2020 Hyundai Venue Review - Here's What You Get For $20,000

I'm Jacob. I'm Gary. And we're going for a drive. 2020 Hyundai Venue. Without launch control. Quite slow. Horsepower and torque. 121 horsepower, 113 pound feet of torque from a 1.6 liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder. So what the heck is this SUV anyways? OK, so this slots in below the Kona for some reason. This is smaller than the Kona. And it's pretty much a lifted Accent. Yes. Which is their smallest car. Because they need more SUVs. Because apparently. You millennials keep buying them. That's what they keep telling us, is that this is a millennial focused car. And millennials love this. OK, so this competes directly with the Ford EcoSport EcoSport. So that is the size of this car. And then it's also kind of small, like the Kicks from Nissan, the CH-R, and the HR-V from Toyota and Honda. But those are more with the Kona. That's the thing. It's like, this is tiny. And before I start talking about this amazing horsepower, we are in New Orleans. Yes, we. Nolans. We went to Alabama. We checked out the Hyundai plant, reviewed the Sonata, which will be coming out soon. And now we're in New Orleans doing the venue. Is that where you got the hat? I got the Hyundai hat from the plant in Alabama. But I also brought a Honda sweater to prove to you guys we don't get paid by Hyundai, because they would never allow me to wear a Honda sweater in a video. There you go. If you needed proof for some reason. Myth busted. So now the important stuff, horsepower. I'll be honest, this thing is slow as balls. But it's a city car, and they keep telling us that it's a city car. So if you drive this in the city, it's totally appropriate for city driving. Yeah, it's not going to matter. And it's got a CVT that they call an IVT. Exactly. So it's slightly better than a CVT. And actually, I don't mind it at all for city driving. If you're trying to have fun, this is not a fun car. And when you put it into the actual shifting modes, which you don't have paddles, you just have it on the gear shifter, it's actually pretty responsive for fake gears. Yeah, we have a simulated eight-speed auto. So if I shift this into manual, you can hear the gear changes. Let's listen. It's quick. Pretty responsive, considering. Yeah, so transmission-wise, nothing remarkable, but pretty good. And you're going to like it in the city. And I think the best part about driving it in the city is it does have the Lane Keep Assist package, the one that we usually like on Hyundai Kia Genesis. Not the newest highway driving assist, but it's very good. If you had to cruise on the highway, it would be so much better. And I think this is the cheapest car that you can get those features in. I think you're right. This is a very good system. It's not quite as good as their new system, but this is very good at this price. But back to that engine. It's so slow. OK, so horsepower is over. Handling. Handling, again, nothing remarkable. And I do think that's probably the worst part of this car is that it's too stiff. Over bumps, not stiff with body roll. Exactly, yeah. There's definitely lots of body roll. But stiff-wise, over bumps and potholes and that kind of stuff, which is probably the worst part. But this is an economy car. So how much can you really ask for suspension-wise? I know. It's just that if you're going to market this as a city car, I want a little bit softer because city roads tend to be terrible. But I feel like city driving is the lowest tier because it means small car and inexpensive. But that's for horsepower. For suspension, I want a little bit softer. But they can't. They cost too much. Oh, they can. They just chose not to. But what you also get because it's a city car and it's nice and small and light, the steering is really light. We do have three different drive modes. I haven't really noticed that much of a difference between them. So just leave it in normal for the most part. Yeah, and they were telling us that when you're in snow mode, it does a lot of brake modulation and throttle modulation to keep you in a nice path, which we can't test out because we are in New Orleans. So this does have brake torque vectoring. And apparently, it works in all the modes. So it will help you through corners. And it'll help you the most in snow mode. But you really don't need to worry about handling. No, you really don't. This is not the car for that. No, it's not. But this car is probably for looks. Yes, so let's get into the looks and talk about who this car is for. OK, Millennials. That's what they keep telling us. But I have a feeling it's Millennials and senior citizens because I feel like old people will also buy this a lot. Yeah, I think Millennials will only buy this because it's cheap. Like, I don't think Millennials really want something like this personally. No, but maybe Millennials who don't care about driving. If you don't care about driving, this is fantastic. And if you think this thing looks cute because it kind of does. Oh, for sure. This does look better than the Accent. Yeah, I hate to admit that because I don't really like SUVs, but this generally looks better. So to start with overall looks, you can either get it in a solid color or you can get it in the Urban package, which is the hip Millennial thing to do. And what's that? You get a different colored roof. That's so Urban of them? Yeah, so they're copying the Kicks, I guess, and the CHR. Yeah, the CHR. On this one, the main pizzazz color is you get a gray car with a yellow roof and some yellow grills. And to be honest, I think that's my favorite color. Yeah, but we opted for the acid yellow, which was the same as the Kona. Yeah, because we hope that you people would click on this video. But then you can also get one that's blue with a white top, which looks kind of more like a Mini Cooper. Yes, it does. And then there's a couple other nice solid colors. Like, what's your favorite look of this? The gray with the green roof. OK, and I think, yeah, I'm acid yellow. Yeah, I get that. Overall, I do like what they've done with the looks of this. Like, they've made it stand out from everything else in their entire lineup. And I think the way they differentiate it the most is by having different daytime running lights. Yeah, they kind of took what they did with the Kona and just made it a little bit different. Yeah, they kind of almost have Telluride headlights. A little bit. They're amber. Yeah, I do like the headlights. I think they've perfected that split headlight design that Jeep tried to do and failed. OK, so then if we move on to the grill, this one kind of has a plaid-looking grill with, like, plus signs. And it's chrome. Yes, there are versions that are black. I do like the black grill more. And I really like the body lines, the way they pop, especially with this paint. Like, on the hood, we've got a lot of aggressive shapes and everything. And then even if we move on to the side, we've got very, very hard, aggressive body lines. It almost looks like a wide body. Yeah, I did notice that. The wide body thing looks kind of cool because they don't trick you with the fake wide body like they do on some Hyundais. But they also have fenders that are indented to make it look like it does have more fender in certain lighting conditions. That's right. And then we have these weird little notch things on top of the fake wide body thing. I don't like how they accentuated on the gray model with the green. Yeah, and I do like it because I think that's like a fun, gimpy little thing. And we obviously have plastic cladding because this is a serious off-road vehicle. No, it is not. It only comes in front-wheel drive, which is fine because they're like, you know. At this price, which we haven't got to yet, it makes sense. And what do you think of these wheels? They suit the car. They're kind of nice. They're kind of like HRV wheels. Yeah, and you really see that on this one blue model they had. I'm like, I just, CHR, CHR. No, HRV. HRV, HRV. Just worse names. At least this is a normal name, Venue. And what is the Continental recommended tire for the 2020 Hyundai Venue? The Pure Contact LS, or if you live in a place that gets winter, the Viking Contact 7. So now to the back end. The back end looks pretty good. It looks chill, nothing like outrageous. Yeah, like the taillights look OK. OK, so let's start with the taillights. They've got a new, weird pattern. Yeah, it's kind of like a flag, but not. It looks like a Z on one side, or a Z if we're in America. And I don't want to say that Hyundai copies everything, but on the one that looks- Oh, do you not want to say that because you're paid? Yeah, yeah. On the Mini Cooper looking one, it kind of looks like Union Jack taillights. Yeah, I could see that. And what do you think of the exhaust? I didn't notice the exhaust. There is no exhaust. I think that's perfectly fine. Well, I mean, there is an exhaust. There's no exhaust tip. And my favorite part about the rear end, the Venue logo, it's in white with a chrome outline. I did notice that. I was like, oh, that's cool. For some reason, that's absolutely awesome. And we should get into the box test. OK, we don't have a box test here, but there's a whole bunch of room in the trunk. And what's very cool is that the cover can slide behind the back seat. Yeah, so that was actually the first time I've ever seen something like that. And that is genius. Yeah, but still not as genius as the Civic. That's true. And also at the back, we kind of have a cool little spoiler on all the models. Yeah, that's all right. It looks better on the two-tone version. It's like a little backwards hat. Yeah. OK, but we should talk about this interior for all the millennials that are interested in this tech right here, this iPad looking thing in front of me. And maybe senior citizens. All right, but you drive. So before I get into the interior, a lot of you guys are watching without subscribing, and that's fine. But if you hit the subscribe button, the sooner we get to a million, the sooner we'll stop bugging you to subscribe, and you're probably not even gonna get a notification anyway. We just wanna hit one million subscribers because then we get even cooler cars. OK, let me floor it. A lot of noise, not much horsepower. Yeah, but like for city driving, I don't care. But let's get into the inside and all the fun stuff. iPad looking thing. OK, the infotainment is an iPad looking screen, which looks different than the rest of Kia, Hyundai, Genesis stuff, kind of. Yeah, it totally doesn't stick out, but it looks like it's stuck on. So we get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Standard, which is really nice. Even in the base models. So we've got satellite radio on this one. We can do the rewinding like always. We've got a big, big volume knob, a much smaller tuning knob, but the responsiveness of this tuning knob is horrendous. It's pretty much zero. It would take you an hour to turn up to 300, so it's pretty useless. Even the seek and track buttons are really slow. We only have a reverse camera. We don't have a 360 camera, but it's an economy car, so whatever, no big deal. And pretty decent resolution for this. Yeah. So now if we move on to the gauges, we've got the old style standard Hyundai gauges, where it's two analog gauges and digital in the middle. And they're crystal clear. All the steering wheel buttons are pretty much exactly the same as the rest of the Hyundai lineup as well. And the infotainment still has hard buttons everywhere, which is nice. The new Sonata got rid of that, and it's all just like LCD touch buttons, and I absolutely hated that. Yeah, but because the tuning knob is so slow here, they should have just deleted it. I, it's, uh. It's nice to see there. At least you know where to reach right away. And then below all that, we do have hard buttons for climate, which is actually really nice, but the one in the middle looks like a dial, but you don't actually touch that one. Yeah, and below that, we've got a nice compartment to put our phone, but no wireless charging because it is an economy car. Come on, millennials want wireless charging, I think. I don't want wireless charging unless I have wireless CarPlay. Yeah, well, I don't have any wireless Android Auto ever, so. Okay, and then we got a normal shifter, which is super weird, because I think millennials want like an LCD touchpad shifter or something, but whatever, I like it. No, you know what they want? Hey, Hyundai, shift my gear into drive. And then we got our drive mode button below that, our heated seats, heated steering wheel, which is all really easy to use. And heated seats are standard on the base model. Then we've got a manual handbrake, which is cool. It's throwback. I don't know if millennials like throwback or they do. No, they just want an electronic thing. Hey, Hyundai, engage my emergency brake. We got two cup holders, which will fit cups. Let's do the visor test. Yes, we should. Three, two, one. Oh. Millennials love. Fail! Oh! Yo! Come on, Hyundai! Millennials want the sunblock from their face on the passenger side. And the armrest does extend, which is nice because I can touch the steering wheel and have my elbow rest on it very nicely. And there's actually very minimal gloss black in here, which I really appreciate. All the materials are actually pretty decent for this price point. Yeah, the dashboard looks cool. And there's a little cubby right there that you can put your phone in and stuff. Yeah, which is pretty much exactly the same as the RAV4. And then I guess you could probably tell there's a lot of cool color match stitching everywhere that I really, really like. I do like the stitching on the seats and stuff, but I think on the vents, the little green accents are a little bit too much. And I'm way more excited to see that, which maybe I'm more of the millennial target that they're going after and not you. Yeah, maybe. Well, probably. And then we've got all that cool stuff on the seats as well. A nice, cool, light gray pattern. Do you think the seats are comfortable? Seats are pretty comfortable, but I wouldn't want to be on a really long road trip in them. Yeah, I haven't really found any issues with them. And onto the back seat room. It's not the best for leg room, but it's pretty damn good for head room. Yeah, so they took a huge indent out of the roof. And I guess you're looking down at the headliner. Yeah, it's almost at my eye level because of how much they scooped out. So I fit right behind myself, no problem. Head room and leg room. And how tall are you? Five foot, eight and a half. Right on. And this also has the Blue Link Telematics package that you can start the car remotely from your phone and get diagnostics and all that stuff. But we never get the chance to use that. So if you have a Hyundai or any car that has that and you use it, leave a comment below. Tell us how it is. Is it actually a good feature if you own the car? Yo, millennials love phones. So I think that covers pretty much everything with the new Venue. Let's get into the price. Starts at $17,099. Canadian. And the top trim, which we are in called the Ultimate, is $24,899. So that's kind of a lot for this. That is kind of a lot. Oh, and I should mention that the base price is actually for a manual transmission, which you can actually get in this for some reason. Okay, but is there anything cheaper than this that has this good lane keep? Lane keep, absolutely not. So especially if we're talking about the direct competition like the Kicks, the HR-V, and the CH-R. The EcoSport is its most direct competitor. Okay, and the EcoSport, which I haven't even gotten near and I don't really plan on. Yeah, looks wise, that thing looks disgusting in comparison to this. Looks wise, I think the CH-R by Toyota wins. I also agree, because that looks cooler, but this looks better. Yeah. If you know what I mean. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like the cool wall, top gear. But I did get an interesting comment on my Instagram. Don't forget to follow us, TheStraightPipesUreteritian. They said they were looking at an XC40, but it was a little out of their price range. Then this came up and now they're very interested in it. This does look kind of like a baby XC40. You're kind of getting that look and that image, but you're not getting the full premium brand. Yeah, and it's kind of also like a baby G-Wagon and it's kind of also like a Suzuki Jimny, which we don't get. It's got that boxy kind of look. And if you had to buy a new vehicle, say like your company was forcing you to lease one for two years, this or an Accent. I would have to pick between those two. Yeah, because they only had to deal with Hyundai. I can't buy a used Lexus or something like that. No, no, no. It had to be one of the two for tax reasons. Well, I guess I would have to go with this as much as I hate to say that because it's an SUV and I just generally don't like SUVs. I know. So like I kind of get why they had to introduce it. Yeah. But if you had to buy brand new, you keep telling me just buy a Honda Civic. Yes, because instead of this, I would 100% recommend a Honda Civic. Instead of anything in this class, I would recommend a Honda Civic. Because you don't need that ground clearance. No, you don't. If you've ever needed this extra little bit of ground clearance to get to your cottage, let us know because I'm pretty sure you can just get to your cottage in a Civic. And if you're a millennial, you don't even have a cottage. You probably don't have a house. Yeah. But I do know a lot of people always say they like the higher driving position. And that's what this offers over a Civic. And that I totally get. Even my wife said she likes it. So I get the higher driving position thing. So let us know what you think of the new Hyundai Venue. Does this class make sense? Would you take it over and accent? Yeah, let us know in the comments. And don't forget to subscribe. If you want the numbers up, you will get notifications. The algorithm doesn't do that anymore. And I did say hit the notification bell, but you don't have to. You don't have to. It's fine. I'm just used to saying it.