2008 Hyundai Santa Fe Limited AWD

Ok, full disclosure here. I don’t really "get" the whole SUV thing. When I was in high school, one of my best friends had a Jeep Cherokee which we often took up to Lake Tahoe to go skiing. It worked ok, but I always thought my other buddy’s Saab was a better snow car. Now, I definitely get Wranglers and 4×4 pickups if you are hardcore about going off-road. And I get full size trucks and SUVs when you have to tow or haul stuff. But most of the smaller or mid-size SUVs you see on the road these days… dunno. Seems like most of them are designed for the mall. And the Santa Fe Limited AWD definitely seems like a mall vehicle. Continue reading…

Still, we might have taken the Santa Fe Limited AWD off road if a) we hadn’t been slammed with a bunch of other stuff and b) it had come equipped with something other than street tires. So basically we just drove it around like you would with any old car. Jen took it to the head shop a few times and I took it to my daughter’s elementary school on the first day of school. We took it to get Mexican food. And it did all that stuff fine.

Let’s see… Seats were comfy. Ride was pretty good. Brakes felt a bit mushy. Acceleration was totally adequate. Visibility was excellent. It didn’t handle all that well, but then it’s a SUV. The stereo wasn’t as good as the one in the pricier Genesis I reviewed earlier, but that’s not a big surprise. I have no real complaints other than the particularly ugly fake woodgrain they used on the dash, and the way the whole dash lit up blue at night like a cheap cell phone.

Now, the Limited AWD has a MSRP of around $30k (you can get a FWD version for as little as $21k). Would I take it over a similarly priced Subaru Outback, even though the Hyundai comes with a roomier interior? No, I wouldn’t. Would I take it over other small SUVs in its class? I don’t know. Honestly, I haven’t driven that many. We just got a Ford Edge Limited AWD test car, which has a MSRP close to $33k. The Edge is more of a "crossover vehicle" than a SUV or CUV or whatever, but it’s definitely another mall vehicle and has about the same ride height and interior space. Personally I think the Edge is a hell of a lot better looking than the Santa Fe. I’ll let you know how it compares to the Santa Fe in other respects next week.