After much hand wringing and teeth gnashing, I've finally gotten my car - a Shadow Grey MY20 i30N delivered in 2020 (pictures at the end of this post)! I'm posting this here, because I didnt want to clutter up the other thread
I received it on the 29th, got told that I shouldnt go over 3k RPM and then had to face a daunting challenge the next day of driving to Marysville, through the Black Spur, for a quick 3 night stay at the Vibe hotel for NY. After 8 passes through said road, this car is so much goddamn fun.
I got 2 empty runs through the Spur, one during the afternoon/early evening (heading to dinner in Healesville) and one at night (heading back to the hotel in Marysville) - I did push a bit on the afternoon run and got a pretty reasonable sense of the car (without speeding, mind you), without going over 3k RPM - an incredibly hard struggle, I'll happily admit to.
Anyway, my observations are:
1) The road noise those Pirellis put out is utterly nuts - but I am looking at new wheels in the next 6 months, so I'll address that then. Performance isn't a worry though
2) 5th gear is rather notchy, which is a touch frustrating
3) The stereo system is, bluntly, rubbish
4) That front end is incredibly reliable - I'm wondering what I'll need to do to upset it and make it break away
5) My previous car was, dont laugh here, a '95 Maxima* - the i30N is quick, but uses so much less fuel (I got 540km out of most of the tank, I think I filled up around 37 litres on the way back) - something I wasnt quite expecting, and something that will oddly save me money over the next 12 months (looking at the last 12-18 months)
6) The biggest thing that caught me off guard, was the additional illumination when turning corners - I was genuinely surprised by that and really did like it on my night run back to the hotel
I only went past 3k RPM twice (once at just under 4k RPM, but that was due to a oh-shit moment of trying to get out of the way of traffic, the other was a down change into 2nd and hitting 3500rpm), which I'm happy about - I've also clocked up 600km towards my break in (shifting repeatedly through 4th, 5th and 6th to not remain in any one engine speed for longer than 5 mins).
My questions for the rest of the community:
1) Not so much a question, but I passed someone (opposite lane) in a Blue i30N on the 30th of December, heading to Marysville - if you're on these forums and read this, hello. For a moment there, you made me regret not buying the sunroof
2) Generally, for day to day driving, what are people getting for fuel economy?
3) Has anyone got any suggestions on who to go to for an audio upgrade in Melbourne? Ideally someone who can make it look as factory as possible
4) Do we get automatic high beams in AU? I dont think so, but want to make sure I'm not screwing something up
5) Does everyone drive in N-Custom mode all the time?
In any event, its hard not to love this car - I briefly drove a lot of its competitors and this little trip away reaffirmed to me that I made the right decision. Though, watching a pair of Yaris GRs zoom by did leave me a touch jealous
Note:
* - I wasnt driving much, so I never saw a need to replace it. Eventually it became a case of not driving it much, when suddenly I did need to be more mobile, because I started to get worried around the reliability of it (that motor + gearbox was super strong, however the rest of the running gear left me very worried about any >100km trips). Unrelated, the i30N is dimensionally very similar in width to the Maxima which surprised me - I forget those era cars are so much smaller compared to now
Pictures:
I received it on the 29th, got told that I shouldnt go over 3k RPM and then had to face a daunting challenge the next day of driving to Marysville, through the Black Spur, for a quick 3 night stay at the Vibe hotel for NY. After 8 passes through said road, this car is so much goddamn fun.
I got 2 empty runs through the Spur, one during the afternoon/early evening (heading to dinner in Healesville) and one at night (heading back to the hotel in Marysville) - I did push a bit on the afternoon run and got a pretty reasonable sense of the car (without speeding, mind you), without going over 3k RPM - an incredibly hard struggle, I'll happily admit to.
Anyway, my observations are:
1) The road noise those Pirellis put out is utterly nuts - but I am looking at new wheels in the next 6 months, so I'll address that then. Performance isn't a worry though
2) 5th gear is rather notchy, which is a touch frustrating
3) The stereo system is, bluntly, rubbish
4) That front end is incredibly reliable - I'm wondering what I'll need to do to upset it and make it break away
5) My previous car was, dont laugh here, a '95 Maxima* - the i30N is quick, but uses so much less fuel (I got 540km out of most of the tank, I think I filled up around 37 litres on the way back) - something I wasnt quite expecting, and something that will oddly save me money over the next 12 months (looking at the last 12-18 months)
6) The biggest thing that caught me off guard, was the additional illumination when turning corners - I was genuinely surprised by that and really did like it on my night run back to the hotel
I only went past 3k RPM twice (once at just under 4k RPM, but that was due to a oh-shit moment of trying to get out of the way of traffic, the other was a down change into 2nd and hitting 3500rpm), which I'm happy about - I've also clocked up 600km towards my break in (shifting repeatedly through 4th, 5th and 6th to not remain in any one engine speed for longer than 5 mins).
My questions for the rest of the community:
1) Not so much a question, but I passed someone (opposite lane) in a Blue i30N on the 30th of December, heading to Marysville - if you're on these forums and read this, hello. For a moment there, you made me regret not buying the sunroof
2) Generally, for day to day driving, what are people getting for fuel economy?
3) Has anyone got any suggestions on who to go to for an audio upgrade in Melbourne? Ideally someone who can make it look as factory as possible
4) Do we get automatic high beams in AU? I dont think so, but want to make sure I'm not screwing something up
5) Does everyone drive in N-Custom mode all the time?
In any event, its hard not to love this car - I briefly drove a lot of its competitors and this little trip away reaffirmed to me that I made the right decision. Though, watching a pair of Yaris GRs zoom by did leave me a touch jealous
Note:
* - I wasnt driving much, so I never saw a need to replace it. Eventually it became a case of not driving it much, when suddenly I did need to be more mobile, because I started to get worried around the reliability of it (that motor + gearbox was super strong, however the rest of the running gear left me very worried about any >100km trips). Unrelated, the i30N is dimensionally very similar in width to the Maxima which surprised me - I forget those era cars are so much smaller compared to now
Pictures:
