Hyundai Kona 2017 Review

The Hyundai Kona compact SUV will raise eyebrows. If the polarising design doesn't whack you in the noggin like a snap-frozen cauliflower, the standard features list will.

Priced from $24,500 to $36,000, all models come with petrol engines and automatic transmissions, reversing cameras, touchscreen infotainment, LED driving lights and loads of safety and convenience tech. It drives well, has been tuned for Aussie roads and there's a five-year warranty. Should its rivals be worried? Ooooh yeah.

Cut from a different cloth
When you think of fun car brands, which ones spring to mind?

Still thinking? Me too.

MINI has managed to do things moderately differently to most but generally speaking there's more conservatism in modern vehicle design than you'll find in Tony Abbotts' latest novella: "Hippies Must Die".

Hyundai is one of the most conservative car brands out there. Or at least it was until the Kona came along. Kevin Kang, one of the designers of the vehicle who works out of Hyundai's Californian studios, says the brief was to shake things up.

Mission accomplished!

The Hyundai Kona represents a paradigm shift from the brand, evidenced by an exterior design that is nothing like any of its other vehicles. It's a risky strategy but it could just work, because the Kona is still an easy vehicle to drive and chock-a-block with features, yet turns its back on Hyundai's current design ethos that has influenced cars like the popular i30 and Tucson.

Pricing starts at $27k drive away. There are nine exterior colours to choose from, from regular to tawdry. You can choose contrasting roof colours ($295) in black or grey, a first for Hyundai, and the cabin can be customised with bright yellow or red seat belts, seat stitching and various cabin accents.

Whether Hyundai has nailed the brief is still out to jury, but this newfound creativity is intriguing.

>> Hyundai Kona price, equipment, models

The plan may backfire and instead of generating genuine interest among millennials, the car will probably go gangbusters with Baby Boomers who spent a little too long at Woodstock. Hyundai reckons more than 60 per cent of customers will be female, too.

In any case, the Hyundai Kona is a good vehicle. It'll do almost 700km to the tank and Hyundai rarely rolls out stinkers these days. There’s little doubt demand for the baby SUV will outstrip supply – at least initially – because it represents strong value for money and is almost as fun to drive as it looks.

On and off the road
The Kona is a surprisingly well-rounded vehicle to drive. Based on similar underpinnings to the impressive new i30 it offers responsive steering and a smooth, easy-going powertrain. There are two engines, a fast one and a slow one, and two gearboxes.

We drove the Kona first through Canberra's morning traffic where even the cheapest, least fancy model showed a clean pair of heels. Then we hit the freeway where cruise control – standard on all models – and the same excellent steering wheel controls as the i30 made short work of the open road. The stereo isn't bad either, and setting up Bluetooth tunes is a cake walk.

The view of the road is good thanks to the raised ride height (170mm) and before long we've found some impressively tight and challenging corners, which the Kona dispatches with surprising ease.

To this tester’s delight, the suspension tune unique to Australian models gives the Kona a bit of dynamic resolve. It sits flat through corners and on well-maintained roads feels surprisingly tenacious.

The counter argument to this happy handling happenstance is the Hyundai Kona feels too firm at times. It's not a deal-breaker but ride comfort suffers a bit, with a tendency to bang pretty hard on bigger pot holes. All in all, it isn’t as well balanced as the i30 small car.

As we headed towards Gundaroo the sealed roads made way for gravel roads, where it’s clear Hyundai hasn't created just another city slicker. Part of the Aussie suspension calibration was to ensure that it wouldn't drop its duds on dirt and the end result feels predictable and assured on unsealed roads.

The electronic stability control does a remarkable job on the dirt, so much so that the extra expense ($3000-$3500) and weight (124kg) of the all-wheel drive system almost isn’t worth it. Indeed, the front-drive Kona is a good unit - the only problem is if you want the more refined, more powerful turbo engine you have to shell out for the AWD model.

Petrol-only powerplants
The chassis feels well sorted and would certainly lend itself to a high-performance "Kona N" model (just call it KonaN already!) but as it stands the two engines on offer deliver adequate propulsion.

The more affordable 2.0-litre non-turbo petrol engine comes in front-wheel drive only and produces enough mumbo to keep things interesting: 110kW… although torque of 180Nm is a bit average for an engine of this size. It also gets pretty noisy and thrashy above 4000rpm, but the six-speed auto is a charmer.

The 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine has more gristle – 130kW and 265Nm – more refinement and better fuel economy, 6.7L/100km versus 7.2L/100km. Together with a slightly more responsive dual-clutch automatic transmission – seven-speed instead of six – it can be hustled along at a surprisingly good clip.

Compared to the Toyota C-HR's 1.2-litre turbo-petrol and CVT setup, the turbo Kona is streets ahead. I am lamenting the lack the radar-based cruise control on top-end models for those lazy, languid, long-distance drives, but I reckon Toyota is going to face an uphill battle fending off the Kona.

Pros and cons for Kona
As the first compact SUV from Korean car giant Hyundai, the Kona measures just 4165mm long. Parking is a cinch, though all models come standard with a reversing camera and reverse parking sensors, just in case.

Front seat passengers will find comfortable seats, both with entry-level cloth or up-spec leather-accented upholstery. The interior design has a touch of flair – not as jazzy as the exterior but very easy on the eye with a clear and easy to use 7.0-inch touchscreen system.

The back seat is pretty tight for leg room – although not as squeezy as its similarly-sized direct rival, the Mazda CX-3.

Boot space is okay at 361 litres, opening to 1143 litres with the back seats folded down, just enough for a mountain bike with its front wheel removed. The roof racks can be loaded with 80kg of mass, so skis, extra bikes and surfboards will work.

Adventurous types won't be too stoked to find out there's no in-built sat nav. Anywhere. On any model.

If you want maps, you'll have to plug in your phone and sync up with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, using Google/Apple Maps. This is easy to do and works well with spoken and visual directions… until you run out of phone reception. That's where a GPS sat-nav system is sometimes more effective.

There's only one USB port up front – two would have been better – but there are 12V sockets so you could get USB adaptors.

Autonomous emergency braking (AEB) is only standard on two of three model grades. You'll have to pay $1500 to get AEB on the entry-level Kona Active, which works at up to 80km/h. All Toyota C-HR models, in comparison, get AEB and radar cruise control, the latter not offered at all on the Kona.

But where the Hyundai trumps its Mazda and Toyota competitors is in the warranty department. The Kona has a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty and its capped-price servicing intervals are pretty good too: 12-months or 15,000km, with four out of five first services pegged at less than $300 each.

So it's a banger, then?
The Kona may be late to the compact SUV party, but Hyundai has done its homework and makes a strong first impression. Sure, there are a few chinks in its armour but overall this Korean-built baby SUV is easy to appreciate. Yeah, it's a banger.

The entry-level model made me smile, from its in-depth and intuitive trip computer to the leather steering wheel and gear shifter. Even the door plastics feel slightly higher quality than most, thanks to unique textural finish. Alloy wheels, tyre pressure monitoring and light-sensing headlights are standard on all models too.

It's the little touches like these that elevate the Kona from just another compact SUV built to a price, to something much more enticing. Hyundai hasn't reinvented the wheel here, but it's had a red hot go redesigning it.