Ok, so I hit 60,000 kilometres in my SR yesterday 3 days shy of her 2nd birthday. I thought it might be a good opportunity to do a short summary of that 2 years.
Firstly bit of background...
Our 1st i30 was a Moonlight blue Manual 2008 FD Manual SLX which we had for roughly 2 years and did similar mileage I think. At the time it was without doubt the best car I'd owned in my first 30 odd years of driving. Just loved the torque and barely had an issue with it. Don't think I made a warranty claim but the tailgate did occasionally refuse to unlock, so I would have had to eventually if I hadn't traded her in on a Camry Hybrid.
Around the same time, feeling guilty we didn't have an i30, I traded the wife's Nissan Tiida in on a 2010 (MY11) Manual 2.0 SX Petrol CW. She loved that car as much as I loved the CRDi.
Roll on another 4 years and I "upgraded" her to a 2014 Manual 1.6 Petrol GDe Active Tourer. Now although she liked the styling and fuel economy of the tourer she always missed the zippiness (particularly around town) of the 2.0 Litre CW. Recently after approximately four and a half years we traded it on a 1.6 Turbo AWD Kona which she is really enjoying.
Anyway, after 2 Camry Hybrids (2010 and 2012) and a 2014 Holden Calais V, I purchased this SR on 29th June 2017. It not the Premium, only the standard SR with DCT.
So, as you can see from the Mileage it has been well used! Of those 60,000 kilometres over 17,000 have been done on the Mainland of Australia including two 5000+ kilometre drives From Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast, a 4000+ Loop to Adelaide and as far east as Gippsland. Also did around 2500 Kilometre drive up over mount Hotham in Victoria.
For those that enjoy the Torque of the CRDi motor the 1.6 Turbo petrol is just as addictive with a smoother more refined (less vibration through the wheel) action and a nice raspy exhaust note under acceleration (more noticeable if you replace the air filter with a K & N one)
Talking of K & N filters. I felt a slight performance gain when I switched filters fairly early on. I also believe the filter improves fuel economy by a very small amount. Roughly .1 L/100 kms. For the majority of the time I had the K & N filter in the SR averaged around 7.2 L/100 kms overall (by the Trip PC*) since I cleaned the filter up and switched it to the wife's Kona** my average over the last 1000 kilometres has hovered between 7.3 and 7.4 L/100 kms.
* I have found the trip PC about .2 L/100 kms optimistic when compared to manual calculations.
** Have traded my SR so swapped back to a standard filter.
With regards to issues with the SR, I've had no hint of the warm start issue (touch wood) and so the only warranty work done has been a couple of resets of the BSD (blind spot monitoring) software.
Replaced the tyres at around 43,500 kms with Michelin Pilot Sport 4's which I've reviewed on here (positively and negatively)
In summary, the SR has done a brilliant job of replacing our awesome previous car (Calais V) really only missing the extra boot space of the Holden although have still been able to do our big road trips without folding the back seats down to accommodate copious amounts of luggage.
Criticisms? For our big road trips a bit larger, softer riding and slightly quieter car would be nicer. Hence the decision to trade her on a Toyota Camry Accent Hybrid Sport which is still at least 2 months away.
It's a great testament to the SR that I'm coping reasonably well with the wait as patience isn't one of my virtues. Like I said to the Toyota Salesman and a few others lately. I'm not exactly slumming it!
