Hyundai Tucson Long Term Reports

Unfortunately despite my best efforts to avoid the inevitable, my much-loved Tucson now has been returned to Hyundai. I've tried virtually every trick in the book to prolong its stay, but this time, the Hyundai India officials have drawn a clear line, and as we speak, the Tucson has finally been pried from my hands. There is good reason why I enjoyed my time with the Tucson so much. One of the main reasons for that was its size - which was perfect for someone who travels alone more than 90% of the time - which makes the Tucson easy to park even in crowded areas.

My favourite thing though was the lovely power and torque delivery from the 2.0-litre diesel engine, which with its readily available 400Nm of torque made picking up pace a breeze. Add to this the responsive 6-speed automatic transmission and well-tuned ride and the Tucson was the perfect machine for me as a daily driver. In fact, even the fuel efficiency levels hovered around the 11.5km/l in urban driving, which was fantastic. Having driven it for well over 20,000kms over past year or so, and that too without any issues in the car barring the regular servicing, living with the Tucson was absolutely fantastic. And for an SUV that had clocked well over 40,000kms by now, not having a single rattle or squeak, just shows how good the product is. Goodbye Tucson, it was good to know you.  

As the keener readers amongst you might have noticed, the Tucson had been missing from our long-term reports section for the past couple of months. And there was a good reason for that, as Hyundai India needed the car for some internal purposes, and hence, I was bouncing around between various test cars and even had to borrow my brother’s Honda Civic for a couple of days.

Thankfully though, the Tucson is back, and I’ve been driving it for the past four weeks for both long distance trips and the daily commute. Of course, the first delight of the Tucson is just how comfortable and ergonomically designed the car is. Pair this with the 400Nm of torque and a rather responsive transmission, and it just makes the Tucson an absolute delight to drive. I actually drove down to Jaipur to attend the Cartier Concours last month instead of flying, and I have to say, the five-odd hour journey each way in the car felt like an absolute breeze. And with this ability of comfortable seats, a seamless powerplant and fantastic suspension, the Tucson, in my opinion, is simply unmatched in its segment. And, with the summer season of schools starting in the first week of April, I think this month would be a great time to visit the hills in the Tucson before the summer holiday madness of May starts taking hold.   

As much as I enjoy driving the Tucson every day, unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to drive the car this month because of a super tight schedule. Long road trips and work travels meant that I drove the Tucson for less than a 1,000kms this month, which is rather unusual. In fact, I’ve spent more time sitting in the back of a cab than driving a car. 

However, those long hours of sitting in the back of a cab made me realise that not only does the Tucson have class-leading refinement in terms of NVH levels but also a fantastically well setup suspension that's ideal for our road conditions.

Sure, if you really want to nit-pick, you could say that it's tuned on the softer side, but for everyday use, that's simply perfect. And, it has once again reaffirmed my belief that, for me at least, driving a car is the best way to spend time in an automobile. I've never been a very good passenger in a car, and with worsening driving standards in our country, I'm far happier being in the driving seat myself. As for the Tucson, between its refinement, powerful engine and a slick-shifting gearbox, its breadth of abilities are matched by very few cars on our market. 

With the festival season upon us – is it fair to say we have a festival season when we have festivals throughout the year? – the Tucson was called in for a number of duties this month. Taking the family shopping in the gridlock that we call Diwali was one of those tasks, and with its fantastic automatic gearbox and huge boot, the Tucson was an excellent choice for this.

What’s even better is the auto hold function of the electronic parking brake, which makes dealing with bumper-to-bumper traffic much easier. 

Another useful feature is the noise isolation from the incessant honking that goes on our roads – the resulting peace and quiet can be quite a wonderful thing, especially after a long day at work or on the road. Of course, with the massive traffic and the resulting slow speeds, the fuel efficiency of the Tucson did drop a bit, giving an average of 10.5km/l. However, on the solitary long-distance trip that I went for this month, the Tucson was back to its regular efficiency level with the on-board display indicating a very healthy 13km/l. For a car of its size, that is very good, especially when you consider that I tend to use the 180-odd horse and 400Nm of the car quite liberally.  

The keener eyes amongst you might have noticed that there was no long-term update on the Hyundai Tucson in the last issue of the magazine. Well, that was due to the fact that owing to an internal event, Hyundai India had requested for the car to be returned to them for a few weeks, and off went the Tucson to attend to more important matters than my daily commute.

In the meanwhile, I took the opportunity to drive other cars for a longer period than normal and got used to them. But, truth be told, I did miss Tucson quite a bit. Unless you’re driving something 2 or even 3 times the cost of the Tucson, it’s hard to match Tucson’s level of comfort, pliant suspension, powerful and torquey engine and ease of using the automatic gearbox. 

The Tucson did come back about 10 days ago, though, and I was back to driving my daily steed again. And once again, it reaffirmed my view that there’s hard to find a better SUV than Tucson in its price range.  

Much to my surprise, after many months of peaceful and luxurious motoring in the Tucson, the car has finally developed an issue that needs to be taken care of. Well, to be honest, it’s not really an issue but a minor flaw that came about due to the usual gremlin that floods our roads every monsoon – water logging. After an evening of a particularly heavy rain shower, I was crossing the Barapullah flyover, and much to my surprise the road was waterlogged with quite a large amount of water. I suppose the PWD department of Delhi assumes that since it’s not a regular road and rather a flyover, there would be no stagnant water here. Clearly, the engineers haven’t heard much about something revolutionary called drainage. 

Anyhow, rants with infrastructure aside, the Tucson passed through the standing water with flying colours, but the depth and the volume of the water was such that the sump guard under the engine lost one of its plastic fasteners. And with that much volume of water being channelled through it, the sump guard has a minor bend in it. Now, it’s nothing that hampers the usability of the Tucson, but it’s just a bit of an eye sore to look at when viewed from the front. I suppose then, a visit to the workshop is in order to remedy this minor inconvenience.  

Much to the relief of people living in the Delhi-NCR area, the monsoons have finally made their presence felt here, and how! Beginning with a flurry of very strong showers a few weeks ago, the rains this time have been a bit erratic till now. And strangely, the days when rainfall would literally take place for days on end seem to have passed. What we’re getting this year instead is sporadic rainfall, but the intensity is absolutely massive in each rainfall we get. And as one would expect, that means if it rains during office hours, our infrastructure absolutely crumbles and there is waterlogging and traffic jams everywhere. 

However, with the Tucson, that hasn’t been much of a problem for me. With its high ground clearance, big tyres and ample water wading capabilities, I can easily drive the Tucson through waterlogged streets without worrying. But, the rain does amplify an annoyance with the Tucson, which are its halogen high beam lamps. Even in dry conditions, they’re a candle compared to the super-bright LED low beams, and the rain, with its light refraction properties only makes visibility even poorer. In my opinion, I can’t wait for the Tucson facelift to reach India, and sincerely hope that it comes with full-LED headlight for some stunning visibility, no matter the weather conditions.   

The summer has taken full hold in Delhi, which means that now from being hot, the air now is practically burning. This, of course, means that there is much more stress on the cooling systems of vehicles and this is the weather where the mettle of air conditioning systems gets truly tested. But, I’m happy to report that with the Tucson, the summer is passing by like the breeze. With the climate control set at nice and cold 20 degrees, the Tucson’s cabin gets cooled rapidly and I’ve not yet had to turn the temperature lower than that despite the extreme heat. 

I also got time to do a short trip to Chandigarh a couple of weeks ago, and once again two things surprised me the most about the Tucson. Firstly, despite my lead footed driving style, the Tucson still managed to average a fuel efficiency of 13.5 km/l, which is remarkable for a car of its size. And with its well-tuned suspension, high-speed cruising remains a very easy task. The audio quality of the multimedia system also makes long journeys much easier to bear with. If there is something that I do miss though, and I think I have mentioned that in the past too, are ventilated front seats that Hyundai now provides on the Elantra and the Verna. Without them, the leather of the seats makes your back sweat quite a bit and I think ventilated seats would be a great addition to the Tucson’s overall qualities.

With the summer Sun beating down, the beginning of May was probably the last opportunity for me to do a quick run to the mountains and get some respite from the heat. What also helped the matter was the fact that the summer holiday crowd had not descended on to the hills and made them as crowded as our city centers. To make the most of this opportunity I filled up the Tucson – with fuel and my belongings – and headed towards Bhimtal for a quiet weekend. 

The Tucson, of course, was in its element on the highway. Its superb ride comfort and the 400Nm of torque from the 2-litre diesel engine make getting to cruising speed an effortless task. However, the brakes of the Tucson still seem to be on the softer side, especially when driven at length in the steep hills, where pedals have a tendency to go a tad soft. I think some of this can be attributed to the tyres, which lack a bit of grip and probably make the task of the brakes a bit more difficult. What does surprise me though is the fuel efficiency of the Tucson – the MID display indicated a fuel efficiency of about 13.5km/l for my trip, which is rather impressive for a car of its size. That means that this month’s overall fuel efficiency has gone up a bit. With fuel prices surpassing all records in India, that’s something I’m certainly not complaining about.      

With the summer here in full form, it’s been an ideal opportunity to test the air-conditioning capabilities of the Tucson. And the car has stood up to the test, with the rather efficient climate control system making the forty-degree temperature outside a non-event. In the day, with the searing sun, setting the air-conditioning temperature at twenty-two degrees is more than enough. And in the pleasant evenings, the ideal temperature is twenty-four. The automatic regulation of the fan speed by the climate control system also makes life easier, with the noise from the fan not interfering with the rather impressive sound quality of the stock audio system. 

The fuel efficiency of the Tucson has also improved, with the car now averaging 11km/l in my urban commute, which is very impressive given the car’s size and weight. And, on the highways, while driving with a light foot I regularly saw figures of 13-13.5km/l. If I do miss something though, it is the ventilated front seats that the Verna and the Elantra come fitted with. With leather seats being standard equipment, ventilation on the seats would be a great addition to the Tucson.  

Since our last month’s update on the brake change of the Tucson, my going with the SUV has been pretty good. But, with the brakes now in prime form has popped up an experience with the standard fit Nexen tyres, which as it has turned out in a couple of instances, are not the best performers. In regular usage, the Nexen tyres work quite well, they are quite silent and cornering grip is aplenty, but when it comes to hard braking, they come up a bit short. 

On a couple of instances recently I’ve had to apply brakes with full force, and in both cases, despite the standard fit ABS system of the Tucson, the tyres have locked up. Clearly this means that the Tucson could do with a better set of tyres, and makes me wonder if I should source a different set and try them, just to satisfy my curiosity, if nothing else. 

And I’m happy to report that with spring finally here, and us on the verge of another boiling summer, the air-conditioning system of the Tucson has been put back into use again and it works fabulously. The climate control system is very effective and keeps the cabin nice and cool despite the quickly rising mercury outside. And, with the help of some light-footed driving, the fuel efficiency of the Tucson has gone up a notch. Despite primary use being urban driving, I’m beginning to see 11km/l on the information display regularly, with sometimes it rising to even 11.5km/l, which, for an SUV of this size is very impressive.   

Ever since I was handed over the Hyundai Tucson, I had suspected that its brakes were not in top notch condition. The braking seemed a tad weak, and I wasn’t sure what the issue was. However, the real cause of that feeling became apparent when the brake pads of the Tucson started making that familiar grinding sound, indicating that they were close to the end of their operable life. 

That prompted a call to Hyundai, and we set up an appointment at the nearby service workshop. This was also a good option for me to experience the current service standards at Hyundai workshops – it’s been a while since I last visited its workshop. The workshop of Koncept Hyundai is located pretty close to our office, in the industrial area of Okhla in Delhi. As I reached there, the service advisor assigned to my car, Sandeep, was waiting. 

Once the car was hoisted on to the workshop bay on the first floor, the process of identifying and inspecting the car was quite slick. Digitisation has clearly helped a great deal when it comes to servicing cars, and Sandeep had his own tablet that was loaded with apps from Hyundai to help in the service process. Interestingly, unlike the old days when advisors would mark out blemishes or scratches on the car on a piece of paper, Sandeep just took pictures of the car from all angles and forwarded them to me on WhatsApp for reference. While signing on the work order on a tablet, I could see that all sections of the workshop had been digitally integrated. All the while, Sandeep was being updated in real time about the status of the cars he was handling by various departments, such as when the mechanical jobs on a car were complete, when the washing had been done and so on.

 
Later, when Sandeep was about to send the car back to me, he even sent me short videos of the work done on the car – brake replacement and polishing – to check if I was satisfied with the quality of the work done. It was also interesting to observe how the progress of each car in the workshop that day was being telecast in real-time on television screens mounted throughout the workshop. So, if you were waiting in the customer lounge while your car was being serviced, you could keep a real-time track of what was being done with your car. 

Needless to say, the car arrived thoroughly well cleaned and the brakes were once again back in top order. Sure, the service did cost a fair bit – Rs.21,265 for a set of front brake discs, brake pads and polishing of the car – but the end result was pleasantly surprising. Digitisation, then, can be said to be truly helping both companies and customers in their service experiences.  

Ever since Hyundai launched the Tucson in India, my first thoughts about the car were how highly suited it is to Indian traffic and road conditions. For someone like me who travels alone 99% of the time, the Tucson offers the perfect size – not too big so that it becomes a pain to park and manoeuvre – and yet it has enough space to accommodate the luggage for a long road trip. Being an SUV also helps, when it comes to tackling our broken roads and the automatic transmission is an absolute boon in our jam-packed cities. 

Of course, the Tucson also comes loaded to the gills with standard equipment, amongst which the standard fit audio system is particularly praiseworthy for its good sound quality. The seats are exceedingly comfortable, and the suspension setup is quite good, with a slight comfort bias. Even at high speeds, the Tucson feels quite tied down and the steering delivers a surprisingly good amount of feel, inspiring confidence.

Recently one of the major flyovers in Delhi was closed for repairs, which also happened to be my route to work. This meant that my rather short 25-minute commute transformed into over an hour-long commute, each way. This made me appreciate the comfort of the Tucson and the ease of driving an automatic, which helped me maintain my sanity in everyday commute. Of course, what really helps the Tucson is its 2-litre with 182bhp and, more importantly, 400Nm of torque at a low 1,750rpm. This means that the throttle response of the Tucson is exceedingly good and getting into gaps in traffic just needs a flex of the right foot. The gearbox too responds quite well, and while I would love to have paddle shifters, I don’t really miss them. 

Overall though, I have to say that spending time driving the Tucson is a real pleasure, and I recommend the car quite highly to all. If there is a glitch, it is in the high beams of its headlights, which with their halogen lamps pale in comparison to the LED low beams. This is the only flaw that I could find with the Tucson.    

Read more about the Hyundai Tucson here:

Hyundai Tucson AWD Review

Hyundai Tucson facelift to feature mild-hybrid tech in Europe