Hyundai Santa Fe 2016 Review

Hyundai Santa Fe Highlander
Road Test

The Christmas and New Year break is an ideal time to try out a seven-seat SUV – with the full family on board and enough luggage to warrant laying hands on a big family wagon. So Hyundai's Santa Fe, in top-spec Highlander trim and diesel-powered, was pressed into service.

On a trip to Port Campbell, on Victoria's shipwreck coast, the Santa Fe was quiet and refined, although some of the rougher bitumen along the way was a thorough test of the Hyundai's ride quality.

Despite the work done to Australianise the Santa Fe's suspension, the Hyundai still doesn't feel right on the black-top. There's little wrong with its cornering, but the ride quality is unsettling. Most passengers complained that the ride was simply too firm over the patchy and lumpy road surfaces, but I also noticed that the rear suspension felt underdamped over longer-frequency undulations – on freeway surfaces primarily.

But as a 'Sport' Utility Vehicle, the Santa Fe provides a satisfying drive. It noses into corners promptly and there's a respectable level of steering feedback through the wheel once the Hyundai is committed to changing direction. Steering weight is about right most of the time, but can feel unnaturally light at lower speeds. Roadholding is highly commendable for a vehicle of this type and it's stable at the straight-ahead too.

Off the road, the Santa Fe struggles with climbs that posed no great challenge for a Mitsubishi Outlander reviewed in recent months. The Hyundai ran out of traction around the same time as a Holden Captiva 7 also reviewed recently. For the Santa Fe the problem seemed to be the 19-inch Hankook tyres, which are quiet on bitumen and fairly grippy in bends, but left rubber behind on one rocky surface, even with the centre differential locked.

The diesel engine under the bonnet of the Santa Fe was very quiet and delivered plenty of torque from 2000rpm right through to redline. It still suffers from turbo lag from a standing start. Left in ECO or Normal (drivetrain) modes, the engine would run down to below 1500rpm in higher gears, consequently labouring away, producing some vibration. At freeway speeds, with the engine running at around 1800rpm, the NVH was limited to some wind and road noise.

Tyres were noisier at lower speeds on coarse-chip country roads, but weren't particularly objectionable.

Around town during the first week the Santa Fe used as much as 12.9L/100km, but with a family of four and enough luggage aboard for those few days away, the open-road fuel consumption fell as low as 8.2. With a lighter load and an even more benign driving environment, the Santa Fe will slip below 7.0.

The engine is coupled to a six-speed automatic transmission that shifts smoothly but swiftly and is almost intuitive in the way it picks its moments to shift down – without manual intervention by the driver. And unlike other automatics, the Santa Fe's behaves properly in Sport mode. Once you knock the lever across to the left, the transmission won't kick down to a lower gear, even with the accelerator pressed all the way to the firewall. But the transmission will change up automatically once the engine reaches redline.

Entering and leaving the Santa Fe is helped by the car's hip point, which is slightly higher than the Outlander's or Captiva 7's. Climbing out of the Hyundai's third-row seats is not to be undertaken lightly for adults. The high boot floor, the relatively low roof and the narrow footspace between the seat and the door jamb make it a challenge worthy of 'Twister' – the game, not the film.

Seats aren't all that shapely and supportive initially, but get the lumbar adjustment right and they're very comfortable for a three-hour trip right off the bat. Some will argue that the general design of the cabin is looking dated and/or fussy, but I still like it and it actually walks that line between functionality, durability and pizzazz.

The properly conceived driving position was complemented by simple controls and layout with easily legible instruments. There was a glitch in the infotainment system, which magically resolved itself by the following morning. The satellite navigation was slightly quirky; there's an extra step in selecting the destination before starting route guidance. That caught me out on a couple of occasions.

There was plenty of room in the luggage compartment. Levers back there flipped the second-row seats forward, as required. Additional nooks and crannies there and in other parts of the cabin further enhanced the Santa Fe's utility. A 12-volt outlet in the luggage compartment was handy for powering an air compressor. There's another outlet in the centre fascia as well.

Passengers in the second and third-row seats were kept cool with face-level vents. Reaching the kiddy seats in the very rear of the car is best from the near side (left), where the single-occupant seat in the second row tilts forward partly and slides the rest of the way. The rear-most seats themselves haul up easily out of the floor.

Accommodation there is pretty tight for adults of average height. The sunroof in the Highlander trim diminishes headroom and there's little kneeroom remaining unless the second-row occupants slide their seats forward. All of that is pretty standard for seven-seat SUVs of course, and the Santa Fe is no different in that regard from most.

The Santa Fe comes with a full-size spare on an alloy rim accessible from under the boot. It means you won't have to unload the boot (in theory) to change a flat.

The Santa Fe's Smart Cruise Control is a real asset. It's simple to operate, even in medium-density traffic on arterial roads with traffic light-controlled intersections. It can be configured for shorter braking distances to discourage lane hoppers from cutting in front of you on freeways, but it will also ensure you're very unlikely to be involved in a nose-to-tail incident of your own making. That's where the Autonomous Emergency Braking proves its worth.

In normal operation the active cruise control will bring the car to a complete halt behind the vehicle in front at traffic lights.

Another driving aid is the auto park system, which works to specification, but struggled to park between a passenger car behind a badly parked HiLux tray in front. Taking its cues from the HiLux, which had its near-side wheels on the nature strip, the Santa Fe backed in, swinging the nose perilously close to the Toyota's tray and finishing the manoeuvre with the nose still in traffic and the near-side rear wheel hard up against the gutter. The Santa Fe was unable to extricate itself from this situation.

However, with two cars parked conventionally the system worked fine.

Between the auto park system, the reversing camera, blind-spot detection and usefully large external mirrors, the Santa Fe is very easy to manoeuvre at low speeds. With all that gear going for it, the Santa Fe was never at risk of colliding with anything while backing down the drive – despite the tiny windows and dramatic rising waistline between the C and D pillars.

Overall, the Santa Fe remains one of our favourite SUVs, but the ride needs a rethink.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Highlander pricing and specifications:
Price: $56,685 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel
Output: 147kW/440Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 7.7L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 203g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP

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