Tested and Ripped: Hyundai i10 Kappa

[DCEite]

Just test drove the Hyundai Kappa Sportz version a while back.

The car comes fully loaded but without ABS, Airbags, Fog lamps and some other goodies present in the top end model.
The integrated stereo is also present in the Sportz version. It plays CDs, MP3, and has AUX input.

I wont talk about the Exteriors and interiors of the car, since its the same as IRDE version, except for the Kappa badge.

Driving impression:
Crank the engine and its quite silent. But frankly, the Chevrolet Spark beats the i10 in this department. (I also test drove the Spark today).

Release the clutch and give a gentle push to accelerator, the car moves forward, but not doesn't look as eager as the old iRDE. Somehow, i found the initial peppiness of IRDE missing here!

The car is much better in higher gears than the IRDE, revving freely and the pull is decent, but not as good as Swift Petrol. Braking is decent. Steering is EPS, and its almost as light as the WagonR/Estilo.

Now the most important part. The car gives about 1-2 kmpl less than the IRDE version. This is admitted by the salesman himself. I visited two showrooms and both said the same. Probably thats why there is a IRDE Magna for just 7-8k less than the Kappa Magna, for those who care for FE more than the power.

I am not covering other issues in detail like handling, suspension (which is a bit bouncy specially at the rear compared to Spark) etc. since its already covered in the 1.1L test drive threads.

Conclusion: Spark Fully loaded LT model at 3.5L OTR Gurgaon, is better VFM (although some might argue i am comparing apples to oranges)

Kappa and IRDE Engine bay side by side (Sorry for poor quality pics):

[jkdas]

Another first at TBHP!

Few queries,

Sports looks way diff with kit?
And not ABS for sports?
Same gearing?

And wait another 2 months and I bet Spark will be more cheaper, Diwali offer

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Release the clutch and give a gentle push to accelerator, the car moves forward, but not doesn't look as eager as the old iRDE. Somehow, i found the initial peppiness of IRDE missing here!

I am not sure weather they have changed the gearing ratios, but IMO, this could be mostly due to slightly higher gearing.

Originally Posted by DCEite

The car is much better in higher gears than the IRDE, revving freely and the pull is decent, but not as good as Swift Petrol. Braking is decent. Steering is EPS, and its almost as light as the WagonR/Estilo.

1)
Glad to know that the Hyundai claimed " MDPS ' is better than the artificial feeling Maruti EPS.

2)
Comparing this car with Swift is somewhat too high for this car, IMHO. Swift has a bigger and more powerful engine and has got very short storke. So in higher rpm range, Swift will be better.

However how was the city driving comparison between the i10 1.2 and Swift petrol ?

[karanraheja]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

Comparing this car with Swift is somewhat too high for this car, IMHO. Swift has a bigger and more powerful engine and has got very short storke. So in higher rpm range, Swift will be better.

Comparing Swift aint too high. This car is only few k's cheaper than Swift.
But i aint sure if the 1.2 was supposed to be pitted against the swift p.

Originally Posted by jkdas

And wait another 2 months and I bet Spark will be more cheaper, Diwali offer

I hope not . GM has seriously given the Spark a discount in every Indian Festival. With further discounts they ll earn peanuts.

[rks]

Originally Posted by DCEite

Just test drove the Hyundai Kappa Sportz version a while back.

The car comes fully loaded but without ABS, Airbags, Fog lamps and some other goodies present in the top end model.

Great! I will target the Sportz model, since I am not interested in these goodies.

Driving impression:
Crank the engine and its quite silent. But frankly, the Chevrolet Spark beats the i10 in this department. (I also test drove the Spark today).

Release the clutch and give a gentle push to accelerator, the car moves forward, but not doesn't look as eager as the old iRDE. Somehow, i found the initial peppiness of IRDE missing here!

Initital impressions could be misleading, since test car may have flaws and fuel quality, tyre pressures, etc. matter. For a long time after getting my Santro, I had the impression that it was a sluggish car and had poor initial pickup as compared to even M800 and Alto. Now I know much better, and Altos and M800's disappear rapidly in the rear-view mirror. The difference is in the way my car is maintained and driven, and both of these are important w.r.to performance. If an MPFI car is driven sedately for a month or so, it becomes sluggish as ECU makes adjustments. My Santro is now regularly ripped on the Mumbai-Pune highway and it is a completely different car from what it used to be when it was confined to Bangalore city.

The car is much better in higher gears than the IRDE, revving freely and the pull is decent, but not as good as Swift Petrol.

Again the figures for the i10 Kappa are quite close to that of Swift. E.g. see the following website:

AutoPundit : Indian automobile news and reviews New Hyundai i10 with 1.2L kappa engine

0-100 is claimed as 12-13 secs and top speed 165 kmph. I think the best I have seen claimed for Swift is 0-100 12.3 secs and top speed 174 kmph. Now if you consider that the i10 at 860 kg is much lighter than Swift (1010 kg), you will see that the power and torque per unit weight will be superior in i10. That in my view ought to make the i10 a quicker car and more maneuverable in both city and highway. Swift might barely win a drag race, but most people are not interested in that. However, it is possible that the Indian version of i10 is detuned as compared to the foreign versions. In UK, for example, all fuel sold is at least 94 RON, as compared to 91 RON in India. That would make a lot of difference to the car's performance.

Now the most important part. The car gives about 1-2 kmpl less than the IRDE version. This is admitted by the salesman himself. I visited two showrooms and both said the same. Probably thats why there is a IRDE Magna for just 7-8k less than the Kappa Magna, for those who care for FE more than the power.

Does not match what is officially claimed about Kappa i10. Showroom personnel know very little about cars and would probably have given you their impressions based on very skimpy data available from test drive cars and that coiuld be highly misleading.

Conclusion: Spark Fully loaded LT model at 3.5L OTR Gurgaon, is better VFM (although some might argue i am comparing apples to oranges)

The Spark is a good car and I have nothing against it. But this is a fairly hasty conclusion. The VFM bit has to be based on a long-term study and nothing conclusive can be said from initial impressions.

[phamilyman]

Translated: i10 rocks and anyone's non partisan experience to the contrary shall be slammed

Give DCEite a break man. I like how you clinically said almost everything in the original post needs to be revisited(not that I agree one bit). And ironically gave as evidence a link that is just a PR/press release of i10 unlike atleast the folks at vicky.in!

that said priyank bhai, am disappointed. Wanted a bit more detail yaar!

[deepakvrao]

Originally Posted by rks

0-100 is claimed as 12-13 secs and top speed 165 kmph. I think the best I have seen claimed for Swift is 0-100 12.3 secs and top speed 174 kmph. Now if you consider that the i10 at 860 kg is much lighter than Swift (1010 kg), you will see that the power and torque per unit weight will be superior in i10. That in my view ought to make the i10 a quicker car and more maneuverable in both city and highway.

If the 0-100 is both for the two cars are about the same and the weights are different I would have thought that the power/torque per kg wt of each car should be around the same. If at all the heavier car [Swift] should have a higher total power/torque. How have you come to the above conclusion.

If an MPFI car is driven sedately for a month or so, it becomes sluggish as ECU makes adjustments.

I may be wrong but I seriously doubt this.

[Elito11]

What did you test and what did you RIP!??

Important bits like handling, suspension, ride, A/C, gear ratios etc have all been missed.

We all know spark is silent and much able handler than many bigger and more expensive cars. But thats not the reason why it sells or does not sell.

A little more testing and little less ripping please!

Elito

[DCEite]

@rks
Sometimes on paper performance doesn't quite translate to real world performance. Hyundai cars are much known for this fact. Accent GTX a prime example.

Originally Posted by Elito11

Important bits like handling, suspension, ride, A/C, gear ratios etc have all been missed.

I already made a mention about suspension, which compared to the Spark is quite bouncy specially at the rear. Ride quality is decent but a bit stiff at lower speeds, and improves at higher speeds.

Handling is OKish, but not as precise as the Spark. Body roll is minimal and there is a hint of understeer. Again i would say the Spark wins hands down here. Please note that i keep comparing it with the Spark because i test drove the two back to back.

As i already said, steering is EPS (Electric power steering), which Hyundai prefers to call MDPS (motor driven power steering), feels light and disconnected, much like the WagonR. Whereas the Spark has a more weighed feel to it, although i don't like the its design one bit.

If i were to summarize driveability comparison of i10 IRDE, i10 Kappa, Swift Petrol:

City driveability:
IRDE > Kappa > Swift

Highway driveability:
Swift > Kappa > IRDE

Is it overpriced? Hell yeah!

[Su-47]

I went for a testdrive as well, but couldn't get Kappa as the test-drive car wasn't registered. Anyway, ended up driving 1.1 iRDE and Spark almost back to back. However I came to a different conclusion: Spark doesn't even come close. Its cramped, acceleration is not even close to the iRDE and the plastics reminded me of my erstwhile Safari. To add to it the steering wheel looks weird.

BTW, the i10 steering feedback looked OK to me. Definitely, not as disconnected as Wagon-R.

I was wondering if there was something wrong with the testdrive spark. I checked the odo and it was about 21xx Kms. And, the car felt as if it had been driven for 20K. The i10 had done 7K+ and seemed much better.

Originally Posted by DCEite

Now the most important part. The car gives about 1-2 kmpl less than the IRDE version. This is admitted by the salesman himself.

The Bangalore salesmen seem to think differently. They are saying it should be 1kmpl more than the iRDE.

Originally Posted by DCEite

Somehow, i found the initial peppiness of IRDE missing here!

This would be sad !! :( I want something peppy like Santro and free-revving like an Esteem. Seems like I am not going to get it.

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Translated: i10 rocks and anyone's non partisan experience to the contrary shall be slammed

Give DCEite a break man. I like how you clinically said almost everything in the original post needs to be revisited(not that I agree one bit). And ironically gave as evidence a link that is just a PR/press release of i10 unlike atleast the folks at vicky.in!

that said priyank bhai, am disappointed. Wanted a bit more detail yaar!

To be fair, I tend to go with some of rks observations here - his Super Santro notwithstanding.

I believe the i10 is way ahead of the Spark - DCEite need to revisit either his test drive or his comparison. Mind you, I havent driven the 1.2 kappa, but it would be hard to believe that the new engine with more output is not up to the old one.

I will also take with a very large helping of salt the observation that Hyundai's on paper performance doesnt translate into real life performance. It depends on your frame of reference for the term 'performance' - if all you were looking for was 0-60 or 100 acceleration the Accent and the GTX would've disappointed, but when it came to in gear acceleration those cars went ahead of the traffic light scorchers quite comfortably.

With all due respect, the Spark wouldnt match up to the old i10 on anything except perhaps marginal rear-seat space and ride. The conclusion that it is better than the new i10 is therefore quite difficult to swallow.

[sridharps]

Originally Posted by DCEite
The car gives about 1-2 kmpl less than the IRDE version

Well, well, this is quite contrary to what the press report , quoting the Hyundai official, said about it having a 4-5% FE increase!

Conclusion: Spark Fully loaded LT model at 3.5L OTR Gurgaon, is better VFM

It always was a good option, even before the Kappa was introduced. Where GM has got it wrong is on the marketing/pricing positioning and re-positioning and more confusion...

Originally Posted by phamilyman
Translated: i10 rocks and anyone's non partisan experience to the contrary shall be slammed

I think that is unfair. rks has given a point-by-point rebuttal and DCEite could have been a bit more cautious before making sweeping conclusions.

[DCEite]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

The conclusion that it is better than the new i10 is therefore quite difficult to swallow.

I never said that Spark is better than the i10. I only said that at 1 lac cheaper price, its a better value for money.
The i10 beats the Spark in every department except (IMO) handling, ride, engine noise and possibly FE.
Also, if i were to spend 4.5 lacs on a supposidely high performance car, i would rather go for the Swift Petrol.
And if i were to go for a purely city car, i would prefer the Spark or even the IRDE i10.

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by DCEite

As i already said, steering is EPS (Electric power steering), which Hyundai prefers to call MDPS (motor driven power steering), feels light and disconnected, much like the WagonR. Whereas the Spark has a more weighed feel to it, although i don't like the its design one bit.

Originally Posted by Su-47

BTW, the i10 steering feedback looked OK to me. Definitely, not as disconnected as Wagon-R.

I would disagree with DCEite & agree with SU, the steering feedback while not being as precise as HPS systems is miles ahead of the EPS in the WagonR/Alto (Haven't yet bothered to TD an Estilo!). I found it quite aceeptable & it does have a reasonably hefty feel to it.

Originally Posted by DCEite

I never said that Spark is better than the i10. I only said that at 1 lac cheaper price, its a better value for money.

The thing is that the Spark is already a decade old product repackaged with a new engine & a tweak here & a tweak there. Add to that GM's weird pricing policy & you never know, by Diwali you might even get it for 3L on-road!

[rks]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

To be fair, I tend to go with some of rks observations here - his Super Santro notwithstanding.

I promise you that next week you will have at least a couple of videos of my Santro doing speeds close to 150 kmph, possibly exceeding it at some stretches. Have them today, but videos didn't come out properly (speedo not clearly visible, picture is rotated by 90 degs).

Coming to the topic at hand, the i10 Kappa is definitely going to raise the bar and Hyundai's competitors will have to scramble to come up with something comparable.

@deepakvrao: The Swift and i10 have similar peak torques, but Swift is heavier. Top speeds are also similar. I think the Swift's peak figures come at higher rpm. In a 0-100 drag race you may rev the Swift to 6000+ rpm and possibly win. But in a real-life situation, the Swift will have a vary tough contest on its hands against the Kappa i10, which ought to outperform the Swift at lower rpms.