Summary:
Great family car
Faults:
Nothing yet, the car is still new.
General Comments:
Fit and finish are good.
The Santa Fe is very quiet and comfortable.
The Santa Fe (with the larger V-6) tows our pop-up camper with ease. It has more horsepower and torque than our old Windstar with its 3.8 engine.
We saved more than $7000 by buying this vehicle, versus a comparably equipped Toyota Highlander.
I love the back hatch for hauling groceries, and for stowing gear for camping trips.
I love the fact that I can easily reach the spark plugs on the engine. I told my wife, no more minivans!!! After we had so many problems with the Ford Windstar, she finally listened to me.
The fuel tank is too small, it should hold at least 20 gallons of fuel for long trips.
I will update this review as time goes on. I expect this car to have much less problems than we had with our 1998 Ford Windstar. I loved to drive the Windstar, but it's dead now (Cash for Clunkers).
Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes
Review Date: 8th February, 2010
8th Feb 2010, 16:05
Make sure that if you are towing a trailer, even a small one, that you perform more maintenance than you normally would with a car that doesn't tow anything. This means you should definitely be changing the oil every 3,000 miles, and the transmission fluid should be changed every 25,000. You probably already know this, but I figured I'd say it just in case. Not doing these things, especially when towing a trailer, can result in premature failure, most likely of the transmission.
4th Feb 2013, 14:46
I am the original commenter. We now have 28,400 miles on our 2009 Santa Fe. The Santa Fe seems to be running and driving very well, even though we were involved in a three car accident with an uninsured teenager who ran a stop sign.
Our left front fender, left front door panel, and left front suspension had to be replaced. Luckily, nobody was hurt in the accident. The airbags did not deploy, which was surprising because we were hit very hard from the side. The body shop did a very good job of fixing the suspension and aligning the wheels.
18th Mar 2013, 11:02
I am the original poster. I have just noted (at 30K miles) that the weatherstripping is seriously degraded on the driver's side door. It looks like this is a design defect that some people are complaining about on the Hyundai forums. I will take it to the dealer to see if they will fix it. At least one owner is complaining that his dealer refuses to fix this defect. I have never seen this type of weatherstrip failure before. Most of the time, the weatherstrip on your average car just comes loose and can be fixed with a little adhesive. The Hyundai weatherstripping must be very cheap for it to fail so soon.