• last year
Australia exclusively gets the long wheelbase version of the 2022 Hyundai Tucson. But, is it any good? Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the diesel 2022 Hyundai Tucson Highlander (there is also a petrol and a turbo petrol version) to see if it's any good.

What do you think about the design?

Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE

More Hyundai content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai
More Hyundai Tucson content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/hyundai/tucson

Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 00:52
Interior 03:46
Infotainment 05:49
Safety Tech 07:29
Practicality 08:34
On the Road 12:45
0-100 km/h 18:08
Verdict 19:29

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#hyundai #tucson #review
Transcript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul, I know what you're thinking, he's already reviewed the Tucson.
00:03 Yes I know, but that was a pre-production car and it was at a racetrack and the road
00:07 was dead smooth.
00:08 We've finally had the chance to get behind the wheel of an actual car on an actual representative
00:13 road, so I thought we'd get behind the wheel of this.
00:16 This is the top specification Hyundai Tucson Highlander diesel.
00:20 It's priced at $52,000, but if that's too expensive, the whole range kicks off at just
00:25 under $35,000.
00:26 This competes with things like the Mazda CX-5, the Toyota RAV4, the Kia Sportage, there are
00:32 loads of competitors in this segment.
00:34 Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car.
00:37 If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use those time codes
00:40 on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, scroll down, you've got some chapters down there.
00:44 If you haven't done so already, please make sure you subscribe to our channel and press
00:47 the bell icon, that's going to tell you every single time we drive something new.
00:52 So what about your exterior colours?
00:53 You've got seven external colours to pick from, all but white is an additional roughly
00:58 $600.
00:59 Let's unpack this front end.
01:01 When we reviewed the Staria, I sort of said the same thing, and that seems to be a trend
01:04 now with Hyundais, they're sort of going a little crazy in terms of design, whether you
01:08 like it or not, that's a different story, but they certainly look a whole lot different
01:11 to every other vehicle out on the road here.
01:13 And this is what I'm talking about, you've got a whole set of LEDs featured along the
01:18 front here.
01:19 While you're driving, these light up a little brighter, you can kind of tell the Tucson's
01:22 coming towards you, I know a few times I've seen one driving towards me, this immediately
01:26 sort of tells you it is the new Tucson.
01:27 You've got a set of headlights down the bottom here, these are full LED headlights.
01:31 It may look like these just project onto the lower part of the road in front of the car,
01:35 but they are adjustable, so you get decent vision down the road, and the high beam at
01:39 night time is pretty good.
01:40 The grille has this sort of shadow finish on it, I really like the look of this, it
01:44 contrasts well with this colour, and it just gives the new Tucson a bit of an aggressive
01:49 look to it, which I think is cool.
01:50 Dark Hyundai logo there, and then the camera just beneath it.
01:54 Over on the side here you have these 3D textured elements as well.
01:57 Down here you'll find a set of 19-inch alloy wheels, so pretty traditional wheel design,
02:02 you've got that chromey bit on the outside and then a darker black finish on the inside,
02:07 and then textured elements along here.
02:08 I know you guys mentioned with our, I think it was the GV70 review, that these bits here
02:12 make the wheel much harder to clean, so my thoughts are with you detailers if you have
02:17 to encounter one of these.
02:18 Different profile on that tyre there as well.
02:20 Hyundai, unlike Kia, has started to go back on its local tuning program, so I'll be interested
02:25 to see how much this impacts the ride locally, whether they've picked the right package for
02:30 this car for Australia, we'll see that when we go for a drive.
02:33 So, interesting design here with the wheel arches, so plastic cladding there, which is
02:36 typical of an SUV, but it's not quite just curved, it has a Jeep look to it, where it's
02:41 got those sharper edges and then a couple of cutouts along the back here.
02:44 Not sure if I love that, but it's certainly different to most other vehicles out on the
02:48 road.
02:49 Got an indicator built into that wing mirror with a camera on the side.
02:52 This finish is great, so it's not traditional chrome, it's like a brushed chrome look, and
02:56 it continues all the way down the side of the car.
02:58 Got a dark coloured roof rails, privacy glass, and then come around to the back.
03:03 So as you follow that line down to the back, it all culminates to this section here, where
03:06 again it's stylised and kind of just breaks the black and the body colours apart.
03:11 Those LED taillights continue around the side there with this red strip along the back.
03:15 The Hyundai logo's kind of pushed into it, it's not sort of extruded or anything like
03:19 that, so it's very flat, that finish.
03:21 Shark fin antenna and a spoiler built into the back.
03:24 Now I did mention this with our original Tucson review, there's two versions of the Tucson,
03:28 the short wheelbase and the long wheelbase.
03:30 We exclusively get the long wheelbase in Australia, and to put that size into context, this is
03:35 about 30mm longer than a RAV4, and a RAV4 is a pretty big SUV, so that should mean that
03:41 we have a decent amount of room inside, and I'm keen to see exactly what it feels like
03:45 in there.
03:46 We're inside the Tucson, and we will start with the key.
03:49 So you have lock, unlock, boot.
03:53 This is the parking feature that allows you to move the car from the outside using just
03:58 the remote control.
04:00 Pretty nifty feature, I think some of you have mentioned in our previous videos that
04:03 you do actually use this, so it is good to see that there's a function for it.
04:07 And then this is a push and hold to remote start the car.
04:09 This is fantastic.
04:10 The other night it was freezing outside and I was taking my wife out to dinner, I was
04:14 able to remote start this from inside the house.
04:17 By the time we got out to the car it was nice and toasty, so very cool setup.
04:21 And then on the back you have Hyundai.
04:22 It's a proximity sensing key, so you just leave that in your pocket.
04:25 Then once you're inside you have a push button start.
04:28 Now what about the styling?
04:29 It is interesting.
04:30 So while the outside is sort of over the top and just completely different, this is all
04:34 far more subdued, and I like what they've done here.
04:37 They've gone for minimalist, but they've still made it look and feel classy.
04:40 So that's soft touch materials along the dash there.
04:43 You've got this fabric that runs around the top of the dashboard and around to the doors.
04:47 You've got this screen inlaid into the dashboard as well.
04:49 I think it is a pleasant looking setup.
04:52 Only downside is there is so much piano black around here.
04:55 It's like around here, it's around here.
04:57 I don't know, piano black I just feel is tacky.
04:59 I don't know how you guys feel, but not a huge fan of it.
05:02 But for the most part I think this interior is really nicely presented.
05:05 What about your touch points?
05:06 So soft is firmish, but okay.
05:09 And then the door is nice and soft.
05:11 How soft is it?
05:12 Well we've got our durometer.
05:13 We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin.
05:15 If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look
05:19 at the link in the description.
05:20 Build quality?
05:21 Yeah, it feels not too bad.
05:24 A little bit of flex there in the centre, but for the most part pretty good.
05:28 One of you guys has asked about door thuds, so we're now including those in this section,
05:32 and this is what the door thuds like.
05:38 Sounds good.
05:39 It's not quite as sort of as hollow as some of the cheaper cars, but it's not quite as
05:44 sturdy sounding as a European car.
05:47 But it does sound pretty good.
05:49 Okay, infotainment.
05:51 Let's have a chat about that.
05:52 So you have two screens in the cabin, both are 10.25 inch, and I'll run you through both
05:57 of them.
05:58 We'll start off with the infotainment system because this is a Hyundai/Kia product.
06:02 That battery discharge warning is just going to keep coming up.
06:05 So this is what your inbuilt satellite navigation looks like.
06:08 Beneath that you have a whole stack of shortcut buttons.
06:10 If I take us back to the home menu, this is what you're presented with when you start
06:15 the car.
06:16 You can then select different profiles in the top left there, and this is where all
06:19 of your buttons are for getting into all of the functions of the car.
06:24 We'll start off with radio.
06:25 You have AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio.
06:30 Some old school hits there.
06:31 It's plumbed through an 8 speaker Bose branded sound system.
06:34 The sound system itself is really impressive.
06:36 So for a family SUV like this, you're going to love it if you enjoy your music.
06:41 And then in terms of smartphone mirroring, you have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
06:45 They're both wired.
06:46 I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first.
06:50 That is nice.
06:51 Full screen integration.
06:52 It is very sharp as well.
06:54 Love that.
06:55 Very quick.
06:56 And this is what Android Auto looks like.
06:57 So same sort of high resolution setup and fairly responsive too.
07:01 I mentioned earlier, ahead of the driver, 10.25 inch display.
07:04 It's pretty straightforward.
07:05 You've got speedometer here, warnings over here, plus a tachometer.
07:08 I'll make that disappear.
07:09 Down at the bottom you have your fuel economy, ambient temperature.
07:12 And then in the centre there, you can flick between different menus and each of those
07:16 menus has other things that can show up as well.
07:19 So nice and tidy and fuss free, which is what I like.
07:21 And then when you do change between the drive modes, you can see the display transforms
07:26 and gives you another look altogether.
07:29 Now what about safety?
07:31 So you've got autonomous emergency braking.
07:33 You have an auto dimming rear vision mirror, lane departure warning and a lane keeping
07:37 assistant.
07:38 You've got a semi-autonomous steering function.
07:40 Works okay.
07:41 I don't know, on the way here, just it was really fussy with some lines and it wouldn't
07:46 pick up others.
07:47 So I just tend to switch that stuff off.
07:49 You have radar cruise control.
07:51 You have a blind spot monitor built into the wing mirror with a little alert there.
07:55 But you also have a camera that shows up here and I'll show you what that looks like when
07:59 we go for a drive.
08:00 Front and rear cross traffic alert.
08:02 You have a safe exit assistant that prevents you from opening the door if there's another
08:05 vehicle cyclist coming.
08:07 And then finally you have a rear occupant reminder as well, so you won't forget the
08:11 kiddies in the back.
08:12 What about your camera?
08:13 You have front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera.
08:16 I'll show you what that looks like.
08:18 So quality is pretty good.
08:20 It's just a tiny bit sort of low resolution there, but for the most part it's okay.
08:24 You can then switch between the different displays here to get different angles, including
08:28 looking down the back of the car there as well.
08:30 So you are pretty covered there in terms of reversing coverage.
08:34 So we've shifted inside the car.
08:36 I've been nice and let Igor not get drenched outside 'cause it's raining.
08:40 And we'll go over to practicality and we'll start with your connectivity options.
08:43 So you've got two USB ports down the front here plus a 12 volt outlet.
08:48 You also have wireless phone charging, so that just slots down there on the Qi wireless
08:52 phone charger.
08:53 In terms of phone storage, you can whack your phone down the front there as well so it's
08:57 not on the charger.
08:59 You've got space in your cup holders to put your phone as well, so you've got plenty of
09:02 options there.
09:03 What about your coffee cups?
09:05 So that easily slides into there without any dramas.
09:08 You've got teeth as well to hold everything into place.
09:11 Same story with the bottle, fits into there very easily.
09:14 This also goes inside the door.
09:16 There's enough room there for a small bottle.
09:17 I'll try fit my big one in.
09:21 No, not gonna happen.
09:23 So just the small one.
09:24 Under storage, you've got slots down either side here.
09:27 You also have a centre console.
09:30 That's nice and deep which is pretty good.
09:32 You also have a glove box there which is reasonably sized.
09:35 Finally, what about your comfort?
09:37 You have automatic dual zone climate control.
09:40 You have heated seats for the first row with ventilation as well.
09:44 You have a heated steering wheel.
09:46 And in terms of the seats themselves, I quite like the design.
09:49 It's all perforated so you can get that cooling through.
09:52 And then this has the optional brown interior.
09:54 It's like $295.
09:55 You can get brown or grey and I think the brown looks fantastic.
09:58 It's offset with white stitching.
10:00 Seats themselves hug you in nicely so you feel comfy behind the wheel, especially for
10:04 long distance drives.
10:06 Then both the driver and front passenger are fully electrically adjustable with the driver
10:10 able to go forwards, backwards.
10:12 Backrest can go forwards, backwards.
10:14 The base can come up and down.
10:15 The seat can go up and down.
10:17 And then finally you have lumbar support as well.
10:20 And keep in mind as well you have memory for the driver.
10:23 In terms of the steering, it has both tilt and reach adjustment.
10:27 And then for our reach test, everything is easy to reach from the driver's seat.
10:33 Second row, the Tucson.
10:34 Look at this.
10:35 Loads of knee room, toe room, excellent.
10:38 Headroom really good.
10:39 And that's despite this mammoth panoramic sunroof here which looks pretty cool.
10:45 I sort of touched on it earlier but this is the long wheelbase model.
10:48 So you get the short wheelbase in Europe, long wheelbase here in Australia.
10:52 You can tell why this is so much better.
10:53 My seat is pretty much all the way back and I can easily comfortably fit an adult back
10:58 here.
10:59 So that's a pretty cool setup.
11:00 In terms of other creature comforts, you have, I think Hyundai calls it the passenger walk-in
11:04 feature, whatever that means.
11:06 But it is these buttons here.
11:07 It allows you to shift the passenger seat out of the way if you need to.
11:11 Back pockets here.
11:12 You've got air vents to keep yourself cool.
11:14 Two USB ports.
11:15 A centre armrest with two cup holders.
11:18 You have to jam the bottle in there but it fits in eventually.
11:22 You can also fit the bottle inside the door if you want.
11:26 Speaking of which, on the door you have your heated seat controls.
11:30 There's ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with three top tether points.
11:34 So what about cargo space given it's a long wheelbase?
11:37 Surely you've got more.
11:38 Let's have a look.
11:40 So you have a little over 500 litres to play with here in its standard trim.
11:45 Now I'll show you some of the cool features.
11:46 So you've got a 12 volt outlet off to the side.
11:48 Also got hooks.
11:49 But have a look at this.
11:50 This is a bit of a rarity in this segment.
11:53 It is a full-size spare tyre.
11:56 And this is a dual-tiered floor but you can see there with the full-size spare you can't
11:59 drop it to the second tier.
12:01 So I guess you have a little bit of a trade-off but you do get a full-size spare which I think
12:05 is more beneficial than having the dual-tiered floor.
12:08 So that's definitely good news.
12:10 Let's see how it fits with our bags.
12:13 So right, one, two.
12:16 Excellent.
12:17 So that is an easy fit and it is a really generously sized boot as well.
12:21 I should call out I had my daughter in here in her baby seat in the pram and all that
12:25 sort of stuff in here and it is a decent sized boot.
12:28 It eats up everything nicely.
12:29 So to increase the space you can drop the seats from here.
12:33 So I'll give that a little flick as that one resists the urge to go down entirely.
12:38 But anyway that increases the space to just under 1,900 litres.
12:45 So we've hit the road in the Tucson.
12:47 You can get three engines in the Highlander.
12:49 This one here is the diesel.
12:51 It's a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine.
12:54 Makes 137 kilowatts of power but more importantly 416 newton metres of torque.
13:01 And that's important because you want a torquey engine in these SUVs.
13:05 A lot of people look at these power and torque figures on paper but you don't realise until
13:10 you start loading it up with people that you really want the punch if you need to be overtaking
13:14 or doing that kind of driving on country roads where you want to feel confidence behind the
13:19 wheel.
13:20 And that's all mated to an eight-speed torque converter automatic transmission.
13:24 Now that's great news because it is not a dual clutch.
13:27 You get a dual clutch in the turbo petrol but a torque converter here in the diesel
13:31 and it's all the better for it because it gels nicely with the diesel engine.
13:34 That means that if you're rolling along you can get stuck into it and it's all nice and
13:39 smooth and most importantly it's city speeds.
13:42 It's not like a dual clutch where it can just get fussy and confused when you are doing
13:46 low speeds.
13:47 This is just nice and linear and quite progressive.
13:49 And the same goes for the engine.
13:50 You don't have to drop back through the gears for it to then pick up pace.
13:54 It simply can lean on its torque band and it means you're relying on the turbocharger
13:59 and the torque of the diesel as opposed to going back through and selecting the gears.
14:03 And that works really well because with an eight-speed auto that is a lot of gears.
14:06 It means you're not hunting all the time and it's not always trying to find the right ratio
14:10 for you.
14:11 Now let's talk fuel economy.
14:12 Hyundai claims an official figure of 6.3 litres per 100km.
14:15 We are currently sitting on 7.1.
14:19 So look that figure is actually not too bad.
14:20 We have been doing mainly highway driving though so I would have thought it would be
14:23 perhaps a little better than that.
14:25 We've only done a touch of city driving so yeah look it is pretty much a brand new car
14:30 so it still is being run in but I think over time that figure should come down and it's
14:34 pretty respectable for a big family SUV.
14:37 Let's talk about the ride and I'm going to bump the speed up just a little bit.
14:40 We've got our undulations up here.
14:42 Now the reason I'm doing this, this is a bit of an edge case in terms of this type of surface
14:47 but the key thing to note is that Hyundai hasn't done any local ride and handling tuning
14:53 on the Tucson in Australia.
14:55 And that's a departure from their previous policy of doing ride and handling tuning on
14:58 pretty much all new products.
15:00 Kia still does it but Hyundai's taken a back step due to COVID and that kind of thing.
15:05 And look it's not really all the worse for it.
15:07 The tune that Hyundai's been able to develop is actually pretty decent.
15:11 The whole reason they started their local ride and handling tuning program was, and
15:15 I remember the launch that it was on, it was the Hyundai i45.
15:18 When it arrived in Australia they had this mountainous road loop that was part of the
15:24 launch program and it was absolutely horrible.
15:27 It was so soft it would lean over in corners and it was really just not very impressive
15:32 to drive.
15:33 So they adopted a policy and convinced head office in Korea to do local ride and handling
15:38 tuning and had been doing it ever since.
15:40 They have a team here that basically does all of it and then all the configuration gets
15:45 sent to the production line and then it's put into the cars as they come to Australia.
15:49 But look, over time Hyundai itself has actually become better at tuning cars on their own
15:53 without the assistance of the Australian engineering team.
15:56 So this is testament to that and I think they've done a really good job with it.
15:59 And what about noise?
16:00 Look it's actually a pretty quiet environment.
16:02 When you do get on course chip country roads at highway speeds it can get a little droney
16:07 in the cabin and I think that's due to that tyre selection and also a 19 inch alloy wheel.
16:12 But for the most part it is quiet enough and it all gets drowned out by the speakers anyway,
16:17 it's got a pretty decent sound system.
16:18 One thing I do notice though that produces a fair bit of noise is this diesel engine.
16:22 So I'm going to come to a stop here.
16:27 We come to a stop, it is noisy, it is the predominant noise I'm hearing here with the
16:31 radio off and then as you accelerate it sounds very diesel like.
16:37 It actually reminds me of the Staria where it had the same sort of engine noise coming
16:42 into the cabin and it's not overly pleasant.
16:45 It's something that will go away eventually and you'll get used to hearing but one of
16:49 the downsides with diesels, especially here where they don't have that insulation, it's
16:53 just quite unpleasant if you're not used to that sound.
16:56 Let's talk drive modes.
16:57 So you've got a couple of modes to choose from here.
17:00 So with the drive you can flick it down, you've got eco, normal, sport and smart.
17:05 But then you also have terrain mode so if you do one more press of that, that allows
17:09 you to go between snow, mud and sand.
17:11 So because it is all wheel drive you can sort of tailor the stability control to do what
17:16 you need to do.
17:17 So let's dive it down into sport here, we'll just give it a little stab through a couple
17:21 of these corners and we'll see how it feels.
17:24 So being an all wheel drive it means you get that surety of a little bit of extra traction.
17:28 Dial in the throttle, yeah that feels really nice and composed.
17:33 It is surprising for such a big SUV, they've been able to give it that really nice and
17:38 planted feeling behind the wheel.
17:40 It doesn't feel like it's going to tip over or do anything unexpected, even on these higher
17:44 speed corners, it just leans in nicely and the body control is really good as you hit
17:49 bumps as well.
17:50 So this is definitely an edge case, you're not going to be driving like this if you own
17:54 the car but you have confidence knowing that it has been tuned to be able to be thrown
17:59 around a little bit should you desire.
18:02 Now Hyundai hasn't got an official 0-100 time but we've put it up against our stopwatch
18:07 and this is how it went.
18:09 Let's talk visibility, so out the front it's excellent, the wing mirrors are big so you
18:24 get good visibility down the side of the car.
18:26 You have blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirrors but you also have it built
18:30 into this screen ahead of the driver so as you flick that on you get camera vision down
18:34 both sides.
18:35 So I think this stuff is excellent, it really gives you no excuse to ever run into anybody,
18:39 especially things like cyclists and stuff that can creep up in your blind spot, that
18:43 is a really good feature.
18:44 At the back the envelope is pretty big as well so visibility is nice and clear.
18:48 Now we'll call out ground clearance here, it is an all wheel drive and it's kind of
18:52 a constant/on demand all wheel drive which means it's predominantly sending torque to
18:56 the front but it can go to the back as required.
18:59 You've actually got a little view here as well to tell you when it is going to the back
19:04 if I stand on the throttle there you can see it sort of creeping up but you do have 181mm
19:10 of ground clearance, it's not a huge amount but it's enough to do some very, very light
19:14 off-roading.
19:15 In addition to that you have an 11.8 metre turning circle, it's not the world's tightest
19:19 turning circle, I found a few times when I was doing U-turns you'll only just make it
19:23 around in a residential street and then finally you have a braked towing capacity of 1900kg.
19:30 So the new Hyundai Tucson, I tell you what, it is a huge, huge, huge, huge step forward
19:35 over the previous generation.
19:36 The last one was just feeling old and dated, this is really just a benchmark setting car
19:42 and I think that it propels it right up there with the best in this segment and Hyundai
19:46 should be proud of what they've achieved.
19:48 In terms of the negatives, I don't know, things like the diesel engine being a little bit
19:51 noisy and I would like to see wireless smartphone mirroring but outside of that it drives really
19:56 nicely, that diesel engine has heaps of punch and that long wheelbase gives it all the room
20:00 that you need inside.
20:01 It really just comes with everything that you need and nothing that you don't.
20:05 So let me know in the comments section below, what do you reckon about the new Tucson?
20:07 Are you going to hold out for the new Sportage to arrive which will have more warranty in
20:12 kind of the same package or are you going to go out and get one of these?
20:15 Very keen for your feedback as always.
20:17 If you did enjoy this video please make sure you share it with your mates and also subscribe
20:21 to our channel if you haven't done so yet but until next time, take it easy.

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