The all-new Hyundai Santa Fe is here! The 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe sits on a new platform to the Santa Fe that's shared with the 2021 Kia Sorento. While it may look very similar, it's totally different beneath the skin and will come with future hybrid compatibility. Paul Maric investigates to see if it's any good!
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Hyundai content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai
More Hyundai Santa Fe content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai/santa-fe
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 00:51
Interior 03:16
Infotainment 05:10
Safety Tech 06:38
Practicality 07:53
On the road 12:28
Verdict 17:00
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#hyundai #santafe #review
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More Hyundai content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai
More Hyundai Santa Fe content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai/santa-fe
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 00:51
Interior 03:16
Infotainment 05:10
Safety Tech 06:38
Practicality 07:53
On the road 12:28
Verdict 17:00
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
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#hyundai #santafe #review
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So if you haven't noticed, there is no shortage of seven-seat SUVs in Australia.
00:06 And this is the latest, it is the new Santa Fe.
00:09 Now when I say new, it looks kind of the way that it did previously,
00:12 but it sits on a brand new platform for the Santa Fe.
00:14 It's a platform that's shared with the Kia Sorento.
00:17 This right here is the Santa Fe Highlander, and it's priced at around $65,000.
00:22 That's a little bit too much. The range kicks off at about $45,000.
00:26 But being the top spec, this competes with things like the Mazda CX-9,
00:30 the Toyota Kluger, and the Kia Sorento.
00:33 Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car.
00:35 If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,
00:38 you can use the time codes that are up on the screen,
00:40 or just use the chapters below if you're on YouTube.
00:42 And if you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could subscribe to our channel
00:45 and press the bell icon as well, so you can find out every single time
00:47 we drive one of these flash new SUVs.
00:49 Let's talk exterior. You've got seven external colors to pick from,
00:54 and everything but blue and white are about $700 extra.
00:58 Now, let's quickly talk about the design, because Igor, cameraman,
01:01 thinks it looks absolutely amazing. I'm not so convinced.
01:05 I always thought the last one looked okay, but I think they've taken a step backwards with this.
01:09 Let me know what you think down in the comments section.
01:11 Okay, so let's start with the grille. It is a whopper.
01:14 So big grille down here, you've got a huge Hyundai logo,
01:17 and that's finished in an interesting material.
01:20 It's like a reflective, sort of glossy chrome style material.
01:24 I think this actually looks good, this part of the car.
01:27 Same with the chrome highlights down the bottom.
01:29 It's like a brushed aluminium in terms of the design, so I think that all looks good.
01:32 Where I think it takes a little deviation though is with the headlight cluster.
01:35 So up the top you have LED daytime running lights.
01:38 You also have an indicator built in, but this is the headlight cluster.
01:42 So full LED headlights. You can see those projectors just there.
01:45 They're adaptive as well. It's just interesting.
01:47 It's a different philosophy and a different way to do things.
01:50 Kind of looks a bit like the Palisade as well, so you can see where they drew that inspiration from.
01:54 But yeah, let me know what you think of the design.
01:55 We'll whip around to the side here.
01:57 Now you've got 20-inch alloy wheels.
01:59 They're whoppers. I quite like this wheel design.
02:01 It's got that glossy chrome matte finish on the outside, and then a graphite finish on the inside.
02:08 And they've got this sort of design that makes them look like they're moving.
02:11 See how they sort of spin back a little bit.
02:13 I'm going to refer to my VPSS Commodore here for this design inspiration.
02:18 Kind of a similar design where it spins back.
02:20 So yeah, interesting. Low profile-ish tyre. 45 profile along the side there.
02:25 Given Hyundai does local ride and handling tuning, I'm hoping this actually rides well on Australian roads.
02:30 Now you can see here that they've been a little restrained in terms of the wheel arch flares.
02:34 So normally this would be like a black plastic cladding, but they've kept it body coloured,
02:38 which I think is a better look because it blends in far more nicely with the rest of the package.
02:42 Around here you have an indicator built into that wing mirror with a camera there for the 360 camera.
02:47 We have roof rails, privacy glass, and then around the back here you have that spoiler built into the tailgate.
02:52 A shark fin antenna.
02:53 And while this looks fairly common to the last generation of the Santa Fe,
02:57 you can see here that these LED taillights have been refined a bit, so get a bit more definition to them.
03:03 They kind of look like the Audi e-tron GT with that sort of wraparound styling.
03:08 So quite like that design.
03:09 Then you have the engine designation there, 2.2 diesel H-Trac, because this is all-wheel drive.
03:13 And then Santa Fe plus the spec, the Highlander.
03:16 Okay, we are inside the Santa Fe.
03:17 Let's start with the key.
03:19 Here it is here.
03:19 So you have lock, unlock, boot.
03:22 You have a remote parking feature that I'll show you later on, plus a remote start function,
03:27 which will run the heater or the air conditioner if you need to.
03:29 Hyundai logo on the back.
03:31 Proximity sensing keys, you just leave that in your pocket, grab the door handle,
03:34 and then once you're inside you have a push button start.
03:36 Also, I like the material on that, that sort of cold to the touch, a bit of real metal, which is cool.
03:41 Okay, design.
03:42 Let's talk about that first.
03:43 Sorry about the beeping.
03:44 Kia Hyundai product, it means throughout the whole video it's going to be beeping.
03:47 Yeah, design.
03:49 I really like what they've done here.
03:51 So this is getting expensive now.
03:52 It's about $70,000 on the road, so you are spending a fair bit of money on this car,
03:57 but I think they make you feel good about spending that kind of money.
04:00 So they've gone to a lot of effort to do soft touch materials along the dashboard.
04:04 You can see here with the contrast colours that it really makes the cabin pop.
04:08 Then you've got this infotainment system that's lodged up the top there.
04:12 A little bit of speaker branding for what's going on around the cabin,
04:15 and you'll notice with the speaker covers they also have a 3D effect similar to the Sorento.
04:20 That continues down here where you've got this sort of, it's not metal,
04:24 but it's made to look like a brushed metal material, and then the seats as well.
04:28 They've got the diamond stitching on them.
04:30 It is a really nice looking cabin, even to, sorry, I keep finding things here,
04:34 even to the sort of suede headliner as well.
04:36 So it does feel high-end and premium, but I don't know, I just think it's let down by this.
04:41 There are so many buttons there.
04:43 It is really confusing to look at, and I wish they could just condense that a little bit
04:47 instead of having a button explosion there.
04:49 So anyway, now touch points.
04:52 They are soft on the centre console there, fairly soft on the door as well.
04:56 How soft are they?
04:56 Well, we've tested them with our durometer.
04:58 If you want to see how this car compares to other cars we've tested before,
05:02 follow the link in the description.
05:03 Now, build quality.
05:05 What's it like?
05:05 That all feels really nice and solid, which is excellent.
05:10 Okay, let's talk infotainment.
05:11 So it consists of a 10.25-inch colour touchscreen.
05:16 Oh, by the way, if you want a detailed look at this infotainment system, click up here.
05:19 Today I'll just give you a quick overview.
05:21 You do have shortcut buttons down here on this sub-menu,
05:25 and then you can also use the buttons alongside the left-hand side of the screen.
05:29 So it has inbuilt satellite navigation.
05:31 This is what that looks like.
05:32 Unfortunately, like all Hyundai and Kia products,
05:35 pressing the voice recognition button doesn't do anything unless you have smartphone mirroring paired.
05:39 Now, speaking of which, smartphone mirroring comes in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
05:44 It is a cabled system.
05:45 I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first.
05:47 So it doesn't take up the entire screen, which is really interesting.
05:50 It's sort of all boxed off to the corner there.
05:52 Where if I press that?
05:53 No, it doesn't help.
05:54 So maybe there's a setting in there.
05:56 If there is, let me know in the comments section, but I couldn't really find anything.
05:59 And this is what Android Auto looks like.
06:02 Also, not a full screen integration, which is interesting,
06:05 but yep, nice and snappy there.
06:07 No dramas.
06:07 Audio comes in the form of AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio.
06:12 There's also a Harman Kardon branded sound system.
06:15 Now, ahead of the driver is another digital display.
06:18 I'll show you what that looks like.
06:19 On the left, you have your speedometer.
06:21 On the right, you have warnings plus a tachometer.
06:23 The display also changes when you flick through different drive modes.
06:27 I'll show you that when we go out for a drive.
06:28 You can also change the centre of the display too, to show you other things.
06:32 So really nice integration and very quick and snappy.
06:35 It's quite sharp and fast, which I love.
06:37 OK, moving on to safety, I'll run you through the main safety highlights.
06:40 So you have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
06:44 You have a lane keeping assistant, a lane departure warning.
06:47 You also have a semi-autonomous steering function, radar cruise control,
06:50 blind spot monitoring, not only in your wing mirrors, but also in the display over here.
06:55 And I'll show you that when we go out for a drive.
06:57 You also have a safe exit assistant and a reminder to check for people inside the car,
07:02 using ultrasonic sensors up the back there.
07:05 On the parking front, there is an interesting feature here,
07:08 and that is the ability to pull the car in and out of parking spaces
07:12 without you being in the car.
07:13 And that's just using the key here.
07:15 Quite a clever system, and maybe one day will come in handy.
07:18 And then when you're done with that, you also have front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera.
07:22 I'll show you what that looks like.
07:23 There it is there.
07:24 So that's the rear view.
07:25 Looks pretty good.
07:26 And that's your top down view.
07:27 You can also then adjust the views over here on the left-hand side as well.
07:31 So pretty clever setup and nicely integrated.
07:34 Okay, I'm going to interrupt the video just for one second.
07:37 I've got a question for you.
07:38 This stuff here, the self-parking business, have you ever used it?
07:42 If you've got it, would you reckon it's a bit of a gimmick?
07:44 Let me know what you think.
07:45 Oh, by the way, we actually shot a video explaining how all this parking technology works,
07:50 and we demoed this in a bit more detail.
07:52 You can watch that by clicking up here.
07:53 Talking about practicality, we'll start with connectivity.
07:56 You have one USB port here.
07:59 You have a 12-volt outlet down here and then another USB port there.
08:02 You can also charge your phone wirelessly, and it's quite a clever system.
08:06 I haven't seen something like this before.
08:08 So the charging pad sits like that, and then you slide your phone in behind a set of teeth.
08:13 So really cool setup.
08:15 Now, in terms of storage for your phone, it can live in the cup holders in that wireless
08:19 charging slot down here on that storage tray.
08:22 Your coffee cup has a rightful place over here with plenty of clearance for the lid.
08:26 Bottle storage without the tape.
08:29 Down here, you can store a bottle.
08:31 You've got more storage up the top there.
08:33 There's also teeth in that one.
08:34 You've got storage for a bottle plus odds and ends inside the door.
08:38 The center console is huge.
08:39 It's nice and deep, so you can see how big that is.
08:42 We also have a glove box down here with pretty decent storage, and then another trinket tray
08:47 just above it.
08:48 Moving on to comfort, you have tri-zone automatic climate control.
08:52 You have heated and cooled seats for the front row.
08:55 Heated steering wheel.
08:56 The seats are electrically adjustable in the front row.
08:59 You also have memory for the driver's seat.
09:02 Steering is tilt and reach adjustable as well, and your million buttons are easy to reach
09:07 while you're driving.
09:08 And finally, you have a panoramic glass sunroof.
09:11 OK, we're in the second row of the Santa Fe.
09:14 Let's start off with room.
09:16 It's got a decent amount of knee room, heaps of toe room, and headroom is reasonable despite
09:21 this giant roof here.
09:23 It's actually massive.
09:24 It looks really good.
09:25 It goes all the way back behind your head, so you get some nice visibility out of the
09:28 roof.
09:29 Let's talk about our bottle and where we can store that.
09:31 So you have a center armrest here with two cup holders plus a little mini cup holder.
09:37 You can easily fit your bottle in there.
09:38 Then you also have storage inside the door for a bottle.
09:42 You've got map pockets.
09:43 You have two USB points down here.
09:46 You have air vents plus the ability to move the passenger seat forwards and backwards.
09:51 If you own one of these, tell me if that gets annoying with the kids.
09:54 You also have heated seats on the two outboard seats.
09:57 There's blinds that pop up here to give you a bit of privacy.
10:01 You've got ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats and then three top tether points.
10:05 Now what you can do as well, it's a 60/40 split folding seat.
10:08 You can actually give your third row passengers a little bit more room by shifting this forwards
10:13 and backwards.
10:14 Now to access the third row, it's pretty straightforward.
10:16 There is a button on top of the seat.
10:19 You can actually either fold this flat or by pushing the button it tumbles and then
10:24 slides forward.
10:26 Now I have to caveat this by saying this is obviously a spot for kids but let's see how
10:30 it goes with adults anyway.
10:31 So I'll climb in.
10:32 Gee, I think I'm too old for this.
10:36 Okay, there we go.
10:37 So what I'll do now is bring this seat back and then lock that into position.
10:42 I can actually move that back if I need to.
10:45 So this gives you an idea of how much room I have here.
10:47 This is the standard position and there I'm sort of wedged up against it but because the
10:52 second row can slide forwards, I actually have a reasonable amount of room here.
10:55 I've got decent toe room, knee room's fine.
10:58 My head is sort of wedged up against the roof but I think if you had to travel back here
11:02 as an adult it'd be perfectly fine.
11:04 You have storage slots off to the sides with cup holders on each side.
11:07 There's one USB port over here and your right hand side passenger also controls the
11:12 third row AC and there's air vents for both sides as well.
11:16 So Igor, do you want to just show us how much leg room there is behind the passenger seat
11:20 there?
11:20 So that gives you an idea of just how much room there is when you have an adult back
11:23 here.
11:24 I don't hate it to be honest.
11:25 Let's talk cargo space.
11:28 Crack this open.
11:29 So being a three-row SUV, you don't really have a great deal of space behind the third
11:33 row.
11:33 Here you have around 100 litres of cargo space and you'll see that it's not really
11:38 enough to actually store anything meaningful because that won't close with the boot in
11:44 that position.
11:45 Under the cargo floor you have a cargo blind.
11:48 The actual spare tyre is underneath the vehicle.
11:52 Now let's drop this third row because there's a couple of configuration options in terms
11:56 of space that's available.
11:58 So to do that you just pull these tabs, that drops out of the way.
12:01 There we go.
12:03 Now with this space here you can configure it two ways.
12:05 In its current form it's around 600 litres but if you slide the second row forward it
12:10 can go up to 800 litres and I'll show you what it looks like with our bags in there.
12:14 There you go.
12:16 So you can see there's plenty of storage space there.
12:19 There is one other party trick and that is to drop the second row which you can do from
12:22 back here by pushing these two buttons.
12:25 That increases the space to around 1700 litres so it is a whopper.
12:30 All right we're on the road now in the Santa Fe and powering this is a 2.2 litre turbocharged
12:36 four-cylinder diesel engine.
12:37 It makes 148 kilowatts of power and 440 newton metres of torque and that's made it to an
12:44 eight-speed dual clutch transmission.
12:46 Now what's the gearbox like?
12:48 You know I'm not a huge fan of dual clutch transmissions.
12:51 This one's not terrible.
12:52 Let me just have a little look-see here from standing start.
12:55 Yeah it's okay.
12:57 Feels very much like the Sorento where it's just fairly, I don't know, fuss free and not
13:03 too sort of laggy or not too sort of elastic like a lot of dual clutch gearboxes are.
13:09 This one's actually quite good.
13:10 If we give it a punch, yeah it's quite responsive there.
13:14 It's ready to sort of get up and go and it's never really in a dead spot.
13:17 It's leaning on that torque band.
13:19 In fact this engine is super eager.
13:21 I find that it's always just ready to punch you in the back and in fact it feels a little
13:25 more eager than the Sorento.
13:26 So I'd be interested to see whether they have a different tune on this compared to the Sorento.
13:30 Let's talk fuel economy.
13:31 So Hyundai claims a combined 6.1 litres per 100km.
13:35 We're currently consuming 8.4 which is near enough.
13:40 That's pretty decent given that we've been doing low speed driving.
13:44 So I think that's a commendable figure for a car this size.
13:47 You've got to remember that these are getting bigger and bigger with all the systems they're
13:50 putting into them.
13:51 So that's a good number to have for a seven-seat SUV.
13:54 You can get the Santa Fe in both all-wheel drive and front-wheel drive.
13:57 This one here is the all-wheel drive model and it uses a system called H-Trac which is
14:02 effectively a permanent all-wheel drive setup.
14:04 So I'll flick over to our all-wheel drive menu here.
14:06 You can see right now in smart mode it's sending torque to both the front and the rear.
14:10 So depending on which setting you have it in and what the computer thinks it should
14:14 be doing, it will then shuffle torque between the front and rear axles.
14:17 Now speaking of drive modes, I've got a few to pick from here.
14:19 So smart, sport, eco and comfort.
14:22 Each of those will vary the amount of torque split between the front and rear axle and
14:26 how it deals with that.
14:27 And then as you flick between them you can see the menus change there ahead of the driver
14:31 which I think is pretty cool.
14:32 Very sharp looking setup.
14:35 I quite like the sport mode.
14:36 So it adds weight to the steering and it makes the gearbox really sharp and quick.
14:41 It's surprisingly sort of punchy when you sort of get stuck into the throttle.
14:46 So that's really impressive.
14:48 You're not going to be doing any real off-roading in this.
14:50 You do have a couple of off-road drive modes to choose from, snow, mud and sand.
14:55 But with a ground clearance of 176mm it's not really enough to get you anywhere.
15:00 Hyundai doesn't offer an official 0-100km/h time but we thought we'd put it up against
15:05 our stopwatch anyway.
15:06 Okay we'll go back to smart mode here.
15:18 Let's talk about the ride.
15:19 So this has an Australian ride and handling tune and I've got to say it is really impressive.
15:23 We're out here on a country road doing 80km/h and it just soaks up everything really nicely.
15:29 So it's just on the sportier side of comfortable.
15:31 So you do feel it sort of moving around as you hit bumps and that kind of thing.
15:35 But it's incredibly compliant and just the way that it soaks everything up on 20-inch
15:39 alloy wheels I think just shows you how much effort they've put into tuning it for Australian
15:43 road conditions.
15:44 Let's talk handling.
15:46 Slot this over to sport mode.
15:48 Yeah I really do like how sharp that throttle becomes.
15:51 Okay yes I know this is no sports car but I thought we'd punch it through here.
15:56 That's actually pretty fun.
15:58 Yeah it's got some urge.
16:01 Like it sits fairly flat, the steering's nice and responsive, you get a bit of feel through
16:05 the wheel as well and then you can just punch it out of a corner.
16:08 So yeah, thumbs up for handling.
16:10 In terms of cabin noise and wind noise, there isn't a great deal of wind noise that I'm
16:14 noticing here on this country road and there isn't a great deal of tyre noise coming into
16:19 the cabin.
16:19 You do hear it roaring a little bit over coarse chip sections but for the most part it's a
16:23 pretty quiet place to be seated.
16:24 Now let's talk visibility.
16:26 So out the front there it's excellent, at the rear it's pretty good.
16:29 The wing mirrors are big as well and you have the blind spot monitor built into them too
16:33 and when you put the indicator on you get the little blind spot camera come on on either
16:38 side of that cluster which I think is just such a fantastic feature.
16:41 It really helps you when it comes to driving in and around the city around cyclists and
16:45 also with parking.
16:46 Finally, turning circle.
16:47 11.4 metres.
16:49 So it's not a terrible turning circle but it's not the tightest in the world either
16:54 but it should be okay for driving in and around the city and doing U-turns and that kind of
16:57 thing.
16:58 Righto, the Hyundai Santa Fe.
17:01 So this has always been a pretty outstanding performer.
17:04 It offers good value for money, a punchy diesel engine and stacks of features, especially
17:08 in this highlander trim.
17:10 None of that's changed but the thing I think that probably lets it down slightly is that
17:14 the design doesn't look different enough for people to realise it's a brand new model,
17:18 whereas you look at something like a Sorento and the Sorento looks totally overhauled.
17:22 So I think that's probably going to hurt them in comparison to the Sorento and then also
17:26 in comparison to the Sorento I think that the interior is better in the Sorento.
17:29 It feels more premium, it's better laid out and it doesn't look as complicated as this
17:33 does with all of its buttons.
17:34 So if those things aren't too much of a big deal for you, this is actually a really impressive
17:39 SUV that gives you seven seats when you need them, a decent boot and all the latest technology
17:44 as well.
17:45 So let me know what you think.
17:46 Do you think it's different enough from the last one?
17:47 Have you bought one and why would you buy this over a Sorento?
17:51 I'm really keen to get your feedback.
17:52 So if you did enjoy this video, make sure you like it and share it with your mates and
17:55 if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon so
17:58 you can find out every single time we drive something different.
18:01 But until next time, drive safely.