Hyundai Santa Fe Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Hyundai Santa Fe range
Prices: £21,620-£24,120 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 11-13 [est]
Emissions: 194g/km
Performance: 0-60mph 9.8s / Max Speed 118mph
Fuel Consumption: (Combined) 39.2mpg
Safety: Twin front and side airbags, ESP, ABS with EBD
Dimensions: Length/Width/Height 4660/1890/1760mm

SANTA’S CLAWS ARE OUT

Our Rating: 7.1 / 10

Hyundai is aiming high with the latest version of its Santa Fe SUV. Steve Walker reports.

No longer content to offer budget alternatives to mainstream products, these days Hyundai is aiming for parity on grounds of quality, performance and desirability. This isn’t pie in the sky stuff either. Underpinning the Korean marque’s ambition is a real advance in the standard of its merchandise. The latest Santa Fe has its sights set on the SUV sector’s big guns but is it up to the challenge?

This Santa Fe was launched in 2006 before Hyundai really started to get its act together and challenge the European market’s established brands on equal terms. As a result, it has relied on low prices to an extent but with the latest facelifted model Hyundai looked to up its game. Performance, engine efficiency, safety and the cabin’s look and feel all came in for attention but the pricing remained distinctly affordable.

Driving the Santa Fe forward is a 194bhp 2.2-litre diesel engine and it represents a key area where Hyundai is hoping to leverage an advantage over rivals. Nearly 200 horses is a lot to extract from an engine of this size and 422Nm of torque is also not to be sniffed at. These kinds of outputs are more readily associated with six-cylinder diesel engines but this all-aluminium unit developed by Hyundai makes do with four pots. It can get the Hyundai Santa Fe through the 0-60mph barrier in 9.8s, which is rapid for a large 4x4 vehicle like this one and it’s offered with a choice of manual or automatic six-speed gearboxes.

The Santa Fe’s MacPherson strut front suspension and multilink rear set-up has been set up for optimum driving dynamics on road but off-road jaunts aren’t beyond its capabilities. An electronic ‘torque on demand’ four-wheel drive system directs drive to the rear wheels via a multi-plate clutch when slippage is detected at the front. It reacts a lot quicker than many similar systems, although in really slippery conditions, the driver can engage a 4WD Lock facility which is especially useful when encountering terrain such as sand, standing water or in slippery bends. The seven-seat versions of the Santa Fe also have a self-leveling rear suspension system to help cope with the extra weight.

There’s more aggression about the Santa Fe’s styling these days, perhaps reflecting a newfound confidence in what lies beneath the skin. The rising waistline and the cutaway section in the bumper below the chrome ringed grille help create a sporty look. The rear end is less shapely but benefits from some attractive light clusters and trapezoidal headlamps.

Trim materials in the cabin have been modernised with the dreaded faux-wood inserts taking their rightful place in the skip. Instead, there’s carbon black detailing which looks pleasantly more up to date. The overall quality of the plastics used and the general design will still lag behind the class leaders but the Santa Fe’s trump card is its practicality and it’s a tough one to beat.

This is one of the bigger compact 4x4s and it uses its space to maximum effect by making a seven-seat option available. Adults will not thank you for installing them in the rearmost seats but kids will fit quite happily. Settle for the five-seater version and there’s a vast 969-litre boot behind the second row and an underfloor storage area that makes use of the space that the extra seats would have occupied. With all the seats folded down, the Santa Fe takes on a 2,247-litre capacity - enough room to swing a wildebeest, if you’re that way incli