A bit OT but a hint of off road

Why not try a Google (or equivalent) for some views. Meantime check this out Link

Louie,
Saw that you only want replies from owners but you may want to take this into account.
If you're doing 20k kilometres per year, and diesel uses 4.7l/100
as opposed to 7.2 for a petrol, and diesel is $1.80 per l and petrol $1.50 and the diesel CRDI option is an extra $2500, then the nett saving per year is only $218. This will be totally absorbed (and more) by the increased servicing costs. Just have a look at the cost of the semi and synthetic oils that diesels demand for a start.
I have a diesel ute. Had to buy a car recently. Would I buy a diesel . No way. All this stuff about diesels ALWAYS being better is just hype.

Hi Louie- I own a cx8 and have just driven the i30- but auto petrol - for the last 7 days (hire car). Found the i30 to have very comfortable seats but a bit limited on their adjustment, good visibility, very sharp brakes but absolutely no guts. Not much chop on the freeway when needing to change lanes and merge quickly. Needed to change down even on small inclines. I didn't think much of the instrumentation- the blue backlighting took a lot to get used to. Steering on the i30 was very responsive however the overall road handling was poor (lots of body roll on cornering) compared to the cx8. Then again I haven't driven anything that gives you that "rides on rails" feel that the cx8 does. The petrol version ran on vapour by comparison to the cx8(latter has 5 straws in the petrol tank!)Hope this helps