Car reviews

Introduction

The Hyundai Amica was designed around Hyundai's previous Atoz which it replaced in the range. The Atoz and was designed specifically for city travel and has a tiny 1.0-litre engine. That may sound small, but around town it feels nippy with sharp responsive steering making it easy to park and get through tight spaces. Just don't take it out of the city though as it wont like that, and neither will you, as it struggles on motorways. Also best to avoid hills, even the small ones. The ride is fairly uncomfortable out of town with the seats being firm and there isn't much leg and shoulder room making any long trips extremely uncomfortable.

Exterior & Interior

The Amica is closely modeled on the small people carrier, the Atoz. The Amica replaced the Atoz and continues the theme of being very narrow and tall. Inside there is plenty of head room but shoulder and legroom isn't as abundant thanks to it being so narrow and short. The back seats are ideally designed for children as most adults will struggle to fit in with any comfort. The seats are extremely uncomfortable as well proving to be far too hard. The boot is barely worth mentioning as there isn't much of one with you being just about able to get a couple of day packs into it, however, the back seats can be folded down to increase the space to a more usable boot size.

On the plus side the level of the finish inside is good with the chrome interior door handles and grille along with the cloth trim adding a splash of class to it. The dash and centre console are also well laid out, easy to use and appear to be well constructed. There are two trim levels to choose from with the GSi coming with more kit as standard and is the better overall option coming with air-con, alloy wheels, front electric windows, central locking, power steering and a drivers' airbag.

Drive

The driving position is ok thanks to the high seating position that gives a good all round view. The steering feels light and effortless thanks to the PAS system that come as standard on all models. This helps to make parking easy, which is also helped by the tiny size of it. It was designed to be driven around town and it is natural in this environment, but taken it onto the motorways it will struggle and you may as well rule out overtaking unless you happen to be passing a horse and cart. It doesn't like hills so San Francisco is another no go and thanks to it weighing a mere 850kg, strong cross winds should also be avoided.

Faults & Repairs

There have been few problems with the Amica, which is unsurprising as Hyundai are only ever beaten by the Japanese manufacturers for reliability and are always close to the top of the reliability and owner satisfaction table. The Amica does suffer from a couple of problems, but they are nothing too serious. The first is for vehicles that have air-con as the heat exchanger can rust through and start leaking so make sure to check that before buying. Also the plug leads can deteriorate so if you hear any misfires during a test drive make sure to check these. Other than that there have been no other notable problems. Surprisingly it isn't cheap to service and repairs will cost more than you're average supermini, but thankfully it shouldn't need to go to the garage too often.