Hyundai i800 CRDi 2012 Review

For the past few weeks I've been zipping around town in my brand new Hyundai i800 CRDi 2012. The nine-seater car was converted from the commercial version to a passenger vehicle to accommodate a pneumatic wheelchair lift. The back panels were removed and tinted windows were installed. A proper floor and ceiling were put in the back, along with air conditioning and seats. For all intents and purposes, you can't tell that this was once a commercial vehicle.

 

Purrs Like a (Large, Overweight) Kitten

The i800's build quality seems very good. The internal fittings are simple, but the car seems to be constructed solidly. The only rattling sounds come from the wheelchair lift, which has so many moving parts, it can be forgiven for groaning a bit when I hit a bump in the road. Road noise is higher than I would have expected, and the diesel engine isn't very quiet, but it's by no means a loud car - at least from the inside.

 

Leviathan

The car is a beast to drive. A veritable tank. I've driven vans before, but nothing as wide or long as the i800. The Hyundai i800 is 5125 mm long. By comparison, a nine-seater Citroen Jumpy (AKA Dispatch Combi) is 4805 mm long. Just to give you an idea of how big this car is, it is almost too wide for, and always too long for, a standard parking space. Sitting up so high above the traffic, you feel as if you are driving a 4x4, but of course, you aren't. If it wasn't for the strategically placed grab-handles, one would have to be quite dexterous when entering the cab. The large mirrors on both sides of the van make up somewhat for the useless rear-view mirror. I haven't yet had the opportunity to try reverse parking, but it would be very difficult to manage without the reversing camera and proximity sensors, which were installed by the wheelchair lift company.

 

Handle With Care

The ride quality is decent, although sometimes it feels like you're driving a truck. That sounds incongruous, but I suppose it's a result of the size of the car. Handling is quite good. The car feels centered when cornering or taking a curve at higher speeds, and I am surprised at the small turning circle relative to the size of the vehicle.

 

Access All Areas

Conveniently, there are sliding doors on both sides of the i800. The rear hatch lifts up high enough, making access to the trunk area very easy. I once drove a friend's Hyundai H1 (the precursor to the i800) and I had to duck underneath the rear hatch to get to the back of the car. So this is a marked improvement.

 

Room Enough to Swing a Cat

If there is one advantage to having a large van, it's leg room, vast expanses of leg room. My eight-year-old son has no trouble standing up inside the car, so there's plenty of head room, too. The only seat where an adult passenger may feel uncomfortable is the front-center seat. The bulge in the center console of the dashboard means that the unfortunate passenger must sit slightly askew. Also, when the front-center seat is occupied, the cup holders recessed in the dashboard become inaccessible. Three front seats are only standard in the commercial models, but the dashboard is standard among all models. The dashboard designer obviously forgot that the front-center passenger needs somewhere to put their legs.

When there is no third front seat passenger, the center seat folds down and provides two extra cup holders and a storage tray. I'm not sure why so many cup holders are necessary, but perhaps they drink a lot of coffee on-the-go in South Korea.

Storage space includes two glove compartments, one smaller than the other, one or two little compartments in the center console and two levels of door pockets. I assume that the designer never had to leave the car because the lower level door pockets are positioned exactly the same height as the step, so when leaving the car, it is very easy to step on the door pocket by accident. Hopefully I'll remember to watch out for that before I get my foot stuck. That would be an interesting excuse for coming late to work.

The standard car tools (the jack, a fire extinguisher, reflective vest, etc.) are stored in a clever little compartment underneath the front passenger step.

 

Likes a Bit of a Drink

The Hyundai i800 can be compared to a high-end luxury sports car. If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it - at least in terms of fuel consumption. According to carleasingmadesimple.com, the 2.5 liter 5-speed auto diesel engine drinks one (imperial) gallon of gas in 32.1 miles (or 11.36 km/liter). Those numbers mean little when filling up - this beast has a tank that easily holds over 500 shekels of petrol. That's a big hit at every fill.

 

The Best Thing

The greatest thing about this car has nothing to do with the car. The dashboard center console houses a touch screen navigation and entertainment system. British male voice "James" guides me when I activate the iGo GPS. We chose this voice just so we can say "Home, James". A DVD system, hooked up to a screen that folds down from the ceiling for the rear-seat passengers is a handy way to keep the kids quiet on long trips. A USB port allows music and video to play from a Disk on Key. The radio is far too confusing, but once you get the hang of it, it isn't too bad. One of the more useful apps is the Bluetooth phone connection to my mobile. I can make and receive phone calls without taking the phone out of my pocket - the system even displays my phone history for easy re-dialing. 

 

Just a reminder: Talking on the phone when driving can be dangerous, even when using hands-free.

There are a couple of things I noticed about the navigation and entertainment systems - they are not meant for the driver to use. Many of the buttons and icons are too small to use quickly, without taking your eyes off the road for too long. For example, the radio interface has a volume slider. Attempting to use it while driving invariably ends in waking up the neighbors in the southern hemisphere. The hardware buttons are far more useful for controlling the volume.

 

The Other Best Thing

After nine years without a car, the Hyundai i800 is still a novelty among my kids, so I am taking full advantage of it, "When you have cleaned your room, done your homework and folded the laundry, and only if you're good, I'll let you wash the car".

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