BHPian akshaysehgal recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
I recently became a proud owner of an i20 N line N8 DCT (polar white, date of delivery - 14th March 2022), and I thank the Team-BHP forum for helping me make this decision and for providing me with a platform for sharing my ownership review & experience with the car (1246 km on road as of the posting of this article). I hope this account of mine may assist, inform and entertain the car enthusiast community here.
Being my first car, I wanted to ensure that it was from a reliable brand and preferably a hatchback that I could continue using as a secondary car when the time came to buy a larger family car in the future. The options I started investigating were Baleno, i20 Asta, i20 N line, VW Polo, Tata Altroz, Tata Tiago, Kia Sonet, Venue, and Honda Jazz. The two cars that caught my eye immediately were the i20(s) and Polo. Very soon all my online car comparisons basically turned into how well a car would compare against these two. After reading a bunch of opinions on Team-BHP and watching videos on YouTube, I decided on i20 N Line. Some of the criteria that helped me make this decision were (in order):
This phase was nothing short of a roller coaster for me. I was hell-bent on finding the Red Monotone color with silver skirts. So, after promises of delivery within a month, Himgiri Hyundai in Gurgaon took my booking right after my test drive for the same color. Unfortunately, they got back to me a week later informing me that they would need to modify the booking since Red monotone was discontinued which was extremely disappointing. My next choice was white monotone as the red accents on it stand out the most, making it look sporty yet classy. So I asked them for the same, and was told that white would be available even earlier than the red one!
Sadly, after 1.5 months of barely any responses to my WhatsApp messages for updates on the car delivery and multiple missed calls to the showroom, I had given up hope of getting the car at all and started test driving other cars. Every week, I would make multiple calls to them only for them to pick up after 3 to 4 attempts and tell me that the car should be available by next week.
This is when my brother-in-law stepped in and helped me find another showroom from Faridabad (Bohra Hyundai) which claimed they could arrange the car in white within a week! Skeptical, we physically went there and gauged how trustworthy the situation was. Based on that we made another booking before canceling the previous one for the same car.
It was beyond my expectation when they told me they had arranged the car and would be able to deliver it in just 4-5 days by exchanging their i20 N Line in a different color with another dealer (which they didn’t disclose). I was very very skeptical about this at first but after a pre-inspection (following the excellent article on this on TeamBHP to the T) on the 5th day of the booking, it was delivered to me in a net 6 days after booking!
Hats off to Mohit from the Bohra Hyundai, Faridabad, sales team for being one of the most proactive and professional sales guys I have ever met, and thanks for making me feel like a valued customer! This was Bohra Hyundai’s first N-line sale as well and they were really really proactive with the updates.
The biggest pain of the process was the payment for the car since I was not taking any loan and was paying the full amount upfront within ~48 hours of time. Tip for anyone looking to do the same - NEVER use HDFC bank for large immediate transactions. The best banks to do this are SBI & ICICI as they allow up to 5 lakhs RTGS transfers within the first 24 hours of adding a beneficiary. A week after I got my car, I actually remembered to cancel my booking with Himgiri and got my full amount refunded since they promised me a Red car at the time of booking but couldn’t even deliver a different color in the promised time.
I am still experiencing new things daily as I am writing this and so I cannot provide an extremely organized compendium of facts and opinions, but for a good starting point, I will add a bunch of my experiences with the car for now and will keep updating these as time goes on.
I was careful in keeping my revs under 4k for the first 500 kms as recommended by the online owner’s manual. However, I had a scary moment the first time I tried to overtake a car. The initial delay in accelerating from 1st to 2nd gear is actually quite significant and so at lower speeds when you put your foot down, expect a massive burst of acceleration after a short delay. This issue disappears at higher gears where the car just infinitely delivers more and more power as you push the pedal down. This is reflected in the torque curve shared by Hyundai for this engine. It delivers ~120bhp at 6000 RPM but the torque curve actually continues its upwards trend even into the red line area which they chose to hide. But after a few days of driving the car, this becomes muscle memory and it's not really an issue at all. A trick I use when trying to overtake quickly is to push the paddle shifter (-) to one gear lower for overtaking and then quickly switch from D to S to D again for changing back to automatic mode immediately. I rarely use the S mode other than this (only when I need to show off!) but the audio feedback from the car, exhausts notes in particular, as well as the responsiveness of the car, are significantly improved in this mode. Will definitely try to fit the S mode more often with my regular driving going forward.
Probably the most amazing part of the car! It’s quite precise and on sharp turns, you can feel the car turning around you as the pivot, which is an amazing feeling to have. The steering is heavy, and bulky, especially with the paddle shifters which makes the digits super happy when grabbing the wheel. The turning signal has a “soft” indicator (tap it gently for 5 ticks) and a “hard” indicator which works like a standard indicator would. While turning with headlights switched on, the corresponding side light (fog light?) turns on to further illuminate the direction, which is really helpful. The rear visibility is really good, especially with the auto-dimming IRVM and adjustable ORVMs. The sensors behind the car are responsive and the rear camera is crisp & clear even at night. The rear camera view is visible on the infotainment system when you jump into R mode and stays there when you are at lower speeds even if you enter D model, which has come in handy frequently. I especially appreciate the dedicated rearview cameras button next to the headlight adjuster which helps a ton on a rainy day.
The one thing I have fallen in love with even more than the acceleration, after driving the car for some time now, is the disc brakes on all 4 wheels. The confidence I have with the car at higher speeds actually shows. Once you get a hang of it, you can bring a car to stop extremely quickly without even the slightest jerk. The biggest disappointment here was the fact that they painted only the front ones red. I am planning to rectify this aftermarket and would love to hear from some experienced BHPians for some guidance. I have not changed the factory CEAT Securadrive tires for something else as a lot of folks told me they were actually pretty decent types already. I plan to use these for now and later replace them.
There is a lot to cover here but I will give some of the important ones a quick overview (in order):
A couple of days back I met the owner of a highly modded VW Polo GT who aptly made the comment - “Sare major mods toh already factory se hi lag kar aaye hain” (Some of the major mods already come default from the factory). So, I have not done a lot with the car right now. Below is the list of the minor accessories/mods that I have already installed, ordered, or planning to get in the coming weeks -
A quick note on the authentic N Line accessories. They were even more difficult to get than the car itself in my personal experience. I got most of them after around 1.5 months of placing the order, but it was worth it. I was skeptical about the Red N Line 7D mats based on the photos I saw, but they are absolutely amazing in person and the Hyundai photos don’t do justice to them. I compared them physically in the showroom side by side with the i20 Black/Grey 7D mats and preferred the N Line ones immediately.
Since the car is mostly black inside (including the roof) with red accents, anything added to the car really brings color to the interior. I am a minimalist and this falls right up my alley.
On the day of posting this article, I just completed a weekend trip from Delhi to Agra and back (via Yamuna expressway) completing a total of 1246 km and now my car is due for its first free servicing. It was an amazing trip and I am so glad I crossed the 1000 km milestone for the car on an amazing road like that, cruising at 100 kmph.
The car is extremely fun to drive, gives you a ton of confidence at high speeds, and is smooth yet a road monster when you need it to be. It looks amazing and feels premium, for the most part, reminding you of its more powerful distant cousins from Europe. It’s rare, exotic, and brings a smile to my face each time I am behind the wheel. Doesn't matter which parking lot it stands in, it always seems to stand out!
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