A solid vehicle with good value proposition but room for improvement
After spending about 7 years watching the market, waiting to replace a 2012 Escape XLT V6, I eyeballed the 4th gen Santa Fe for a while due to it's larger end of the compact SUV segment while maintaining 2 rows to preserve maximum trunk space. Once I found out the current facelifted 2023 year had a hybrid, it was strongly between that and the Tucson. Though the Tucson was pretty competitive, I ended up with a Santa Fe Blue.
For a young person coming from an oldish vehicle, I was looking forward to practical tech as software/programming can enhance a product a lot. This was a large disappointing area for me. The infotainment, fully digital gauge cluster, key fob, and app all lack any significant customization or very useful features. Features such as having the already powered mirrors aim down when reversing, changing the awful sound of the reverse VESS module, making the car honk instead of chirp when pressing lock on the fob, customizing the display theme of the instrument cluster, allowing certain info in the infotainment screen/instrument cluster, rolling the windows up/down with a press/hold of the fob, etc. Instead, there's some basic customization, but nothing groundbreaking.
What this vehicle class/price point does get is decent value and thoughtful touches like rear window shades, folding seat releases in the trunk, a light in the trunk, tons of underfloor trunk storage, heated mirrors, acoustic laminated front and side glass, auto dimming mirror, keyless entry -- specifically the kind that you simply grab the door handle to unlock, Homelink, a 7 channel standard audio system that sounds fine, and a trunk 12V outlet.
Aside from the software touches, it misses: A power inverter, even 100W would be nice, any sunglasses holder, a wireless charger that doesn't simply overheat my phone, the ability to lock/unlock the vehicle from the outside with the fob when the vehicle is on (like running in the store with the car on if you have a pet in the car), and wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto which is a real shame since the smaller infotainment gets wireless.
Overall, there are some things I'd really like to have seen but there's almost no hope since the model year is now long discontinued and the only updates are for the nav system. I like the vehicle overall in terms of performance, space, comfort, cargo, and some of the practical/luxury touches. At about $40k, the value is at least okay.
I've heard not great stories about service but luckily have had no issues at about 38k miles and 2.5 years of ownership.
Propietario Verificado
