2019 Hyundai Santa Fe: First Drive — Cars.com

hi there we’re here in Utah with the 2019 Hyundai Santa Feit’s the redesigned version of Hyundai’s midsize two row SUV and it replaces theSanta Fe sport in Hyundai’s lineup it’s a little bit bigger than the Santa Fesport overall and Hyundai has packed it with a lot of standard active safetyfeatures this is our first chance to drive the vehicle so let’s go for a ridewe’ve been driving the Santa Fe for a little bit on the roads outside of ParkCity Utah and the initial theme I’m getting is that this is a very smoothvehicle and it comes through in a lot of different ways and I think that’s theright tuning for it because you see in some SUVs where automakers really fourcould focus on sportiness Hyundai I think has found a good balance here inthis focus on smoothness we’re in a model with the optional 2-literfour-cylinder engine and it’s a very smooth revving engine it gets up tospeed quickly and easily highway passing power drops off a little bit it workswith an 8-speed automatic transmission and again it makes smooth shifts it’svery unobtrusive and it’s willing to make part throttle kick downs easilyit’s a responsive transmission that feeling of smoothness comes through inthe steering too it doesn’t offer a ton of feedback but the car steers welloverall and it rides well overall – it’s not too firmly sprung one of the thingsthat Hyundai focused on when redesigning the Santa Fe was improving itsvisibility and you know from driving it just now you can you can really see howthey’ve done that the car has really thin eight pillars the front roof pillarand that really helps you have a good view forward they’ve movedthe side mirrors to the door so there’s better visibility at the base of thedoor and even over shoulder views when checking your blind spotthose are good if they’re relatively unobstructed so we’re testing right nowa high-end ultimate trim level of the Santa Fe it has the optional turbo forceover like I mentioned all-wheel drive and the as tested price is nearly$40,000 but the Santa Fe starts at around twenty five thousand five hundreddollars and at that base level you get all the important active safety featureslike automatic emergency braking blind spot warning lane keeping assist of rearcross traffic alert adaptive cruise control it’s a long list of features andone of the features you can feel it really makes itself known when drivingand that’s the lane keeping function because as we’ve been driving on thesewinding roads you feel it following the road it’s it’s keeping track of wherethe lane is it’s it’s not intrusive but it’s definitely present another thingHyundai changed in the redesigned Santa Fe are the seats they have differentdensities of foam and with firmer foam for the bolsters and kind of a mediumfoam for the seat bottoms and their comfort is OKthe seats are wide so they’re not too restrictive which is nice but the bottomcushion in the backrest feel a little flat to me and not particularly sculptedHyundai included a bit of light off-roading on the drive route with thehill climb up a dirt trail we arrived at the hill just as a hail storm waspassing through but we stopped put the Santa Fe in 4×4 lock mode and thenpowered up the hill about a quarter of the way up I could feel it start to slipa bit but then I felt the rear wheels engageand the rest of the Hill is fine so inside the Santa Fe features a restyleddashboard that gets the tablet-style display screen that we’re seeing on moreand more Hyundai’s it’s it’s kind of on top of the dash propped out a little bitand below it are simple controls for the air conditioning system and otherfeatures in the car so the Santa Fe offers a number ofupscale features and those include a head-up display wireless device chargingfor your smartphone heated and cooled front seats this huge panoramic moonroofand a 360-degree camera system for enhanced visibility the rear seat uses a60/40 split design and both sections can slide forward and backwards so if youwant to share space with the cargo area or have more legroom you can do that andthe seats also recline if you prefer to kind of lean back a little bit and lookout the panoramic sunroof it’s a comfortable spot for adult passengers onabout 6 feet tall and the seats are high enough to offer decent thigh supportit’s not too low to the ground so the cargo area is a good-size space withoutany significant intrusions and it does have two underfloor storage areasthere’s this back one here it has this little space on the left-hand side and abigger cargo space under the forward portion which has these deep bins whichis kind of nice and you want to keep anything out of the way and hidden ifyou need even more space than that there’s buttons on the side thatpressing down releases the second row seats and they fold flat with the cargofloor automakers have been adding a lot of SUVs to their lineup slightly to meetconsumer demand especially small models but the mid-size class has held prettysteady with not a lot of new competitors for models like the Santa Fe but that’sabout to change as chevrolet is poised to reintroduce its blazer as a crossoverSUV and honda is promising a new passport model to compete as well so thenew santa fe is here at the right time it’s arriving at dealerships right nowand it should offer a lot of value especially considering its long list ofactive safety featuresyou

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