2019 Hyundai Santa Fe seven-seater SUV Review | Auto Expert John Cadogan | Australia

the new hyunbae Santa Fe is going to put a dent in that plan you've come up with to own a premium German SUV, you may still want one of course but it's harder to justify objectively now and for all the t-shirt fans out there, take a look look at these melons. I'm John Cadogan from Auto Expert comdata, the place where Ozzie new car buyers save thousands of dollars on their next new cars. Contact me on the website for a full test drive and on-site evaluation of the vehicle in this report and then we'll come back here to the fat man cave and go over the nuts and bolts of the

2019

Santa Fe model by model.

I will also lay out the strengths and weaknesses of the King competition and give you all the information I can to help you make a decision. informed choice if you are looking for a new SUV right now, in the coming days I will also upload a detailed evaluation of the problems you have to deal with if you are currently hesitating between this new model and a sold out offer. about the old Santa Fe plus a report on the crazy metallurgical voodoo of advanced high-strength steel that this new Santa Fe is drowning in and believe me, this is a very good thing for a variety of reasons to avoid losing those reports during the Los coming days subscribe now to this most irreverent car

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Down there in the fat man's cave, and now back to the fat man and his oversized melon deep in the unexplored wilderness of Shitsville. Some new models are a big step forward, but this fourth-generation Santa Fe is a series of incremental steps from Morris in the right direction. Those small steps up, although you know it's like Gestalt theory, the whole new car is greater than the sum of all those incremental changes and the headlines are that there is a new 8-speed transmission and a huge safety improvement throughout the range. Fuel consumption and CO2 have dropped by approximately 4% and interior space has increased.

The wheelbase is 65 millimeters longer and that translates directly into space in the cabin. It's not a huge dimensional improvement, but fortunately access to the Ro3 has improved substantially as a result of smarter ergonomics. The ride with just one touch. The kerbside entry switch is brilliant, there is much more row 2 and 3 configurability and row 3 is much less claustrophobic now that there is more glass and here is another major improvement hidden in plain sight and easy to pass by high one of the things that you can I really don't see it, I guess it's kind of straightforward to some extent, is the advanced high strength steel in this body. 57 percent of the structure is now made of it.

I guess that's one of the cool things about having your own steel mill, but One of the things you can definitely see in this case from space is the distinctive "Let's Be Kind" front end. She's a little more tapered after all of Steve Rogers' Captain America diet and exercise plan. He just says "get out of my way. I'm getting over it." here, you hit on a q7, they spent a ton of the development budget on the interior, it's sensational, premium german, sensational and don't take my word for it, jump into a $100,000 premium german SUV and make your own determination when we get back to the En Just a few minutes, I'll lay out the objective comparison between a $100,000 eq7 and this $60,000 Santa Fe Highlander to impact the extra money you have to spend to go for the q7 to the point of rough equivalents with the Santa.

Faith we are driving today, this variant is the Highlander and I have taken a careful look around. You know, I can't think of a single feature that it's really missing, except, of course, a banjo stand and a shelf in the back for grandpa's 12 year old. indicator other than it's fully loaded, let's go for a spin, holy and predictable Batman in the domain of dynamics, the new Santa Fe has increasingly better steering, better ride handling, better new 8-speed transmission, substantially better Obviously, there are no awards given in

auto

motive engineering if you go back. but credit is certainly due when a car company takes the benchmarks of an already good predecessor and simply builds on them and improves the vehicle.

This is a very comfortable vehicle for long distance trips and the 8 speed transmission is a great improvement to the powertrain. Some incredibly intelligent software driving shift decisions is sometimes strange, it certainly knows when to hold a gear and when to shift that new transmission is fundamentally what's responsible for the improvement in fuel economy, but the big win in the cabin is something that might be a little subliminal or at least goes unnoticed and not immediately apparent every surface you touch, every control you flip, every switch you flip, someone has spent a lot of money on R&D to make this interior feel appropriately premium. .

There is a great safety story with this new model. In the Active to Highlander range, you get forward collision mitigation with pedestrian and cyclist detection, plus adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitoring, cross-traffic alert, manage our attention alert, High Beam Assist and Parking Assist. lane keeping, and maybe you'd expect all that in the Highlander. but having it in active and elite mode also means that no one who buys a 20-19 Santa Fe is a second-class citizen when it comes to safety. What about dynamic performance should be best addressed with the car category you are in. The need feels different to family vans, city cars feel nice and fast and

seven

-seat SUVs need to feel suitably relaxed and comfortable for long-distance drives without feeling absolutely terrible to drive and, on that basis, Lucas hits all of them. dynamic reference points and so he and I should be.

He put a lot of time, effort and resources into getting the steering and suspension right for Australia. The servo motor that provides electric steering assistance has been moved from the column to the rack, which they say is better and certainly feels quite direct. The good news is that the steering weight can be selected through the drive mode, so if you like it a little heavy and she likes it light, no one will be disappointed because drive mode selection is standard on all the range, now not just on the Highlander, anyone who knows. I would tell you that I have dynamic deficiency OCD, so I'm happy to report that Santa Fe really doesn't have any.

This is a consequence of the local suspension tuning program and also the high-tech metallurgy that keeps the monocoque nice and stiff. If you are the driver, this means that the vehicle simply does what you tell it and is not affected by off-camber turns or mid-corner bumps or things of that nature if you are looking to discover some skeleton in the dynamic closet that You'll be disappointed because I'm trying to familiarize you with the Highlander's instrument cluster and appreciate its inherent overall cleverness. Great graphics, colors match the driving modes. It's definitely stylish, but the tachometer is an afterthought.

It's like an inconvenience that I just had to be accommodated like someone lost a little, but maybe I'm just being a mate, what's that job, some Kenny, how do you do that? It's like a Vulcan mind meld, maybe I'm just being totally hypercritical and not for the first time, I mean, if I have to delve into the cue as my main objection to the execution of any car, one could infer that the rest It's actually pretty good, so let's go back to the studio and decompile the model. range of key specifications. I'll give you somewhat grim news about pricing and then you can make an informed decision about whether the

2019

Santa Fe you had is the right new

seven

-seat SUV for you.

The Fatman, they're showing them. Melons with enthusiasm in Shitsville, that's how we roll in straya, yes, in advance, I must tell you that he owned a Santa Fe model range supplied according to my assessment for about two weeks, but no money changed hands and they have no say and I vote in the comment on this report. You're free to try everything I say about that Taco Bell abomination. I don't really care one way or the other. This report is my honest personal opinion and I do not do it for them. I do it for you. Santa Fe.

The active is the only one with a gasoline engine available, the 2.4 liter, which will cost you forty-three thousand dollars plus on-road costs. You can also get the 2.2 diesel in the active for three grand extra on the diesel. I never receive complaints. he take care DPS they must have cracked some cookie code they are in R&D and maybe they could sell it under license to Toyota here is the secret sauce we know you need it right now the asset includes adaptive cruise control which is a remarkable value for the price when you think about it, plus rear cross traffic alert forward collision mitigation blind spot alert lane keeping assist Apple and Android phone integrations a reversing camera rear parking sensors tire pressure monitoring and alloys 17-inch Elite adds front parking sensors an eight-inch satellite-based navigation system leather proximity keys shift paddles power front seats an infinity premium audio system dual-zone climate control air conditioning privacy glass

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-folding mirrors tailgate electric rear and 18in alloys, that's a lot of extra kit for $54k plus on-road costs, the elite is probably the smart value variant if money is reasonably tight and you need those seven seats, the Highlander is just packed of all the interesting things and therefore it would want to be for over sixty thousand on the roads and for that you get the 360 ​​degree camera system. automatic parking for parallel and reverse parking dynamic LED lights a panoramic sunroof 14 different power adjustments for the driver's seat the bright instrument cluster with the horrible tachometer LED interior lights did not ventilate the front seats and the heated exterior also traveled in two seats plus wireless phone charging a head-up display and 19-inch alloy wheels, okay, it's not cheap, but it's fully loaded.

A burger with a lot. There has been a price increase for the Santa Fe Active, which is up $1,150 over its predecessor, which is tremendously good value when you consider it. When you factor in safety improvements across the range plus adaptive cruise control, the Highlander is up four grand, which may be a little harder to swallow and I'm sure it was an interesting conversation with the factory about the price if you think about the importers and the mothership are all on the same team, I think ten minutes as a fly on the wall during one of those price negotiations would probably make it clear to you that they generally hate each other throughout the automotive industry throughout the range, although fortunately Santa Fe has preserved the plenary.

From the size of the spare wheel and tire of its predecessor, the towing capacity remains at two thousand kilos and that is obviously with the trailer brakes in standard form. 100 kilos is the static load limit of the tow ball and if you want to increase it there is a genuine load assist kit which is essentially a set of variable rate rear springs that increases the down load limit of the tow ball to one hundred and fifty kilos. This is a well thought out and properly designed upgrade for heavy duty trailers and fully meets the warranty. Unladen ride quality is not affected. either because the variable rate springs managed to mask most of that, they only stiffen as load is added, so it's pretty clever.

The Santa Fe's all-wheel drive system is now called eight and its operation depends on DriveMode, in Sport mode it will shift upwards. Up to 50 percent of the drive rewards to give you maximum traction under hard acceleration conditions - sort of a bonus if you're a lead foot and it's raining - in comfort mode the rear gets up to 35 percent of the drive available and in Eco mode, the vehicle basically The default mode is front-wheel drive only to maximize fuel efficiency. You can also manually lock the drive system 50/50 front and rear for off-road situations with limited traction by pressing a button on the dashboard in the context of off-road driving, although the Santa Fe is, at best, a light off-road vehicle. dirt roads no problem and even some easy tracksand reasonably easy mud and sand you know, since you don't, everything will be fine as long as you don't aim for the South Pole or something, everything is fine, moderate off-roading, but anything really hard or rough, you will probably break something and remember that the Abuse is not covered by warranty.

You need a full off-road truck with low range gears like a Pajero Sport for the right blue shirt. -The path to defeating nature into submission is not at all Santa Fe's forte, but gentle adventures with the family will be fine at the other end of its spectrum, for example, in the cut and push of the sign for the kiss in that elite private. school in eastern sydney you probably wouldn't be out of place on a $100,000 eq7 that's what you pay for the base model wah blade here at Estrella that quality German build made in Slovakia is forty thousand dollars more than the stadium of baseball Santa Fe Highlander is actually less than ninety-seven thousand eight hundred dollars plus on-road costs, the q7 s v6 diesel has about fourteen percent ear orbit growl through a order of 7 speeds, plus it is a vehicle a A little bigger and tows more to be fair, but it has a standard load. in Santa Fe Highlander adds 500 dollars to the poverty q7 and this is just the tip of the iceberg upgrade option q7 is also standard in the Highlander but additionally in the Audi q7 there are front seats with heating and ventilation three thousand four hundred fifty dollars roof panoramic sliding 3990 privacy glass one thousand one hundred dollars and a head-up display projected into the windshield for a measly addition of only three thousand two hundred Lane departures are an adaptive cruise that is standard on the Santa Fe active and adds three thousand eight hundred fifty dollars to the q7 through the assistance option package, automated parking with front and rear cameras adds thirteen hundred dollars q7 and even those fully colored bumpers and who doesn't, that's an extra thousand three hundred dollars on the Audi, plus the icing on the cake, LED headlights on the Audi, whose Highlander comes standard with four thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars, everything up to options to the approximate point. equivalents, you will spend almost twenty-five percent more than the base price twenty-three thousand five hundred and forty to be precise, for a total of double the price of the mountaineer, which certainly lacks the four hoops and, of course, the heritage of the whipping of the Monkey If you like that sort of thing, the Santa Fe Highlander isn't cheap, but if you want the underlying value proposition, just look at the features compared to a hastily optional tweet for the Tuareg ring from Slovakia, available at just double the price , now perhaps something more economically rational.

Comparisons to the Kia Sorento, it's no surprise that this vehicle shares the platform and diesel powertrain with the Santa Fe, making them sort of dizygotic twins. There's the 2.4-litre petrol four in the Santa Fe Active versus the petrol six in the Sorento, so that's the key. difference no v6 in Santa Fe at least not yet keya offers a seven year warranty against the

santa

face 5 both with unlimited kilometers for non-commercial use the Sorento is a slightly cheaper model per model but the Santa Fe feels more polished and I don't know about you, but I like to feel more polished.

The Mazda CX-9 is slightly larger and has the most high-tech petrol engine of the 7-seat SUV set, a turbocharged version of the 2.0-litre Atmo engine you'll find in the CX-5. Diesel-like fuel economy, the CX-9 is also a pretty polished product, but it's limited by a short warranty and a space-saving spare tire and that spare tire would worry me on long regional trips or if I were planning to order it to the vehicle a heavy trailer. or if you were visiting a remote area the Toyota Kluger is a decent SUV from a leading manufacturer and you get a full size spare but once you scratch the surface you discover that Toyota is the king of mediocrity, big thirst for v6 petrol, no Apple or Android phone. integration plus an anorexic warranty Kluger is robust but wouldn't be my first choice here in this three part Santa Fe series there are separate reports on the crazy voodoo of advanced high strength steel and I'll also crack the code on whether you should get a sold out deal for the previous model now or look for a new Santa Fe at a higher price.

Links to those reports will appear at the bottom when they actually go live in the coming days. The company's customer service here in Australia is excellent, the warranty is also high and the reliability is high if you land here in Australia from Alpha Centauri next Wednesday at lunchtime and Humanities Ambassador Donald Trump along with his pet , Stormy Daniels, flanked by retard Stanny, neo-Nazi Kim Jong memorial. in the space force, yes, they are very nice guys. I'm told that when Donald is a poverty pack q7 and a Santa Fe mountain man as some kind of earthly peace offering, you'd probably conclude that this is a test and that Santa Fe is actually the cousin.

SUV, my advice if you are in the market is to drive the cx-9, the Sorento and the Santa Fe and choose based on your particular needs. There is no objectively wrong answer to be found anywhere in that trio. I'm John Cadogan, thanks for watching