Faults:

Trip computer and fuel gauge reset along with cruise control.

Near side rear seat rattles due to ill fitting catch

General Comments:

The latest generation of i10 has been praised in the press as being much more grown up than previous models. For a mid spec car it has a generous level of equipment backed up by the five year warranty. My previous i10 had a few niggles which were all taken care of without fuss by the dealer.

Some people think the 1 litre is underpowered for motorway journeys, but having done several 500 mile round trips across the UK, it suits my style of driving well. It'll happily sit at 70 mph with cruise control on, and even with air con deployed, will give over 50 MPG. Around town it's not so fuel efficient, but if you try hard it'll almost reach 50 MPG.

It's a lot quieter than the previous model. The fit and finish is also more 'upmarket'. That's why you get very little in the way of discount with the dealers, as they know that five year warranty marks it hard to haggle.

All in all, a nice runabout for us savvy motorists.

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

I bought this to save on fuel costs, as my last car, a 2.8T V6 Vauxhall Signum, was killing me on fuel costs! After the culture shock of going down to a city car, I really started to enjoy driving this little i10.

I got a deal on it, which meant I got it for £6995 brand new and managed to get bluetooth fitted to it free of charge as well. Pretty basic little car, but it had A/C, central locking and a stereo you could play your iPod through. After owning it a while, I had cruise control retro fitted as well, which to be honest made it quite a relaxed little cruiser, as the gearing is quite long on these.

Performance was actually OK; the quoted 0 to 62 is 12 secs, but I read one magazine road test that got it to do 10.9 to 60, which with its weight and 85 HP is probably not far off. It has a very punchy, revvy and smooth variable valve timed little engine that they also use in the i20 and new shape i10.

Handling wasn't too bad either for its height and width; positive steering feel, ride not bad for its wheelbase, although obviously it did roll a fair bit and grip became limited in the wet due to tyre width. I put winter tyres on it, and in heavy snowfall it did really well, and never struggled.

Cabin space is good, tons of head room, and even rear knee room is not too bad as rear passengers sit so upright. The boot space is again OK for the size of car, one of the bigger boots in its class. Even used it as an emergency car once rather than our estate to get our Great Dane to the vets as my wife was off in the estate car!! And, yes... she did fit in the boot... just, although down the road is about as far as I would've wanted to take her, and she cracked the plastic boot floor cover!!

Overall a very good value little car, well built, economical, cheap to run. If you need a cheap little car that doesn't go too badly, then get one. The new shape is way more money!!

Unfortunately I'm back to the quick stuff again after I got owning an econo car out of my system... now have a remapped 300HP Mazda3 MPS... just a little bit different!!