Hyundai i20 hatchback - Reliability & safety
Hyundai has a good reputation for building trustworthy cars
Safety and reliability is another area where the Hyundai i20 scores strongly Hyundai is establishing a very strong reputation for reliability bolstered by its impressive 5-year warranty. On the safety front, it's a similar story and we're hoping the i20 can top the four-star safety rating of its predecessor when it's tested by Euro NCAP.
Hyundai i20 reliability
The outgoing Hyundai i20 came 68th out of the top 75 cars in our 2020 Driver Power survey, which wasn’t a bad result for a car just about to go out of production. Most impressively, just 4.2% of owners reported a fault in the first year - a lower proportion than the 17.3% of Ford Fiesta owners who had trouble of some form or another.
We’re yet to see the latest i20 appear in our Driver Power rundown, but it may be reassuring that the bigger Hyundai Kona was ranked the fourth best new car to own by our readers in 2022. Hyundai as a brand finished in 11th place out of 29 manufacturers, too.
Safety
Hyundai isn't happy to settle for a sub-standard Euro NCAP safety rating again, giving the i20 one of the longest lists of active and passive safety equipment in the industry. Called Hyundai 'SmartSense', it includes intelligent speed-limit assistance, lane-keeping assist, autonomous emergency braking and automatic high-beam activation for the headlights. Lane-follow assist is added if you step up to Premium trim, while the Ultimate version adds blind-spot monitoring and cyclist detection.
The i20 hasn’t been crash-tested yet, but it may have to put up with a four-star score if it does get tested; the Hyundai Bayon crossover, which uses many of the same parts, was awarded four stars.
