Hyundai i10 Review After 7 Months

After 7 months and 5,000 km from the day I bought my Hyundai i10 car in Egypt I have formed kind of a picture on the pros and cons of the i10 in particular as it applies to owning and driving one in Egypt.

Pros
What I love about the i10 is its small size which enables it to easily park in small spaces and make it able to successfully penetrate between closely standing cars in a narrow street through which cars with larger bodies fail.

Other things I like about the i10 is its maneuverability, general smoothness of drive and its strong breaks. The i10 simply provides you with good control as you drive.

Cons
Although the i10 is cool to drive and indeed can go fast (I've tried it up to 140 km/hour), yet still it is basically a city car. If you travel a lot or you work far from your home then you ought to aim for a larger more powerful car. The i10 is not designed for travelling or for daily long distances. Yet it could be perfect for in-city driving.

Furthermore, the i10 would drive amazingly smooth on a good read, like in the case of my trip to Ain Sokhna where the road is amazingly well constructed, yet it performs poorly on badly constructed roads which unfortunately is the case in the large part of Egypt. Going over a lot of speed bumps, road irregularities and obstructions makes the ride feel uncomfortable with the i10.

Hyundai i10 in Bahariya Oasis

Last week I've taken my i10 to the longest drive yet. The drive to Bahariya Oasis from Cairo is some 360 km (220 miles) and a bit longer when coming from east of Cairo like Nasr City as in my case.

The gas tank was not exactly full yet my i10 was able to make it all the way there till Bahariya. The tank was almost empty as I arrived for the gas station in the middle of the way to Bahariya had no gas!

I stayed two days at Bahariya Oasis then had to come back to Cairo for work but guess what, the gas stations at Bahariya had no gas! I also came to know that gas at Bahariya has an octane rating of 90 only while my i10 was only fed 92. At the end of a deep search, we managed to find someone (not a gas station, but a guy selling gas having brought it all the way from Cairo) who sold us gas. Of course he asked for a much higher price than its otherwise fixed price in Egypt.

I drove some 400 km (250 miles) back to Cairo alone and gave my i10 a 15 min break in the middle of the way (although the rest house/gas station still did not have any gas) and I too breakfasted on some dates during those 15 minutes as I had started moving from Bahariya Oasis at the crack of down.

I was driving back at a speed of 100 to 120 km/hour (62 to 75 miles/hour) with an occasional 140 km/hour (87 miles/hour). I did enjoy (most) of the ride back, specially the middle part which was after my dates breakfast and before entering Cairo at 6th of October City where I started to get lost a bit and hence the extra miles. I guess it's time to get a GPS gadget since it seems it will start to gain popularity after the Egyptian government ended its ban I guess last year or so.

I guess now I'm approaching my second maintenance mark which is the first 5000 km (3000 miles) after I've already done my first 1000 km (600 miles) maintenance.

After getting back safely, I filled my tank with some 25 liters of 92 (octane rating) gas to quench my i10's thirst for its preferred energy drink. I'm glad it made it all that way with the 90 (octane rating) gas I had bought from that guy back at Bahariya Oasis. I'm looking forward for its 5000 km maintenance now.