Keeping the faith

Hyundai India Motor Ltd. has had a fairly successful run with its small cars since the late nineties with the Santro doing the trick for Hyundai in India. Then came the Accent which also worked wonders in the executive sedan segment and then came the blitz of the i-cars – the i10 and the i20 which are really working wonders for this South Korean automobile giant in India. However larger and more expensive automobiles from the Hyundai stable, save for the first generation very-Jag looking Sonata in India, haven’t done as well as the company had hoped. Cars like the Elantra (especially the CRDi) were excellent, feature packed cars at a VFM price point but just didn’t grab the market’s fancy. Even today, the Sonata Transform CRDi Automatic is rich with features and is an excellent VFM overall package, but just doesn’t sell in numbers since buyers in this segment tend to be very brand conscious more than anything else.

Hyundai has been successful in its brand positioning for its smaller more value for money products and have successfully managed to position the brand as innovative, stylish and technologically advanced. The Hyundai range of SUVs had only limited success, be it the large and slightly old-school but capable Terracan, or the Tucson which was a great soft-roader with its all-wheel drive capability. The SantaFe, we think, has what it takes to change Hyundai’s SUV fortunes in the Indian marketplace. Hyundai call the Santa Fe their global luxury SUV for India. Utter the word SantaFe to most non-car people, and they will immediately bring up the picture of the beautiful and history-packed capital city in New Mexico. Interestingly enough the name SantaFe literally translates to ‘holy faith’ in Spanish and there’s quite a possibility that the name has really worked this SUV wonders in the North American market.

The Hyundai SantaFe can be best described as a mid-size crossover SUV based and is based on the Hyundai Sonata platform. The first-generation SantaFe (SM) was launched in 2001 in the North American market and was Hyundai’s first major foray into this segment. It was criticized as being slightly obscure looking with its very Korean styling (think of a larger Tucson), but surprisingly caught the consumer’s fancy for it was well priced and was reliable. The Santa Fe quickly became Hyundai's best seller and contributed to Hyundai's success in the United States and over two millions units have been sold globally. It received a face-lift in 2005 and continued to sell in decent numbers. The second generation SantaFe (CM) was launched in 2007.

A mid-cycle facelift for the SantaFe was implemented for the 2010 model year and can be differentiated visually quite easily. The front grille now includes a horizontal and vertical gridded grille as opposed to the two bar vertical grille on the previous models, and the grille is now colour-coded instead of black. There are new rear tail lights which include all-red taillights with extensive chrome outlay, and new 5-split spoke alloy wheels which replace the previous 5 and 6-spoke ones. And this is the SantaFe that’s here, so it is as contemporary as can be. As of 2007, the mid-size crossover SUV Santa Fe falls between the compact SUV Tucson and the larger luxury crossover SUV – the Veracruz which in the North American markets is Hyundai’s only seven-seat SUV. The Santa Fe is quite good looking with a fairly robust looking front end – with its very two tone effect and composite skid-plate area.

The Santa Fe may not turn too many heads, since it is a very safe design which will appeal to a wide variety of people – in a variety of countries. It is quite a generic looking soft-roader when viewed side-on and it is only when you look at the vehicle from the front that the slim lamps which are more reminiscent of a car stand out. On the rear it’s the chrome high contrast rear tail-lamps and the skid plate with twin oval chrome exhausts. It certainly looks quite meaty from the rear with those twin exhausts giving it quite a hint of the performance that lies tucked away underneath the bonnet. But there are small design touches like the generously sized and intuitive right-mounted handle to open the tailgate. It’s a feature that sets the Santa Fe apart and apparently has scored well in design and usability studies and no doubt, the owners love it too! There will be four colours on offer – there’s a Phantom Black, Sleek Silver, Vanilla White and a Steel Blue.

The interiors of the Santa Fe are a very pleasant and car-like affair. If you’ve been in a premium Hyundai sedan off-late, you’ll be right at home in the Santa Fe. The two tone interior is beige and black and there are tasteful leather seats and a dark veneer mock-wood panelling. There’s nice aluminium and chrome bits in the right places that light up the cabin quite nicely too. The quality of materials and the fit is quite good and equipment levels are quite high too. There’s a 10 way power adjustment for the driver’s seat and a 4 way power adjustment for the passenger seat. A couple of things unique to the Santa Fe in the segment are the fact that you get dual-zone climate control for the front along with an ionizer which keeps the air positively charged and fresh. In addition to this, you also get third row air-conditioning blower speed control, which isn’t there on other vehicles in the segment. Also in line with the rest of the ‘new’ Hyundai range in India, the Santa Fe has ice-blue lighting for everything from the instrument cluster to the audio-kit. Personally, although it is new-age, it can get a little too bright – so it’s a good thing that it comes with a dimmer.

There’s plenty of storage space in the doorpads for bottles and other knick-knacks. The audio kit is fairly good too and has an in-dash 6CD changer with USB and Aux-In. You also get steering controls for the audio kit and the standard cruise-control. What we miss on the car (more so since it is available internationally as standard, albeit with the more expensive sat-nav kit) is the Bluetooth capability for telephony. And since India is such a chauffeur driven country, and Hyundai’s own Verna Transform comes with a remote for the audio kit, it would have been nice if the Santa Fe came with a remote for rear seat passengers. There’s also little things like a more comfortable to use ‘organ’ type accelerator pedal for better driving comfort and there’s a dead pedal – which we love! The Santa Fe comes with reverse parking sensors and the reverse camera that was there on one of the homologation cars which we drove sadly isn’t making it to our shores.

What is also not making it here is the rear privacy-glass package which essentially is a black tinted rear and quarter glass areas along with the rear windscreen. Apparently Hyundai foresaw issues with this particular tinted glass since the traffic cops may raise an objection and didn’t want to launch the Santa Fe with the tinted windows package. But there’s plenty of other useful things in the Santa Fe. Take the large chiller compartment in centre armrest for example and the plentiful in-dash storage and dual-sunglass holders. There are thoughtful reading lights for the middle row as well and the Santa Fe is quite practical as a vehicle. Both sun-visors (driver and passenger) get vanity mirrors with lighting too.

The seats, apart from being well finished are very comfortable. In fact the middle row is very comfortable, especially when you flip down the centre armrest, and the third-row seats really are quite usable by medium-sized adults. The way they completely stow away into the rear floor with a thoughtful carpet mat that covers the stowed away seats is a nice touch. In terms of flexibility the third row of seats is a 50:50 split and the middle row is a 60:40 Split. With the third row seats flipped down, there’s enough space for a long driving vacation with the family, but if you want to use the third-row you’re probably going to have to get a roof cargo-box mounted on those sliver finised roof-rails. There’s really not much space behind the third row seats for anything larger than a couple of overnighters.

The SantaFe comes with plenty of electronic kit to ensure stability and sure-footedness. To start with it has yaw movement sensors, steering angle sensors and sensors at each wheel constantly monitoring slip and speed. All these inputs are then fed into the ESP program which essentially uses ABS and TCS to keep the SantaFe stable at all times, be it driving around in inclement weather, snow or just when you have to do a sudden manoeuvre to avoid an accident with something. The Santa Fe’s Electronic Stability Control Program is backed up by the Traction Control System, which limits power and applies brakes to individual wheels to reduce the occurrence of wheelspin, and routes power to the wheel with the most traction. Together, both systems give the Santa Fe an uncanny assurance in slippery conditions, eliminating much of the apprehension one typically feels while driving in inclement weather conditions. The Santa Fe also features Brake Assist to reduce stopping distances and Electronic Brake-force Distribution to stabilize the car when heavily loaded or while cornering.

While the older SantaFe (2006) received only 4stars in the EuroNCAP tests the newer facelift SantaFe gets five stars on the EuroNCAP now since there are some significant safety improvements that make it a safer vehicle. Take for example the Active Headrests, since even the most skilled drivers in the world can’t protect themselves from being rear-ended! These help dramatically decrease chances of suffering whiplash injury which is a major concern when you’re rear-ended. The Santa Fe’s standard active front head restraints move forward and up in a rear impact to protect your neck from overextending. Given that whiplash is one of the most common vehicle-related injuries and can lead to chronic, lifelong discomfort, Hyundai has made these restraints standard on the Santa Fe. Also what is equally impressive is the fact that there are no motors or electronics to wear out; the design uses body weight alone to react to impact forces.

The Santa Fe also scores very highly with Airbags for both rows and the six standard airbags in the Santa Fe protect front-seat passengers from front and side impacts. Side-curtain airbags extend to the rearmost seats to protect those occupants as well. And the ‘Occupant Classification System’ can detect the size of the front-seat passengers and adjust accordingly. In fact, they’re so smart that if no passenger is detected, the passenger-side airbag won’t inflate, reducing repair costs. Then there are the roll-over sensors that detect an accident and automatically deploy the six airbags (front, side and curtain) thereby offering an additional level of safety for its seven occupants.

What’s under the bonnet is really what makes the Santa Fe ever so desirable. There’s a punchy diesel burning 2199cc, four-cylinder, DOHC, CRDi motor with a special turbocharger that Hyundai like to call the eVGT. It is essentially a electronically controlled and actuated Variable Geometry Turbocharger (VGT) which delivers seamless performance and almost zero turbo-lag. The eVGT ensures better low end torque and uses electronic actuator for control of the turbocharger vanes, contributing to making the engine punchy and very driveable throughout the rev range. The R2.2 engine pushes out a very healthy 197bhp @ 3800rpm and a very meaty 420Nm of torque @ 1800- 2500, giving the Santa Fe segment leading power and torque outputs.

Some of the other refinements in the engine are Piezo actuators for the fuel injection system to control fuel flow control more precisely (instead of the conventional solenoid actuated ones.) This provides for better engine efficiency thereby producing better power, and better emissions and slightly better levels of refinement. Even though the engine is powerful and meaty, Hyundai claim an ARAI mileage figure of 14.66kpl. However, we’ll be able to put it through its paces soon and will be able to tell you exactly how efficient this beefy motor is in the city and out on the highway. It should be good at long-legged cruising since the Santa Fe is mated to a fairly slick six-speed manual transmission as standard with the engine barely turning over at 1800rpm at 100kph in the sixth gear.

Sadly for India the Santa Fe is not immediately offered with the six-speed automatic Shiftronic transmission which is available in the North American market but instead comes with a six-speed manual transmission as standard. The Santa Fe is an all-wheel drive SUV and most of the time it really is in front-wheel drive mode. The all-wheel drive system in the Santa Fe comes from the world’s foremost 4x4 experts – BorgWarner. The Santa Fe uses a BorgWarner ITM 3e which is their trademarked electromagnetic clutch-type system that sends 95% of the power to the front wheels — until they encounter a low traction situation, when up to 50% of the power can be apportioned rearward. The advantage of this system is much higher fuel efficiency than systems that are always ‘On’ and driving all four wheels. The fully automatic system also features an AWD-Lock button that allows you to send half of the available power to the rear wheels on demand simply at the push of a button. However the user-selectable 4WD option stays powered on upto a speed of 40kph after which it goes back to being a conventional front-wheel-drive SUV giving you better fuel efficiency.

The Santa Fe is really very car-like to drive. It’s not high enough that you’d need a side step to clamber in and it’s certainly not low enough that you wouldn’t be able to make it through a swampy field should you ever need to. The 6-speed manual gearbox is slick to use and has very positive shifts, which is typical of most Hyundai gearboxes and is a joy to use and there’s also a gear shift-indicator that prompts you to change up to a higher gear. Special attention has been paid to ensure that NVH levels in the SantaFe are at an all time low with the special engine bay insulation as well as the quieter twin exhausts which have been designed to suppress noise effectively.

Typical of almost all Hyundai vehicles, the Santa Fe excels in the ride department and has pretty good handling too. Suspension on the front is by way of McPherson struts and the rear is by way of a multi-link setup and in true Hyundai fashion is mounted on a subframe. It feels sure-footed and is a real interstate mile-muncher. With all the electronic safety kit and that peppy engine upfront, it can get you out of trouble sooner than you can blink an eye. All you need to do is put your right foot down and there’s a seamless surge of power that’s sent to the front wheels in a very controlled and linear fashion. In fact the Santa Fe dulls you into a sense of complete confidence at speeds you wouldn’t believe you were doing. It doesn’t feel heavy or cumbersome like you might think it may be. Instead it feels like someone’s lit a fire on its tail and it really does take off like a scalded cat.

The hydraulic power assisted steering is well weighted and with the help of those meaty tyres, there’s plenty of feel. Since the SantaFe is a complete CBU import into India, it comes standard with Khumo tyres which we’re told, have a superior silica compound that lower friction and provide for superior wet weather grip. The grippy Kumho Solus KL 21 235/ 60 R18 tyres shod on those beautiful split five-spoke 18” alloys are fairly quiet and no doubt contribute in a very big way to the way the Santa Fe rides and handles. Of course, don’t expect to do any mud-plugging with the Santa Fe. Even if the AWD system is capable of pulling the Santa Fe out of trouble, these high performance on-road tyres will limit it. The only time the Santa Fe didn’t feel refined enough in the ride department was over patches of very broken tarmac and we’d lay the blame squarely on those large 18” alloys with the 60profile rubber. The brakes (all big discs on all four corners) along with ABS, EBD and Brake Assist ensure that the Santa Fe stops just as well as it goes.

For now the SantaFe is purely a CBU import and Hyundai really are getting it in to be a flagship product with plenty of urban ‘tech’ in the now expanding luxury Softroader / SUV segment. They really don’t plan on the SantaFe being a volume player, unlike their small cars which are amongst the segment leaders. Hyundai Motors India Ltd. plan to launch the SantaFe in two variants only. The first will be a slightly cheaper two-wheel drive version (front wheel drive only) which will come without ESP, no cruise control and no active headrests.) The more expensive version will have all of this including 4WD mechanicals and the button that allows you to select 4WD manually should you need it. Both versions come with leather interiors and all the usual electronic and safety kit. They also come with the 18” alloys as standard. The only tell-tale difference on the exterior is the badging on the rear which says CRDi 4WD on the full spec variant.

The Santa Fe is really a tech showcase for this South Korean carmaker in India. The first lot of cars that will be brought in is about 300 units and the price will be competitive at the introductory prices for Santa Fe 4X2 variant being 20.95Lakh and the full-spec 4X4 at 22.95Lakh Rupees. (All prices ex-showroom Delhi). Hyundai doesn’t really have any plans to sell more than 800 – 900 units a year since this segment really isn’t where their focus is. But it was important for Hyundai to have a presence in this segment just so that consumers loyal to the brand could have something to move up to within the brand and not switch to another brand. The Hyundai SantaFe will compete with the likes of the Chevrolet Captiva, Toyota Fortuner, Ford Endeavour, Mitsubishi Outlander, Nissan X-trail and the yet-to-be-launched Skoda Yeti. With Hyundai cars in India being known for their excellent aftersales service, low cost of ownership and reliability, the SantaFe seems like a very sensible choice in this segment. The SantaFe is refined, spacious, powerful & fast, has all the right safety kit and looks good; so we really can’t find a hard enough reason for you not to buy one, especially if you’re an urban SUV user. So in the true spirit of the word Santa Fe, Hyundai do want to keep the customers in their fold and have them keeping their faith in the brand.