Vehicle with top technology
I have been following the news about this new model for more than 6 months before it was launched and I was eagerly waiting for it to be available to buy. I was searching for a Hybrid Calligraphy variant in any available location even if it was farther and I finally found one more than 100 miles away and I went there and purchased it. I never loved a car so much as this one. It was excellent and I loved to drive in it and was travelling longer routes just to enjoy the ride. I have rented a lot of cars from different brands to understand the ride quality and features and I was impressed with Hyundai's technology in this car. It was more feature packed than a luxury car. It's not perfect though. I heard a lot of complaints from other Santa Fe Gas model owners about the issues with DCT transmission and I felt glad to have chosen a Hybrid model with traditional 6 speed automatic transmission. So far, I have driven 5100+ miles in nearly 4 months and I'm very much in love with it.
Here's my likes and dislikes about this car:
Likes:
1. Car drives silky smooth. It is very quiet up to 70 mph and I start noticing wind noise once I go over 70 mph. It has excellent stability even at high speeds.
2. The power is adequate even when I was travelling with 4 adult passengers and light luggage. At first, I found it difficult to drive slowly because it picks up speed so smoothly and I was going well above speed limits without realizing. But after about 2 months, I started noticing some lack of power when driving slightly uphill terrain, but switching to Sport mode quickly speeds up the car. So, it's not bad.
3. Hyundai's Highway Driving Assist-2 (HDA2) is excellent. It maintains a good control of the vehicle on highways and I feel very confident about it. The automatic lane change is very good too and I found it handles lane change confidently. My friends were impressed with this technology and seeing it on a mainstream vehicle at this budget price was a surprise.
4. The interiors are luxurious, well-made and comfortable. I love the cabin layout - no complaints here.
5. The technology is top of the line - Heads up display, digital rearview mirror, wireless carplay/android auto, panoramic screen, physical button and knob controls are all great.
6. The seats are very comfortable and I could sit in it for hours and drive.
Dislikes:
1. Having driven a lot of other cars, I felt the braking on this car is slow. I have to depress the brake pedal a lot to get the car to slow down. For the first month, I actually thought the brakes had to be adjusted but realized that it was working fine and it's just how this car is tuned. But if I slam the brakes, the car instantly comes to a stop as if it hit a wall. So, its brakes are good but takes a lot of pressing to slow down the car. Due to that, I feel a little uneasy when driving at high speeds. Now, after 3 months, I'm kind of used to it and use the regen braking settings to help with braking.
2. I feel the rear view mirror should be positioned a little towards the front so that the driver doesn't have to move or title the head too much to see the rear view mirror. It should be in the peripheral field of vision of driver but even for a tall driver like me who fully pushes back driver seat, I have to tilt my head up to see rearview mirror which is an inconvenience. If the rearview mirror was a little more closer to the windshield (positioned further to the front), it would be easier to see it and convenient to keep switching my vision between windshield and rearview mirror.
3. No dedicated compass view and the digital clock is very tiny when I'm using Carplay. It would be convenient to have a digital clock and compass always in sight at a fixed position and in big fonts.
Wishlist / Improvements I would like to see:
1. There isn't a lot of customization options in cluster display and in Heads up display.
2. In Heads up display, it is hard to tell if I'm going over speed limit, the numbers in the tiny speed limit icon turn red which is barely noticeable. Instead the main speed indicator (not the speed limit sign) should use different colors to indicate speed. Blue to indicate driving very below speed limit, Green to indicate driving within -5 mph to +2 mph of speed limit, yellow to indicate +3 to +5 mph of speed limit and red over +5 mph of speed limit. Also, the speed limit sign icon is positioned to the top left of the road lane markings indicator in both the cluster guage and HUD. It is counter intuitive as we always see speed limit signs on the right side of road in real world.
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Verified Owner
