Hyundai Tucson 2020 review

I'm Tom Baker, this is Chasing Cars, and this is the Hyundai Tucson, one of Australia's favourite mid-size crossovers, or at least we call them mid-size here in Australia. I know overseas a lot of people regard this style of car as a compact SUV, but I think it's really easy to understand why the Tucson finds so much favour with buyers. I think it looks pretty tidy, it's well-sized, practical in the back seat and the boot, as we'll find out shortly in this review, and it's also pretty inoffensive to drive and available with a range of different engines giving you different attributes. Plus, it's not overly expensive compared to the competition. This car is an interesting spec, it really falls in about the middle. It's the Elite, which gives you a lot of premium features for not that much money, and a 2.0-litre turbo diesel under the bonnet with all-wheel drive. And there's a bit of a class separation in the Tucson line-up, because the lower-end engine, the 2.0-litre naturally aspirated petrol, is only average, whereas the two turbocharged engines give you a big step up in capability and drivability, as well as that all-wheel drive traction, but we'll come to that later. First of all, let's talk about this cabin, because this is the updated Tucson. We saw this car together last year and worked out all the things we liked and didn't like about it, so it's nice to revisit it now, because what we have here is a pretty substantial upgrade to the interior this car originally had. Hyundai have stepped up some of the materials, and I think it looks a little bit more premium, a little bit more expensive here in the cabin. Now, this car, which has that pretty blue paintwork outside, has the black leather interior. For no extra cost, you can get a beige leather interior, which I think lifts the look a little bit and minimises some of the harder surfaces. So, like down here, we have a fair bit of hard plastic below the belt line, but everything above that is pretty nice. So, we have this pad up here on the dash that looks like stitched leather, nice leather steering wheel and shifter. In fact, there's no longer a cheap-feeling plastic wheel and shifter on any Tucson. They all get these leather fittings, which is nice. Soft-touch materials up here on the dash. So, you know, while it's not Mazda CX-5 plush, I think it does feel maybe a little bit nicer inside in terms of materials than a Tiguan. Now, it is easy to use, because we have this high-mounted 8-inch touchscreen that's nice and crisp, and Hyundai's software is basically the easiest to use in the industry. We do also have wired Apple CarPlay and wired Android Auto in case you want to use your smartphone through it, and you look forward at analogue dials that are crisp and clear, though the screen in between them is really small and dated looking and so far behind something like the Active Info Display in a Volkswagen Tiguan or a Skoda Kodiaq. Thankfully, there's clear controls for the climate stuff down here. In terms of the seats, I don't mind the seats, actually. They're reasonably supportive and comfortable. The driver's seat has electric adjustment, but if you want that for your passenger, and if you want stuff like heating and ventilation, you have to step up to the pricey Highlander variant. The Elite is kind of a nice halfway house. The view out's good. You got big mirrors, big glass, and decent practicality as well. Tray ahead of the shifter, extra little odds and ends storage, big cupholders, and big, though unlined, door bins. So, all in all, good SUV to live with up front. Let's check out that second row now. Now, the doors are a little bit lighter than some European rivals, but there's not a huge amount in it, and look, they open really wide, which is going to be useful if you're fitting baby seats, and this car would work for baby seats, though a lot of families will want to step up to the larger Santa Fe in the Hyundai lineup if you need more space, because here in the back, it's certainly adequate for adults. I'm six foot. Headroom is no problem at all. The Elite doesn't come with a sunroof, so we've got extra room. Legroom behind my own driving position is generous, and toe room is also good. Despite the fact this car has the all-wheel drive system, the floor's low. You could get three people across the back if you needed to. Overall, the room is pretty decent. What we do have is air vents, great in a hot country like Australia. We have just a single USB port, which feels a little bit mean, bringing the total for the car to just two, and in this day and age, we're really getting used to cars in this class having three, four, five ports to keep everyone's devices charged, and in the back, we do actually have soft-touch material, unlike a Volkswagen Tiguan, though, of course, lower down you go, the scratchier it gets, but all in all, I'm impressed with the interior of the Tucson. Coming around the back, you will notice a little bit of a design change for this facelifted version compared to the original car. They changed where the number plate was located, and it's a subtle thing, but I don't mind it. Now, we have the badging down here to signify this is a diesel H-track all-wheel drive, which sounds complicated. These lights are halogen front and rear for every grade except the Highlander, which feels a little bit cheap, as does potentially the fact that it's a manual tailgate, even though by the time this car hits the road, it's like mid to upper 40 grand. Only the Highlander gets a power tailgate, but the amount of space on offer is good. 488 litres, in fact. It's a decent square boot, no load lip, so your bags will come straight out. Got a proper spare underneath the boot floor, which is nice if you do a lot of country touring, and of course, this diesel model is really focused on rural buyers, and we have a 12-volt socket, but apart from that, it's a fairly featureless boot, but of course, being spacious is most important in a practical vehicle like this. Next, we'll talk about what this Tucson is like to drive. So, we found out that the Tucson looks good, it's very competent inside, and it's quite practical, but what is this midsize SUV like to drive? Well, as we found out on a couple of occasions before, it's a pretty good crossover here on Australian roads, largely because of the effort that goes into the local tuning to the ride and handling at Hyundai's R&D centre right here in Sydney. You can feel that it is attuned to our sort of chopped-up road surfaces here in the state of New South Wales, but we'll come to the ride and handling shortly. First, let's remind ourselves of the engine choices, because it is quite a big decision which power plant you're going to go for in the Tucson. The basic one is a 2.0-litre naturally aspirated direct-injected petrol engine, which is the cheapest engine in the range, and it just gets the job done, but, you know, compared to small displacement turbo engines in European rivals, it's, you know, it's pretty unrefined. It sort of gasps for air if you need to go uphill really quickly, and it's the one you buy if you just want to get the cheapest Tucson. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's thirsty, and it's a little bit thrashy. From there, it's a choice between two turbocharged four-cylinder units. There's a petrol, and there is a diesel. Now, we're in the diesel here, which is the most expensive engine, and will suit people who are going to do long rural runs, where this engine will have the best opportunity to deliver good fuel consumption. So, the diesel is a 2.0-litre turbo four, producing 136 kilowatts of power, and 400 newton meters of torque. So, that is basically double the torque of the base petrol engine, and you can really feel that, because it's quite a nice muscular unit. It devours hills easily, and it's just very drivable in town. Now, its in-town economy is not that much better than the other engines, which is a little bit unusual for a diesel, but the biggest comparison, and where this diesel does better than the petrol, is in how easy it feels to drive in town, and that's because you just have that massive slab of torque just off idle. Now, in some ways, that's a virtue also shared by the other all-wheel drive engine, which is the 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol, and that engine produces 130 kilowatts of power, and 265 newton meters of torque, but just like the diesel, that torque is available from much lower in the rev range than the standard 2.0-litre petrol, mainly because of the turbocharging factor. The petrol is good to drive, but it is paired to a dual-clutch automatic gearbox that feels a little bit slippy at times, so for me, I actually think the diesel makes the most sense, but as I said, it is the most expensive engine, and its in-town fuel economy isn't as good as it probably should be, so it's one of those things to closely consider on paper how you're going to use this vehicle. Now, when it comes to the Tucson's other virtues, there's quite a few. The ride is good. It's a good blend of control and comfort. In some of Hyundai's other SUVs, we have found that the ride's been perhaps a little bit too biased towards control, and it's delivered an overly firm urban ride, but that isn't the case in the Tucson. It's nice and compliant over urban potholes and bumps, some of which I'm traversing right now, and they just don't get transmitted up into your back. Instead, it's all controlled down below, even on the reasonably large rims on this particular elite-spec vehicle. On a country road, though, it all feels nice and tightly hemmed in and cinched in. That being said, the diesel's quite heavy, and so it definitely wants to turn in less than the petrol versions. In fact, the diesel is almost 200 kilograms heavier than a base petrol, taking into account the much heavier block on the diesel engine, and also the addition of the standard all-wheel drive system on this version. In terms of refinement, road noise is really well-insulated, wind noise is well-insulated, but as you can probably hear, you know, the diesel engine is fairly old-school in that it just chugs along. You definitely know you're driving a diesel SUV. It isn't especially hushed. However, what is impressive is the safety spec. You know, you get some advanced safety features on every single model in the range, which is something to congratulate Hyundai for, but the Elite and the Highlander variants get much more in terms of high-speed AUV, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, and rear cross-traffic alert, but the Tucson does miss out on the nicety of a 360-degree parking camera. So, those are our detailed opinions of the 2020 Hyundai Tucson. This remains a pretty good medium SUV. That Australian ride and handling tuning goes a long way to making it competent on our local broken-up roads here. It's also a pretty good thing to look at. That cabin is comfortable and practical, and the range of engines means that you get plenty of choice at lots of different price points, so I quite like this vehicle. Let me know what you think of the Tucson down below the video. 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