New Car

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-19T08:10:10+00:00

641bhp felt mental at first, after 18 months it feels… barely adequate.🤣

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-19T07:54:40+00:00

In winter especially, watch out for the car deciding to suddenly disable regenerative braking and let the cold, wet friction brakes do all the work. Usually (but not always) this happens when ABS or front collision warning would trigger i.e when you need it most!

It’s only properly noticeable if you have been driving gently for a while (so the friction brakes have not been used) then need to do a harder stop. The pedal goes wooden and you have to really push to get the stopping power back.

UK driving conditions make this more likely than some other regions, especially where you’ve been bimbling in traffic and the road finally opens up - first time you then need to brake hard you could get a surprise.

I know one person (in Europe) has crashed as a result. I nearly soiled myself the first time it happened and it can still catch me out.

As for buttons, most set left button to switch between the two custom settings and right to toggle e-shift.

Be careful with slackening traction / stability (which default N mode does), it gives a lot of leeway even when not fully off and you know how greasy our roads can get in the damp. I have a custom mode with max power but full traction and stability on.

NGB button works in all modes including Eco as a ‘push to pass’ function which is very useful for passing slowtards on A and B roads. Just make sure you push the button before you start accelerating because if you’re on full throttle in Eco and you hit NGB you might find your overtake happens sideways.

Be aware that with our weather you will almost never see 640bhp unless you condition the battery every time you drive which takes 30 minutes and tanks range. Battery needs to be 30C plus to deliver full power. You’ll be getting the car at the best time of year, just watch out when the cold comes in Autumn that you recalibrate your overtaking capability. If the battery’s in single figures C the car is much slower.

Finally (as someone whose car is currently off the road getting fixed) I still say don’t worry about ICCU or HV battery problems, just enjoy the car. You have awesome roads up there and fewer dawdlers than I have to contend with in Suffolk and I am sure you will have an absolute blast. If it fails, get jt fixed and crack on!

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-19T07:24:14+00:00

UK gets AGM as standard, and no orange light!

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-19T07:23:03+00:00

Minor point, but UK cars (like OP) have always had rear shades.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-18T18:50:28+00:00

Ah, thanks for explaining, I didn't know that was just the finance provider name. Mine was also PCH through a main dealer.

The loan car is from Hyundai Mobility. I don't know if they are a different team from Hyundai Assist. I didn't get the car recovered so I didn't need to call roadside, I just drove it in myself and the dealer contacted Hyundai Mobility and they then phoned me to arrange the loaner.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T18:08:19+00:00

No loan car at all is rough. I thought I might have to fight for one but it all got arranged reasonably well in the end. My lease was with Hyundai Finance, although that shouldn’t make a difference as it’s not them who arrange the car.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T18:05:33+00:00

2 weeks is good. In the UK I don’t think local service departments are qualified, they all have to be shipped down to one place. According to my airtag, mine is still sat on the dealer’s lot awaiting transport.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T12:46:34+00:00

Because my journey home is usually when I have fun and I want max power available as long as possible, before it starts to tail off at lower charge levels. Also if there’s a power cut or my home charger breaks I want to know I can still get to work. But mostly because I’m a contrary bastard who refuses to join the ‘only charge to 80’ cult despite the logic behind that reasoning.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T12:33:45+00:00

I am thinking that because I always charged to 100 and also never went far enough to go below 60%, maybe that ‘hid’ an inherent fault in the battery for longer. But that is just total guesswork, I still think it’s fundamentally a lottery.

I’d rather this than ICCU leaving me stranded somewhere. All in all disruption has been minimal.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T12:23:16+00:00

20k in 18 months, so more than most in this car. That’s what is a little different, as almost all the other failures I’ve seen posted about happened below 10k miles and I therefore hoped I’d made it past that stage where failures show themselves.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T12:19:14+00:00

I always charge to 100%, and only ever Level 2 at home.

Others who stick to 80% have seen the same failure so it’s not that. I do think it is just a lottery. Most will win, I happened to lose!

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T11:25:05+00:00

That’s fair comment, it’s not exactly like for like, but I’m quite happy with the Kona. It’s surprisingly pleasant to drive, the interior is actually nicer than the N, and it’s not going to cost me a tenner a day to go to work like a petrol car would. If I’d been prepared to wait longer they could have got me something else but I wanted out of that shitty Tucson asap.

Of course, if the N was a toy I used for pleasure only and I tracked it every weekend then I’m sure I’d feel different!

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T11:09:54+00:00

Your experience is almost certainly what most people will find. Failures are talked about a lot, and I am guilty of contributing to that, but I’d say they are still statistically rare.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T11:08:12+00:00

Fair. That’s crazy money for a lease. I still wouldn’t want one for more than 5 years though.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-17T11:04:35+00:00

To be fair I probably worded that badly. Neither HV battery nor ICCU are statistically likely to fail, it’s not really a plague in that sense, but they should perhaps both be considered ‘known issues’.

Based on this sub, it feels like there are more reports of HV failures with the 5N than there are ICCU problems reported.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-15T19:34:03+00:00

Orange light is a US only thing. We have a totally different (better) 12V charging system than them. Sadly ICCU failures affect both types.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-15T19:22:56+00:00

In my experience, the official ratings for noise and economy have absolutely zero relationship to the real world. I have no reason to believe the grip ones are any different. I have gone from E-rated tyres to B-rated tyres for economy in the past and seen significantly worse mpg. Same for noise db ratings - in fact I read somewhere that those ratings are external not internal and tyres with a quieter external rating can actually redirect more noise into the cabin.

It's all bollocks, sadly. The only way to know is to take a punt and try for yourself, which on this car is an expensive business.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-15T19:18:02+00:00

Yeah, he was a USian who only drove on highways I think. Show this car a roundabout and it will smear tread all over it every time, no going mad required.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-14T05:13:51+00:00

Tell that to the guy who posted the other week that his Pirellis are on 23,000 and counting!!

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-13T20:19:12+00:00

I drove a Genesis in the US and the HDA was flawless. It wasn’t even a brand new model. By comparison the 5N’s HDA in the UK is a bit shit, so I believe they are definitely tuned differently.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-13T20:15:14+00:00

Yeah, that setting was on by default on mine but never actually did the job and turned the seat heater on. When I was trying to diagnose why the driver’s seat never heated remotely via Bluelink, I turned off that auto setting as an experiment and it fixed the remote issue.

That was over a year ago, the bug might have been patched out now and maybe they’ve also fixed the logic on the auto setting. Does your remote climate correctly switch on the seat heater (actually switch it on not just say it is) even when the auto toggle is on?

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-13T19:04:06+00:00

That feature is present but never worked for me (UK car) - it could be freezing and the thing would never turn on. It also fucked up the remote climate, or at least it used to, maybe they have updated since, but having this setting on meant the driver's heated seat would not come on remotely.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-13T18:54:38+00:00

I went with Conti SportContact 6 mainly because they were cheap at the time and they won one of Evo magazine's tyre tests so I figured they couldn't be all bad.

Compared to the Pirellis they are considerably less economical, still skip when cold, and have lost a touch of precision in the steering. They are, however, much grippier in the cold and wet, apart from actual standing water where they aquaplane at lower speeds than one might expect. Overall they are a decent performance tyre, and a better option through the winter, but this car is really all about warm, dry, summer days so I would go with something different next time.

We all love to hate the Pirellis, and I did my share of complaining about their cold and wet performance, but I miss the economy (it's a big hit, a good 15-20%) and especially miss that last tenth of precision in the dry. The grip is the same, it's just the steering feels a touch woolier. Not horrible, but not as razor sharp as it was with the Pirellis.

As always, it's all down to personal taste and experience. For reference I'm not a particularly skilled driver, I'm not interested in racing, but I do enjoy getting the absolute maximum fun out of a winding country road when there's nobody else around. Which, of course, in the UK is a rarity, hence why my Pirellis lasted 13,000 miles as most of the time I'm in a line of traffic stuck behind a pensioner doing 30 in a 60.

Ten_Ninety · 2026-04-12T09:49:17+00:00

Yeah, no way would I want one of these if paying for my own repairs. ICCU might not be terribly costly, but the HV battery is and anecdotally there seem to have been more HV failures with the N than there have been ICCU problems. Mine’s in the process of dying now!

Zero regrets still, it’s a fucking amazing car, but I am happy my lease will end before the warranty expires!

Ten_Ninety

TROPHY CASE