After only 2.5 weeks of ownership, I've clocked up 2,070 miles in my i30. I'm still very impressed with the car, but I've had a few niggles which have worried me a little.
A few times now, it hasn't run very smoothly after start up and the other evening when leaving work, I struggled to keep it running for the first 1.5 miles. It was stuttering and jumping so much, I was considering not joining the M40 for my normal drive home from work, but turn around and drive to the Leamington Spa dealership. But instead I kept the revs up, which stopped it from stalling and drove down the A46 and it was fine by the time I joined the motorway. This is about the third time now that it hasn't been smooth, but the other times weren't any near so bad, but enough to make me stall it when pulling away after starting it.
Another annoyance is that there is a rattle on the passenger side. It could be a loose clip in the door, as the speaker is terrible sometimes on that side. There's also a rattle from what sounds like the top of the dash on that side too on certain road conditions, but it could be the same noise. I really need someone else to drive, so I can sit in the passenger seat to detect where it is coming from. It does blight my music though as the bass can make a terrible rattle/buzz.
One thing that is impressive is the economy though, if you drive gently.
I have a 66 mile drive to work, from which is mostly dual carriage way and motorway. But at my end is 7 miles of track, B-roads & A-roads and a few A-roads, with traffic lights and roundabouts on route, so it's by no means as economical as motorway all the way.
Yesterday I drove home from work and forgot to fill up first (I fill up the car from the diesel tank at work), so when I got home there was only 3 bars showing on the tank gauge. I set off this morning with the dash showing 70 miles left in the tank. But of course that was before I started and of course driving on a cold engine will normally reduce this quite a bit. So I drove as economically as I could all the way, without annoying other drivers. I generally did around 60-65 on the motorway, overtaking all the lorries, but not much else. Occasionally I did do up to 80mph at times. I reset the mpg before I left.
The fuel light come on soon after leaving, so it made for a slightly nervous drive. On the M40, the gauge went from 30 miles left to "- - -" and then the single bar showing on the tank gauge started flashing. At this point, I still had about 22 miles left to go. I did it fine and then filled up at work and put 50 litres in the tank, so there was only 3 litres left
However, what is impressive is that the mpg for the whole trip (from a cold engine) was...
