The most stylish of Hyundai’s new Tucson, does the XRT’s performance match its panache?
David Booth: I wanted to like Hyundai’s Tucson XRT more than I did. Not that I didn’t actually like the compact sport cute, but it’s just that there a few things that — what’s the polite way to say this — pissed me off. One was a deficiency, one merely peeve(ish) and the last probably — almost assuredly — specific to me and my decrepit lower spine.
Taking the last first, I couldn’t sit in the passenger seat for more than 10 or 15 minutes without my lower lumbar threatening rebellion. As in, no matter how I (manually) adjusted the seat, my C4/C5 vertebrae — and the no longer spongey disc in between them — went into full quick-get-me-an-oxy pain spasm.
My pet peeve with the new Tucson is the seat warmer switch. Not the switch itself, but the indicator light. Actually, there’s three indicator lights, each designating a degree of warmth. The seat heaters are, as I implied, great, switch nodulation a treat. But the lights are so dim that, at the best of times, you can barely tell if they’re illuminated. And, if the interior of your Tucson happens to be bathed in the glorious sunshine that we’ve all been missing these last few weeks, they are absolutely impossible to see. And don’t try to put this down to old age and poor eyesight; I had surgery three years ago and my baby blues are good for better than 20/20. It annoyed me every time I wanted warm buttocks and, considering the wintery weather, said annoyance was frequent — I wanted warm buttocks.
Another illumination issue, but perhaps more problematic, was the poor performance of the Tucson’s high beams. Oh, the problem could have been that the low beams were so effective that the high-beams couldn’t add much to the equation. All that I know is that flipping the switch to Hi didn’t really increase forward vision much. I have no doubt that the Hyundai meets all Canadian safety standards, but the “highs” were barely noticeable.
This litany of issues might make you think I didn’t like the XRT. Or that it doesn’t have any redeeming features of a gadgetry nature. Nothing could be further from the truth. The infotainment system is excellent, the audio controls — always a potential source of angst for Yours Truly — were exemplars of the genre and the buttonry exceedingly well arranged.
But my favourite gadget in the new Tucson is its wireless phone charger. Not only is it conveniently located smack dab in the centre console — as opposed to tucked under the infotainment system — and is powerful enough to charge my iPhone 12 even with its thick QuadLock case (which usually resists onboard wireless systems), but it also has three bright green lights (as in all the luminosity the freakin’ seat warmer indicators lack) indicating how fast the battery is charging. It is the best wireless charger I’ve yet tested.
So, Nadine what were your hits and misses inside the Tucson’s cabin?
Nadine Filion: Well, your complaint about the heated seat’s lighting is silly, David. What your eyes couldn’t see… your butt could feel, so there wasn’t really a problem there. And for me, I thought you were going to complain about the Forward Attention Warning (FAW), with its infrared camera constantly monitoring where the driver is glancing and systematically alerting the whole cabin when he doesn’t look straight to the road. This system was utterly too sensitive, no matter who was holding the steering, you or me. Really, I don’t need any ADAS system to tell me I’m not a good driver; for that, I have you… Besides, since we never found the way to deactivate it (maybe there isn’t a way), it relentlessly prohibited any beauty sleep tentative from happening in the passenger seat.
But my bigger problem – the one that would make me think twice before buying a Tucson or any other Hyundai models with that feature – is the new gear shifter, which is unfortunately now found on the steering wheel. Even after three weeks of our test driving over 2,000 kilometres, I still can’t get why the Drive is where the Park should be – and vice-versa. How many times did I hesitate before starting or parking? Surely more often than your eyes went trying to decipher the seat heaters’ status. And I’m sure that, like me, you gave yourself a couple of scares when you thought you’d engaged the recul and instead, almost hit the garage door with the front bumper…
That said, this shifter lever leaving the central console is resulting in the conveniently positioned wireless charging pad you’re praising – and I totally agree with you on this. It also permits an open double-deck front compartment, a storage more generous than what we can expect in a small SUV. And boy, did we do get good usage of that storage all through the holidays. Without them, I wonder if we would have survived the drives from Toronto to Brossard, then to Les Laurentides, a stop in Ottawa, and back to Toronto.
What powers the Hyundai Tucson?
DB: On to more important things then. This version of the Tucson is powered by Hyundai’s once-ubiquitous 2.5-litre, naturally-aspirated inline four. It’s now getting a little long in the tooth, but it’s still a good’un, an excellent sample of the breed. It is, surprisingly for a large displacement inline four, fairly composed, noise, vibration and harshness well contained. It’s also decently powerful, its 187 horsepower and 178 pound-feet adequate, if not quite exemplary, at moving the 1,685 kilogram Tucson. Overall, the 2.5L is not nearly as high-tech as the small 1.6-litre Turbo found in other Hyundai’s — including the Hybrid version of the Tucson — but it’s more than up to the job. Most won’t wish for more motor.
The transmission it’s mated to is an eight-speed automatic transmission; thankfully, there’s not a CVT to be found. That said, in Normal mode, the shifts between the lower gears can be a little slow and early. This might make said shifting smoother, but, for those of us who appreciate mechanical efficiency, it’s a little annoying. Worse yet, it doesn’t really render the XRT fuel efficient. We averaged almost 10 litres per 100 kilometres during city and highway driving. That’s not terrible, but it’s not particularly frugal either and it’s significantly more than the 8.8 L/100 km Natural resources Canada rates it for. In fact, NRCan says that an AWD Tucson will cost you $2,728 annually to fuel.
That said, I didn’t drive the Hybrid, but I think you had a short romp in one, Nadine. Did you like it? And how much better was its fuel economy?
And that’s why, maybe, I was so disappointed with the Tucson non-hybrid, at least in its XRT guise. Seriously, if the manufacturer wanted to make us believe, and buy, the “we can go anywhere” style with this outdoors special trim, it should have given us more than some exterior black cladding, a “bridge-type” roof side rails and the 18-inch gummy Firestone Firehawks tires. Not to mention, it starts at $40,399, $5,700 more than the base Tucson. Surely, those tires are explaining our fuel consumption far from being frugal – and also the harsh suspension, despite a sophisticated multilink rear architecture. Hell, we didn’t have to see the Ontario/Quebec border sign to understand we were suddenly riding in La Belle Province! The quantum leap in suspension-cringing potholes was more than alert enough.
At the minimum, this Tucson XRT should have received a more capable all-wheel-drive system, but it’s not the case: Its HTRAC is nothing more than the same system boasted – standard for the Canada market – in all Tucsons. Not that this AWD doesn’t do the job. It did indeed when we initiated our road trip in a snow storm, keeping us safely on the highway 407 at mandatory speed limits. It even let us have fun in some parking lot left empty on Christmas Eve. But with its selective modes restricted to Snow, Mud or Sand, this very basic system didn’t give us a lot of latitude when the roads became icy or slushy or just wet. Personally, I would have liked an extra command to manually lock the torque between the axles so the Tucson would be ready before the trouble, in case we had chosen to go a tad bit off the beaten path.
DB: Well, I am glad you recommend the Hybrid so highly. That said, I am not disappointed in the Tucson at all. Oh, it could be better — and it sounds like the Hybrid, in many ways, is. And for the record, when I am saying that the seat warmers indicator lights pissed me off — you know just in case someone reading thinks I’m making mountains out of molehills — that most excellent wireless system more than makes up for the dim indicators; it’s just that the former promises an attention to detail that the latter fails to deliver. The charger would be a key point in swaying me to buy the Tucson — I’ve had a hate/hate relationship with most other onboard charging systems — while the lights would just be something to bitch at to you when there’s nothing interesting on the radio.
Besides, the Tucson, stretching 4,630-millimetres stem-to-stern and boasting 3,065 litres of passenger volume, is pretty right-sized to me, it’s the prettiest thing in a very crowded segment and the interior — save those infernal lights (the radio’s off!) — is quite appealing and well built. It is also — and I think we agree on this point — excellent value for the money. By the way, the $5,700 it costs for the XRT also gets you the electrochromic mirror and the power sunroof. (NF: Big deal, it’s not even the panoramic one…) And, besides the forward attention system you found so annoying (me too, admittedly), there are a host of other ADAS systems worth having, including an excellent adaptive cruise control system, blind spot monitoring and the cool safe warning exit system that is, unfortunately, an option. The Bose audio system with eight speakers ain’t half bad and Hyundai’s BlueLink connectivity is as fast and reliable as any.
So, if you’re shopping top-of-the-line electrified sport cutes, I think the Tucson Ultimate Hybrid is competitive with — and may even drive better than — the Limited version of the RAV4 Hybrid. If you’re shopping for a cheaper hybridize compact sport cute, Toyota offers so many more options.
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