There was a time in modern history when the Hyundai car brand was comparable to Joffery Baratheons charisma levels. The Hyundai was known for cheap low budget cars owned by university students and car park attendants. In more recent years Hyundai has improved this perception by actually making the cars half decent.
With all the sweeping changes that Hyundai went through at the commencement of the new millennium, Hyundai also explored the options of introducing a van into the Australian market and so the concept of the ILoad was conceived and a few short years later we saw them hit the car yards.
Hyundai were busy working hard at taking its reputation from “the car a 16 year old girl was most likely to get pregnant in” to something your accountant was more likely to drive, and for the best part they succeeded. Yet the test of time has revealed some costly common faults with the first of the Hyundai ILoads.
This is not to say they are a particularly bad vehicle. Value for money the ILoad van is almost best bang for buck. Why else would Star Track purchase so many of them and drive them for half a million kilometres in a year. Overall the ILoad is a good vehicle but watch out for a couple of pitfalls in the early models.
The primary item of concern is the Turbo chargers fitted to the Diesel models. The turbo charger fitted to these vehicles is more likely to fail than Heinrich Himmler is likely to attend a Bat Mitzvah with the intention to celebrate it.
Various owners have reported a need to replace the costly component more frequently than celebrating their day of birth. Various aftermarket companies have made improvements to the OEM unit but our experience is the first of the ILoads were cursed with a turbo made of play doh and there was nothing you could do about it.After the H1 this seems to have been rectified by Hyundai and the newer models are seeing far less naughty turbo charger behaviour.
Additionally the early model diesel motors were as reliable as anyones good mate named Brutus on March 15th. We have seen this fault less frequently than we have seen the turbo issue but some keyboard warriors have claimed up to three engine failures in 230,000kms.
Other Common faults with these are front wheel bearing failure and some temperamental fuel pumps in the petrol models.
For the best part the Hyundai ILoad is a good vehicle. We advise trying to avoid the early models as they have proven to be just as reliable as Sonny Bill Williams finishing a contract. However the newer models and anything after the H1, has so far proven to be a reliable sturdy work horse.
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