[orangejuice]

I'm planning to buy a used car to relocate city and also do a reasonable amount of camping/country driving. I was looking at buying a 2009 i30 wagon 4cyl 1.6L Turbo Diesel as it's big enough to sleep in, within my budget and has good fuel economy. My only hesitation is its performance on unpaved roads. I'm not going to take it on any 4wd tracks or anything but many of the national park trailhead roads in Australia are unpaved, gravel, with pot holes, corrugations etc. I drive to the conditions, but nonetheless I was thinking that the lower clearance might present a problem. Does anybody have experience taking the i30 on dirt roads?

[mickd]

MOST national park roads to camping areas or viewing interests  are 2wd friendly. Check the spare, get a bottle jack and drive slowly enjoying the view.
Usually says road condition type on Nat park website,  find out more when you purchase your parks pass and collect maps of same.

[Dazzler]

I'm planning to buy a used car to relocate city and also do a reasonable amount of camping/country driving. I was looking at buying a 2009 i30 wagon 4cyl 1.6L Turbo Diesel as it's big enough to sleep in, within my budget and has good fuel economy. My only hesitation is its performance on unpaved roads. I'm not going to take it on any 4wd tracks or anything but many of the national park trailhead roads in Australia are unpaved, gravel, with pot holes, corrugations etc. I drive to the conditions, but nonetheless I was thinking that the lower clearance might present a problem. Does anybody have experience taking the i30 on dirt roads?

Welcome! We've had four i30's and I found all of them pretty good on gravel. Not that I like taking my cars on gravel, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Interestingly, our most recent i30, a 2017 series 3 PD SR was pretty good on gravel despite 40 series tyres and 18 inch wheels until we replaced the OEM tyres with better Michelin Sport Pilot Sport 4 tyres! They didn't like the gravel at all!

One of the things I like about i30's which is common to all versions is the very stable big car feel. They feel more sure footed and stable at speed than most other cars in the same class and this helps when driving on gravel.