Hyundai Creta N Line long term review, 10,000km report

Dear reader, I’m overjoyed to announce I’ve recently become a dad. Life has changed in so many ways (I’ve never valued a power nap as much as I do now!), and to an extent, so has the way I look at cars. I have become ever more mindful of the smallest of things that could make my little one’s car rides comfier.

ISOFIX child seat anchors are a bit tough to find underneath the seat cushioning.

Of course, step one was to get the child seat in order. The Hyundai Creta N Line I’ve been using gets ISOFIX child seat anchors to lock the seat firmly in place, but they’re tucked behind the cushioning and need a bit of poking around to locate. This is not a biggie for an average user who’d keep the seat in place for months at a stretch, but I have to keep removing and re-attaching the seat whenever there’s a new car I have to test. Thankfully, my daughter has taken well to the car seat and, as my wife reports from the back seat, enjoys her drives.

Option to pre-cool the Creta using the phone app put to full use over the summer.

We’ve had a baking summer in Mumbai, and my kiddo, understandably, hates being strapped onto her seat in a hot car. The solution has come in the form of remote pre-cooling. To be honest, I’d never used connected car features beyond a review evaluation, but today, setting up the car in advance with the tap of a few buttons on my phone screen is part of my SOP. The option to remotely start the vehicle and have the air conditioning run has been an absolute boon. Hyundai’s BlueLink app is easy to use, and I’ve not had challenges with the network, which is known to be an issue with many eSIM-based connected services.

Our kiddo loves looking through the panoramic sunroof.

Of course, we’ve had our share of crying spells on the go. Bumper-to-bumper traffic with an irate baby is not fun, I can tell you that. On one such drive, retracting the cover for the panoramic sunroof proved to be an Eureka moment. The newfound view of the world above immediately distracted my daughter, making the remainder of the journey a lot, well, calmer. Something tells me kids will love the Mahindra BE 6 and XEV 9e’s trippy, colour-changing roof lighting.

The Creta N Line, in general, has proved to be good transport for the family, but I do wish there was more luggage room. I never realised a stroller occupied so much space!

Fuel economy figure firmly in the single digits in chock-a-block city driving.

More efficiency would be welcome, too. Fuel economy has been in the 7-8kpl range, but to be fair, my bumper-to-bumper slog never gives cars a chance to breathe free. Of the other things, there’s an irritating plasticky creak from the centre console every time a driver’s leg presses against it. This is something we experienced on our Creta IVT, too.

Centre console lets out creaks whenever the driver’s leg rests on it.

I have ambitious plans for a road trip over the monsoons. It’ll be a full house with my wife, baby, doggo and myself in the car. Time to dig deeper into the Creta’s box of tricks!