Kia cee'd SW or Hyundai i30 estate?

Before murder is committed in North Dublin could someone offer us some advice on which of these cars to buy. They are the same price and same engine size (1.6) and are practically the same running costs. Kia has longer warranty (7 vs 5 years) and better horsepower (1.15 vs .9). Hyundai has slightly nicer trim and a bigger boot. Therefore is a bigger boot worth the slightly less power and even smaller difference in torque? We need to pull a trailer occasionally – we’re confident we could do this will the Kia – would the Hyundai struggle?
Help!

Hyundai and Kia have the same owners, The Hyundai Kia Motor Corporation, so the cars are pretty much the same. This makes no sense though "better horsepower (1.15 vs .9)". What do you mean?

If towing is a requirement, look for the car with the higher "Max torque" figure (torque = turning capacity; the higher it is the less the egine with struggle to start pulling when the car is loaded.) Diesels are good at this with peak pulling power low down in the rev range, usually around 1,500 to 2,750 RPM. Ignore horse-power, which is for boy / girl racers, focus on torque.

Thanks for that its helpful - sorry I should have been more accurate. The Kia ceed has 115bhp and the i30 has 90bhp. The ceed's has 173lb ft of torque and the i30 is about 8% less (I haven't the exact figure to hand). Is this a significant difference in torque and therefore would rule out pulling a trailer?

It may have an impact on the maximum weight the car can tow (there are other factors that also play their part). Look at "Max kerb weight", "Max towing weight with brakes", "Max towing weight without brakes" for an indication.

This kind of info is usually given in the part of the brochure without the lovely colour pictures; it'll be headed "Technical Specification" or "Specification".

Thanks for that Pat- all three 'seem' to be the same for both cars. I say seem because the i30 90 bhp seems to only be avalible in Ireland (why?) and even clicking onto the Hyundai site its not clear that the specs apply to the i30 estate?! We're checking this with them and I'll let you know. However, if it turns out that they can both pull the same weight we're going for the Hyundai and the bigger boot space.

For what it's worth, and given that the specs are so similar, I think the Kia is a much nicer looking car.

Hiya... we are faced with a similar dilemma, having been attracted to both cars under the scrappage deal. As far as I know, the Hyundai only comes with a 3-year warranty in Ireland (as opposed to 5 years in the UK). It does come with slightly more kit though, although the Kia is very well equipped too. That said, I thought the Kia had the bigger boot and definitely has the longer warranty. A facelifted Cee'd SW is also due later this year (minor external changes, six-speed gearbox, intelligent stop-and- go). I'd be interested to know which one you eventually go for so good luck!

We went for the ...ceed. The pulling power of braked weight was slightly lower in i30 (though this wasn't relevant to us - it was unbraked weight we are concerned about which is the same for both), i 30's 5 years warrenty instead of 7, i30's very slightly more a year in diesel (€40 over 12,000 miles) lead us to Ceed. I also thought ceed looked better but sig other disagreed. Bigger boot would have been nice in the i30 also holding off a few months for the more efficent ceed but dealer said it woudl be another grand. Wish us luck and thanks for all the help. I'll give an update after we've been driving it a month or so.

Best of luck with it, I hope ye've many happy motoring years together.

We've got a Ceed hatchback in the family for the last 18 months. It's a superb little car!!

A month in and we're averageing 7.4l per 100km - which we're al little disappointed in - most of our Driving is in Dublin but I do think thats low. There is a great button on the dashboard which allows you to see average fuel consumption or present consumption or miles to next fill up. Other pros and cons are:
-great 'pick up in second'
-very roomy - takes two child seats and an adult in the back seat.
-when the cold air is directed towards the window the front passengers feet go cold (I hate this) solution is to use warm air.
-When soothing a child in the back seat the time to losing feeling in your arm is better than most cars I've driven but still not great.
-Front passenger can't see both child seats from front without releasing belt and swiveling around ( I guess they stilll don't let mothers design cars). Driver can see both. To clarify I could in my last car (audi 80) so it should be possible.

This sounds overly negative - we're very happy in the car and it makes longish journeys pleasurable and I can really see us holding on to the car for 10-15 years. I'll log on again and update the MPG issue when we've been driving it a few more months - it could be that we're the problem as we're so used to driving a very old smaller diesel and we need to find a lighter touch.

gcgcg said:

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-Front passenger can't see both child seats from front without releasing belt and swiveling around ( I guess they stilll don't let mothers design cars). Driver can see both. ...

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Maybe its just an issue in your family where Daddy always drives and Mammy is the passenger?

yes but he's gettign so much pelasure from 'the take off in second' its not in my heart to stop him!

we've been driving for 8 months and the L per 100k is now down to 6.7 - good but not as great as we'd expected. Still very happy with car.

Don't depend on the car computer for fuel consumption figures. The most accurate way is fill the tank,set the trip to zero,empty the tank and refill.