11:05 by how little room I have here. We just reviewed the i20 N and I remember that actually having

11:09 more room than this. So yeah, I don't have any knee room at all. Yes, my seat is quite far back,

11:14 but this is my standard driving position. I have loads of toe room though, which is good. And head

11:18 room is pretty reasonable. You've got matte pockets in the back of the seats. You have a single USB

11:24 outlet here, but no air vents, so no additional cooling for the second row. You do get a center

11:29 armrest with two cup holders that easily fits your bottle in there. There are no teeth though,

11:33 so it will move around a little bit while the bottle's in there. You can pop this inside the

11:37 door if you want though. In addition to that, you have ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with

11:43 three top tether points for the back. And then our window test. Look at that! Goes all the way down.

11:51 Very impressive. So cargo space. Let's have a little sticky beak under here. So you have a

11:56 little over 350 litres of cargo space just in its standard trim. Not a great deal of room, but it is

12:02 a small SUV. You do get this netting to, you know, hold on to your shopping and little bits and pieces.

12:08 And then under the cargo floor, you have another little storage nook. And beneath that, you have

12:12 a space saver spare tyre. Now, what can you actually fit in here? So I left my suitcase at home. So

12:18 we've got this bag here. This is roughly the size of carry-on luggage for the plane. So it gives you

12:24 an idea of how much space you have in there. But if you do want a little bit more room, what you

12:29 can do is get rid of this thing. Slide that out of the way. Once that's gone, you can drop the

12:36 second row and that opens up the space to a little over 1100 litres. So we've hit the road in the

12:45 Kona N. I'll run you through the drivetrain first. So 2.0-litre turbocharged, four-cylinder petrol

12:51 engine. It makes 206 kilowatts of power and 392 newton-metres of torque. And it's all mated to an

12:57 eight-speed wet dual clutch. Now, the wet dual clutch simply means that it's not the dry version.

13:03 The dry version is not very good, so they use that in other Kia and Hyundai products. I'm just

13:09 really not a huge fan of it. I just think it could be a much better gearbox. This, on the other hand,

13:13 wet means that it is using oil to cool itself and it is just a better performer in terms of low

13:18 speed and just the way that it transitions through the gears. So while you are just driving here in

13:24 just your normal setting and stuff, if you do kick down, it responds quick enough. Once you're above

13:29 that sort of 2,000-2,500 rpm mark, you really do get that kick in the back and it pushes you along

13:34 nicely. And if you do belt the throttle down, it gives you a nice and happy push in the back with

13:40 a little bit of grunt there as well. Hyundai claims a combined fuel economy of nine litres per

13:45 100km. We're currently sitting on 9.5. You can see that down at the bottom corner there.

13:51 Now, it's pretty impressive because this morning we've been doing some fun driving here around the

13:55 proving ground, which I would have thought would really send that figure through the roof, but

13:59 it is impressive that it hasn't gone too crazy. Yes, we have done a lot of highway driving to

14:03 get here, but at the end of the day, I think if you're returning that kind of mileage while

14:07 you're having fun, I think that's a good thing. I want to run you through some of the changes

14:13 under the body here. They haven't just gone and stuck a two-litre turbo four under the bonnet,

14:16 they actually have done some work here. So that means new steering knuckles, they have new springs

14:21 and dampers. This actually gets electronic dampers, which means there is customisability there in

14:26 terms of how this feels on the road and how bumpy it is as you move through those different

14:30 end settings. The e-pass, so the electronic power-assisted steering system, has been

14:35 mounted to the rack instead of the steering column like it is in the standard Kona, and that gives you

14:39 a little bit more precision. And I've got to tell you, this is a very precise rack. When you turn,

14:45 it instantly responds. It actually feels a bit like a go-kart. So in theory, this is just an

14:50 SUV version of the i30 N, right, but there is a slight downside and that's simply physics, right?

14:55 So it weighs 30 kilos more than an i30 N, so it almost tips the scales at 1600 kilos. It has a

15:01 high centre of gravity, so there are a few challenges there in terms of how this performs

15:06 in comparison to the hatch, but in theory, all the work they've done to this, even at the Nurburgring,

15:11 should mean that it does actually handle quite sharply, despite the fact it is an SUV.

15:14 Before we go for a bit of a fun drive, let's talk about the ride. It is firm, and even in the full

15:24 comfort setting, it is firm. And I would have thought that given this is now transitioned to

15:28 electronic dampers, they would really have gone to town on giving this a soft feeling comfort,

15:33 and then progressively go firmer, but they've kind of gone BMW on it, where comfort is firm,

15:38 and then Sport, Sport Plus is just like neck-breaking stuff. And then if you dial up

15:43 the speed a little bit, we're on a sort of simulated country road here to country road speed,

15:48 there is a lot of drone inside the cabin. There is heaps of tyre noise, and you really just do feel

15:53 all of the bumps on the road. It's not very comfortable, and I don't know, it's just,

15:57 why would you make a performance SUV that is just not really good at being an SUV? It really is

16:03 disappointing that they haven't gone to the effort of tuning this correctly. If I dial it up a little

16:08 further to the maximum highway speed here in Australia, which is 130, we've got our undulations

16:14 coming up ahead. We did notice that in the Ioniq 5, that wasn't tuned locally, it was all over the

16:21 place. This is definitely much better, and that is because it is much firmer, but still, I just

16:26 reckon it's a little too firm just in the standard comfort mode. Now, ahead of the driver here,

16:31 you've got a whole bunch of switchgears. So, there's two N buttons, and these will allow you

16:36 to transition between your two custom modes, they're kind of like an individual mode, and then

16:41 the fully-fledged N mode, where it just goes into full attack. You also have this button here,

16:45 which is N Grin Shift. Now, I don't know who comes up with these cheesy names, but if you do press

16:51 that, it gives you an extra 7 kilowatts of power for 20 seconds, and then you can reuse that again

16:57 after 40 seconds. So, it's kind of like the Porsche 911, when you do option like a Sport

17:03 Chrono Pack, it gives you the ability to have that extra burst of acceleration momentarily,

17:08 and it goes outside the engine's sort of standard operating parameters.

17:13 There's also another couple of interesting things here, you've got Track Sense Shift.

17:17 What it does is, it figures out that you're on a racetrack when you're in the N mode,

17:20 and it will then adjust the shift parameters and the way the car drives to cater for that track.

17:25 Then, in addition to that, when you are in the N mode, if you go beyond 90% throttle,

17:29 it will then also aggressively shift, so it will shift in the lowest possible time,

17:33 which just gives you more performance behind the wheel.

17:35 Okay, let's switch this over to the N mode. So, one push of that, the whole display changes,

17:42 I can hear that bimodal exhaust open up, got our first corner coming up here. So,

17:47 this has a limited slip differential, it's electronically controlled,

17:50 and it means that when you punt it through corners, it really just sits beautifully on

17:57 exit to the corner, to the point where it's, it really just slingshots out of there without any

18:04 dramas at all. You don't get any of that cocking of the wheel as you try and accelerate out,

18:08 and even through these faster sweepers where you get changes in that road surface,

18:13 it just holds beautifully to the road and gives you so much confidence.

18:17 Tell you what, I was not expecting this. This thing is absolutely

18:22 hammering. I'll punt it through this corner as well.

18:25 This is really good. The suspension is firm, I'm not going to lie, but as you lean onto it,

18:36 far out, I... It's absolutely flying. I was not expecting that. This thing is ridiculous. So,

18:46 you can see down there, it comes up saying track sense, so it thinks we're on a racetrack,

18:50 so it's tailoring some of those shifts to this type of driving. That limited slip differential

18:55 is incredible. Normally with these cars, when they try and just throw more and more power at them,

19:00 you just get an inside wheel just doing stupid things, it just feels like it's overdone,

19:06 whereas this Pirelli PZero tyre that was engineered for this car really just works

19:12 well with the chassis and that limited slip diff. The ride is firm, but I think that if you found a

19:18 smooth racetrack point to point, this car would really keep up with a lot of much more expensive

19:25 and I guess much more credentialed sports cars. So, yeah, it is incredible what they've been able

19:31 to do here with an SUV chassis. I think it does show you that when you actually put a bit of time

19:36 and effort into it and the proper hardware, you can get pretty smile-inducing results.

19:40 Now, let's talk 0-100. Hyundai claims a time of five and a half seconds and I'll show you how it

19:48 works. If you don't use launch control, it is slower, but launch control is pretty straightforward.

19:54 So, you go into N mode, you've got a little menu that comes up here with launch control,

19:59 you can configure the RPM that you want it to launch at. So, I'll just set it at the maximum,

20:03 which is 3500 RPM, hit activate, it comes up saying it's ready to launch, then it's just foot

20:08 on the brake, foot on the throttle, it comes up saying launch control ready, you can adjust the

20:13 RPM here on the steering wheel, let go of the brake and away it goes. Actually, it feels really

20:22 good. The shifts there are pretty aggressive. They've really tuned a bit of performance into

20:28 that dual-clutch transmission. So, that feels nice and easy behind the wheel and look, to be honest,

20:33 it feels idiot-proof, which is important for a car like this where you just want anyone to

20:36 be able to jump in, hit the activate button and then do their fun launch control.

20:40 Okay, so exciting driving done. Let's just have a quick chat about the exhaust sound. Have a

20:57 listen to this. It has cracks and pops. And you can just ride the throttle on the way down through

21:09 the gears just to get it to give you a symphony of gunshots. It actually sounds really cool. I

21:15 think they've done an incredible job here with the exhaust and moving to a dual-clutch hasn't

21:20 affected this at all in terms of the way that it sounds. Yeah, I love that.

21:25 Okay, so when everything is nice and settled, what's it actually like to drive out on the road?

21:32 So, visibility is very much like any other Hyundai Kona. So, you can see clearly down the front there,

21:37 you can see clearly out the side as well. You've got decent-sized wing mirrors with a blind spot

21:40 monitor built into those. Visibility is good out the back as well. So, you've got a good envelope

21:45 there to see out of. You also have steering that is fairly light at low speeds. It could be a little

21:52 bit lighter, but coupled with the reverse view camera, it is pretty easy to park this thing in

21:57 and around the city. So, the Hyundai Kona N, as you can see on the front there, I've had a lot of

22:08 fun today. And I think that's probably the best way to sum up this car. The Kona N is just fun.

22:13 It's genuinely like a go-kart in SUV form. It really just does everything it needs to do on

22:19 the performance front. And they've done a pretty impressive job with the chassis. It actually just

22:23 feels like an i30N, but super-sized. And I didn't think you'd get that level of performance out of

22:28 something that, you know, is effectively an SUV. It is let down by the ride, though. The ride is

22:33 so firm. And look, I've complained before about my Model 3 performance being firm, but it isn't as

22:38 firm as this. This takes it to another level, and that's even in comfort mode. So, I think Hyundai

22:42 really missed a trick there in terms of softening out the ride in comfort mode, and they probably

22:46 just kept it a little bit too firm. So, let me know in the comments section below. Have you bought

22:50 one? What's it been like to live with? And do you agree that the ride is too firm? I'm keen for your

22:56 feedback. Now, if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates.

23:00 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. I'm going to

23:05 get the hell out of here and away from these flies, but until next time, take it easy.

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