[Dazzler]

A reputable Hyundai Salesman I was talking to today in Launceston reckons the new i30 release in Australia has been pushed back from March to the middle of the year (I suspected as much) 

Not only have they released a new colour (for Australia) Metallic Dark Blue as per this Diesel in the showroom..



but also, he has heard they are going to throw another batch of Trophy models with the Charcoal alloys, Spoiler and Cruise into the showrooms to fill the gap. 

[Doggie 1]

Interesting Dazz.
Morley Hyundai have an SLX diesel auto i30 for $26990 drive away at the moment as a part of the run out.
JH told me the second quarter for the release of the new one.
And a friend of mine lives a few doors away fom a Hyundai dealer principal and he tells me that the dealer principal is currently driving a new-shape i30.
I questioned if he could have made a mistake but he swears not, and also said that the person he house-shares with went down to get some photos of it.

[2i30s]

can you get some spy pics Dave? 

[Doggie 1]

I will try.
The Hyundai head office isn't too far away either and they sometimes have cars ahead of time.
I know they did with the i45 quite a while before it was released and also the i20, so I will check that out too.

[Dazzler]

Could be a supply issue?. Weird to introduce a new colour this close to model changeover 

[Doggie 1]

Could be a supply issue?. Weird to introduce a new colour this close to model changeover 

Yes & no.
I can see them doing that if it is going to be a colour in the new range.
I've seen other manufacturers do that, introduce some features later in a model run that are going to be included in the forthcoming model.

[nifty]

When the new i30 is released in Australia, it will be interesting to see if the published fuel consumption figures are the same as those on UK Hyundai site. I think those figures, showing the very large economy penalty of the automatic transmission, are surprising. Here, for the 1.6CDRi 110PS engine, they are (in l/100km):

Extra urban: manual 3.6, auto 4.5 - the auto uses 25% more fuel.
Urban: manual 4.2, auto 7.2 - the auto uses 71% more fuel.

Contrast these with the figures for the i40 (with the 1.7CDRi 139PS engine but I assume the same manual and auto transmissions as the i30) from the same web site :

Extra urban: manual 4.6, auto 5.1 - the auto uses 11% more fuel.
Urban: manual 5.9, auto 7.6 - the auto uses 29% more fuel.

What do these figure tell us?
1. We can expect the fuel penalty for an auto to be about 10% in the country and about 30% in the city (these are the rounded i40 figures).
2. The published auto fuel penalty for the i30 (25% in the country and 70% in the city) are simply not credible. Unless, of course, we accept that Hyundai would go to production with such a poorly performing auto drivetrain (or perhaps with badly setup engine and transmission control units). I don't accept that they would do that.

[Phil №❶]

@nifty

Our I30 fuel figures are still on the car from new ADR 81/02  7.9 Urban 4.9 Extra 6.0 Avg. Aito trans. We've never got close to the 4.9 figure as it is only theoretical due to testing on rollers & no wind factor etc. Our car does mainly short trips, shopping most days with freeway driving occasionally to the city @ 80-100 kph which tends to even things out. The variation is not that surprising to me as city driving will inevitably result in fuel consumption whilst not moving at all and then acceleration from 0-60 k's repeatedly. It takes much more energy to overcome inertia than to simply maintain inertia, so those figures seem ok.

I'd like some explanation as to the variation between the two models as you have pointed out though.