2022 Hyundai I30 vs Kia Cerato

What's the difference?

The Sedan N is another win for Hyundai’s N division, which has hit it out of the park for performance offerings in the last year.

A cheeky track champ with all the creature comforts and adjustability to make the drive home a pleasant one. Where the sedan sets itself apart from its hatchback and Kona SUV siblings is its practicality with the large back seat and boot. 

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

Kia has value and packaging on its side with the sleek and spunky Cerato GT sedan. There’s no shortage of standard gear, it comes with the latest multimedia and safety gear and the cabin and cargo area are spacious and practical.

The powertrain is a winner too. Which is why it’s such a shame that it’s let down so badly by the ride quality.

If you’re going to be driving on various road surfaces, or regularly driving long distance, check out the far more compliant Hyundai i30 N-Line instead.

But if you’ll only ever drive in urban areas – or enjoy the occasional back-road blast – and you can handle the firm ride, there’s still plenty to like about the Cerato GT.

I wasn’t convinced by the i30 sedan’s edgy new look when it moved in to replace the Elantra, but I think this N version sells the design by balancing out all of its otherwise unresolved corners.

It starts at the front with the aggressive bumper treatment. The new grille reaches out to the edges of the car finished in a contrasting black plastic, accentuating the width and newfound low-profile of the N variant. This leads your eyes to the grey and red highlight strip running across the frame of the car, again accentuating its low profile and sharp edges.

To me, though, this car’s best angle is now the rear. Otherwise awkward on the standard range, the leading beltline from the doors is now balanced out nicely with a real spoiler finished in a contrasting black. I say ‘real spoiler’ because this is a functional piece, standing apart from the body, and not just a detail lip as has been the trend on even high-performance models in the last few years.

The light profile looks angry, and nicely balances the sharp line running across the boot. Again, width is accentuated with the contrasting black rear bumper, which draws your eyes to the chunky exhaust finishes, and alloys which really fill those rear wheelarches. It’s tough, cool, interesting. Complements I wouldn’t normally level at the lower grades of this car.

Inside trades away the more analogue and symmetrical feel of the hatch for a more driver-centric and techy, post-modern vibe. The single cladding piece for the dash and multimedia functions angles toward the driver, and there’s even a plastic piece of cladding which divides the passenger from the centre console. It’s a bit odd and finished in a hard plastic, is hardly great for the passenger’s knee, especially during the kind of spirited driving this car encourages.

While the design is engaging for the driver, there are some areas where you can see this car is built to a specific price point, and one which is clearly below that of its Golf GTI rival. Hard plastic trims adorn the doors and centre divider, as well as much of the dash. Things are worse still in the back seat, where hard plastics are found on the backs of the front seats, and the soft trims have been left out of the elbow rests on the rear doors.

At least the seats with the signature ‘Performance Blue’ stitching and N logos finished in a microsuede look and feel the part.

When the fourth-gen Cerato sedan was revealed in US-market Kia Forte guise at the 2018 Detroit motor show, the design was praised for taking inspiration from the sleek Stinger performance sedan.

The facelift has arrived at just the right time to keep the Cerato fresh against the dominant Toyota Corolla, Mazda3 and new Volkswagen Golf.

The sharpened front-end styling features an eye-catching daytime running light signature and the headlights now connect with the redesigned, slimline Kia ‘tiger-nose’ grille in gloss black.

It’s a subtle, yet successful design refresh.

Inside, the Cerato is starting to look its age against rivals like the Golf and Mazda3. Those GT themed additions definitely lift the ambience of the cabin, but the dash layout feels a bit generic and the overall interior design is nothing flash. Especially when you consider the interior of some of Kia’s latest models, like the impressive Sportage medium SUV.

Practicality is mostly great, owing to the Sedan N’s shape and generous dimensions. The front seat feels a little more closed in compared to the hatch thanks to its driver-centric design, and the bottle holders in the door, with the lower profile of the armrest, are near-useless for anything bigger than a standard can.

There are two huge bottle holders in the centre console, though, as well as a decently-sized armrest box, and a helpful cutaway under the climate unit for loose objects or for charging your phone. Interestingly, there’s no USB-C connectivity in the Sedan N, a feature which is notably left off of most modern Hyundai products. 

What I do like about the front seat is the positioning of the shifter, which auto or manual, is brilliant, and the adjustability granted to the driver is great for the steering and seats. It’s only a shame the sedan is unable to be equipped with the lower-set and nicely cladded cloth bucket seats available in the hatch.

The biggest practicality wins for the Sedan N are found elsewhere. The back seat offers gratuitous space for someone my 182cm height, set behind my own driving position, and headroom is passable, too, despite that sloping roof. The nice seats are there, but storage is limited, with only a small bottle holder in the door, a single net on the back of the front passenger seat, and no drop-down armrest in the centre.

Rear seat passengers score a set of adjustable air vents – rare for cars in this class, although there are no power outlets for rear passengers.

The boot is an enormous 464 litres (VDA) rivalling some mid-size SUVs, let alone this car’s hatch rivals. Even the three-box WRX falls a little short with 450L. Like the WRX, though, the loading aperture is limited, so while you have plenty of room, loading unwieldy objects like chairs is best left to the hatchback.

As mentioned, the red stitching throughout, chunky steering wheel and sports seats are welcome additions to the GT cabin.

There are soft-touch materials on the top of the dash but hard plastics on the dash fascia. 

There’s no fully digital instrument cluster, but it has a 4.2-inch LCD display in the cluster showing fuel economy and the like. No complaints with the analogue dials and there’s a digital speedo if required.

The update ushered in Kia’s latest multimedia system to the Cerato and it’s a winner thanks to cool graphics, logical menus and its ease of use.

There’s quite a sizable central storage bin and glovebox, while the console houses a key slot, two sizeable cupholders and a second spot for devices adjacent to the charging pad.

The front sports seats look sexy, have excellent side and body bolstering and they’re firm, but comfortable.

A 600mL bottle will just fit into the doors, bit it’s tight.

Sitting behind my six-foot (182cm) frame in the rear, legroom is adequate but toe room is tight. My head was about an inch away from the headliner due to the sloping roofline. The rear seats are also firm.

The Cerato has lower rear air vents, one USB-C port, a map pocket on the passenger side, a central rear armrest with two cupholders, and bottles slot into the doors easier than they do up front.

Kia offers a temporary spare wheel housed under the boot floor. The boot is long, offering an impressive 502 litres (VDA) of cargo space, which is more than other small sedans like the Subaru Impreza (460L VDA) and the Hyundai i30 (474L VDA).

Lower the rear 60/40 seats via the levers in the boot and that space increases further, but they don’t fold completely flat.

The GT is priced at $35,290 before on-road costs regardless of whether you opt for the four-door sedan (as tested here) or the five-door hatchback, though be aware that Kia Australia regularly runs drive-away pricing campaigns.

There’s not a lot of competition in the warmed-up small car market these days. A number of carmakers have slimmed down their small-car line-ups in the face of falling sales.

Kia’s closest rival is also its mechanical sibling, the Hyundai i30 N-Line sedan and hatch. The Hyundai is cheaper by more than $2500, but the more generously equipped i30 N-Line Premium sedan is a little over $2000 more expensive than the Cerato GT.

The Mazda3 GT sedan and hatch could also be considered a rival and pricing is about on par with the Kia.

Other lower grades in the Cerato range run from $25,490 to $30,640 (MSRP).

The GT benefits from the more premium powertrain offering in the Cerato line-up – the 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine shared with the i30 N-Line and the recently discontinued Veloster Turbo.

The GT bodykit adds sporty styling flourishes like a black front and rear diffuser, boot spoiler, dual exhaust, black external mirror caps, red highlights and 18-inch GT alloy wheels. 

This theme carries through to the cabin too with features like alloy sports pedals, flat-bottom perforated leather sports steering wheel and leather-appointed seats with red stitching and embossed GT logo.

As the range flagship, the GT also has the most standard equipment. It comes with a sunroof, eight-way power driver’s seat, wireless device charging, an eight-speaker JBL premium sound system, heated and ventilated front seats and dual-zone climate control air conditioning.

The only option fitted to the test car was Snow White Pearl premium paint for $520.

Hyundai’s well-regarded 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine appears once again in the Sedan N, with identical outputs to the hatch at 206kW/392Nm. It outpunches its direct rivals, although there is another performance tier above this now occupied by the likes of the Golf R.

This engine sounds and feels good, with plenty of low-end torque, and what Hyundai calls a ‘flat power tune’ which allows peak torque to hang around from 2100 – 4700rpm as the power gradually rises through the rest of the rpm range.

It combines nicely with either the freshly tweaked six-speed manual, or the new eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which is a world apart from the seven-speed unit used elsewhere in Hyundai’s range.

This automatic even features a smart roll-on feature to iron out the worst dual-clutch characteristics, like hesitant response and low-speed jerkiness in traffic.

The i30 Sedan N can sprint from 0-100km/h in 5.3 seconds when equipped with the dual-clutch or 5.8 seconds with the manual.

While all other Cerato grades use a 112kW/192Nm 2.0-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine, the GT benefits from a spicier powertrain.

Under the bonnet is the Hyundai Group 1.6-litre T-GDI four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine delivering 150kW of power at 6000rpm and 265Nm of torque at 1500-4500rpm. This is the same tune as the Hyundai i30 N-Line.

This is paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission that drives the front wheels. Lower grades use a six-speed torque converter auto. Kia dropped the manual from the S and Sport grades as part of the update.

The GT differs from the rest of the Cerato range as it has multi-link rear suspension, instead of a torsion beam setup. Both the suspension and steering have been tuned for dynamic driving. More on that later.

Regardless of transmission choice, the i30 Sedan N wears a claimed combined cycle fuel consumption figure of 8.2L/100km. This sounds about right to us, but we’re unable to bring you a real-world figure from this launch review as we drove a variety of cars in a variety of conditions.

Like all N products with this engine, the Sedan N requires mid-shelf 95RON unleaded fuel. It has a 47-litre tank.

According to Kia, the Cerato GT sedan uses 6.9 litres of fuel per 100km on the combined cycle. The GT hatch uses 0.1L less.

After a week of mixed driving in the Cerato GT, we recorded a combined fuel consumption figure of 9.0L/100km – a fair bit more than Kia’s claim.

The GT emits 157g/km of CO2 (official combined).

The Sedan N immediately impresses, with the key elements which made the hatch so alluring front and centre. The interior layout, and immediate engine response and aural atmosphere let you know you’re in for an enjoyable drive immediately.

Obviously, this car is quick in a straight line, but both transmissions make applying that force to the ground a breeze. So too, do the new Michelin tyres, which work alongside that brilliant differential to make cornering stupid amounts of fun.

I wouldn’t call it scalpel precision, as you can feel the electromechanical magic at work trying to harness understeer, as well as a deal of play from the rear, but that’s perhaps what grants these N cars their greatest attribute, they’re cheeky.

The ESC and diff work together with the computerised drive modes to let you have a bit of fun and slip this car about on track, whilst also reining it in before it gets really unsafe. The exhaust, too, is loud, but only obnoxious in Sport mode, complete with the snap-crackle-pop on shifts which the original N hatch became known for.

The steering is packed full of feel regardless of the drive mode you choose. I’m not sure why it’s so great on these N models, because it’s overly computer-assisted elsewhere (as on the new Tucson, for example). While Sport mode firms things up, I never had the feeling in the sedan that it was just a computer pushing back against me.

The transmission, with its roll-on feature and slick shifts, might not be quite as lighting fast as something from the VW Group, but it’s fantastic to use in a wider array of scenarios, and this is another area where I think this sedan specifically shines.

The depth of its drive modes are also impressive. With the adjustable steering, suspension, and transmission, it can be sedate enough to make an every-day commutes pleasant, while letting you turn enough safeguards off to make the occasional track day a hoot. Isn’t that what it should all be about for a car like this?

The 1.6-litre turbo engine is a ripper and it’s been put to good use in Hyundai’s i30 N-Line and Veloster Turbo.

It’s just as willing and responsive under the bonnet of the Cerato GT, but they each perform quite differently.

Accelerating from a standing start, there’s mild turbo lag in the Cerato, and some torque steer when accelerating hard.

Once up and running it’s quick, and the seven-speed dual clutch snaps through the gears smoothly while still allowing it to rev freely.

It’s the type of powertrain that is utterly unbothered by things like steep ascents. The Cerato GT just keeps pushing on, without losing momentum.

The downside of that is that the engine is super noisy when pushed and the Kia just doesn’t have sufficient noise suppression materials to counter that. Because of this, it lacks the refinement of its i30 N-Line cousin and the Mazda3.

Steering is weighted on the heavier side but it’s direct and the car goes where you point it.

Like many Kia models, the Cerato GT benefits from an Australian-specific steering and suspension tune. Kia doesn’t have a full performance hot hatch to line up with the i30 N, but the engineers seem to have tuned the suspension to be just as capable as the full-fat i30 N.

That certainly aids dynamic driving in the Cerato GT. It hugs corners and grips the road, avoiding any skipping and with only a hint of body roll.

However, we think Kia’s engineers have made the damper settings too firm, because the Cerato GT’s ride is harsh in virtually all driving environments.

A new, freshly laid road surface in an urban area without any speed bumps was the only time the ride was comfortable during our week with the car.

It crashes over potholes and it’s loud and jarring when you unexpectedly encounter a sharp rut. There’s a bit of vibration through the steering wheel too.

This is disappointing, especially when you consider that the i30 N-Line has a much more supple ride and is the sort of warmed-up hatch or sedan you could easily live with day to day.

We briefly drove the i30 N hot hatch just before we got into the Cerato GT and even that has a more tolerable ride quality than the Kia.

The Cerato GT achieved a five-star ANCAP crash safety rating in 2019 and it applies to all Cerato variants built after June 2021, except the S and Sport which have four stars because the autonomous emergency braking system offered as standard in those grades can’t detect vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists.

Standard safety for the GT includes auto emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian and cyclist detection, forward collision warning, rear occupant alert, driver attention assist, rear cross-traffic alert with collision avoidance, blind spot detection and collision avoidance assist, adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist with lane follow assist steering, safe exit warning, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera.

At one point, the AEB kicked in pulling out of a parallel street parking spot because it detected a vehicle that had already driven past the car and was several metres ahead.

Kia’s lane keep assist system is generally impressive and functions without issue, but it pulls on the wheel a little. It’s not jolty like systems offered by some other brands.

When lane keep and follow assist are active, it can be fiddly to switch them both off. If you hold the steering wheel-mounted button down, the follow assist stays on but the lane keeping deactivates, so you just have to keep holding the button down until the lane and steering wheel icons in the digital display eventually disappear.

The i30 Sedan N is covered by Hyundai’s standard five year and unlimited kilometre warranty. Why such a high score when Kia’s related Cerato sedan is covered by seven years? Two main reasons. First, the servicing during that five-year warranty period is ridiculously cheap for a performance car, coming in at just $335 a year. Second, Hyundai even allows you to drive this car on the track at non-timed events, change the wheels and tyres, all while keeping the warranty intact (within reason). 

Obviously, we’d encourage you to read the fine-print before going ahead, but simply the act of not outright excluding any track use is outstanding in our books.

The Cerato, like all Kia models, is offered with a seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, and one-year free roadside assist which extends year by year if you service with Kia (up to eight years).

It also comes with a seven-year capped-price servicing plan that costs approximately $3234 over the seven-year period.

Servicing intervals for the Cerato GT are every year or 10,000km, whichever comes first.