Hyundai Tucson: A Worse Creta at a Higher Price
I test-drove the Tucson petrol crossover1 both in the city and on the highway, and evaluated it against my requirements. Based on this, I wouldn’t buy it. The Creta is much better and cheaper.
+ The interiors are higher quality than the Creta.
Comfort
+ The seat is 10-way electrically adjustable: front / back, recline, up / down, thigh and lumbar.
- Despite all this, I somehow couldn’t get the recline angle right — it felt either too much or too little no matter how much I adjusted it.
+ The steering wheel tilts and telescopes.
- Headroom is less.
- My stomach was pressed and it felt uncomfortable.
+ Extremely low noise: 110 kph didn’t feel like 110!
- The Tucson feels more closed when the Creta: the windshield is not panoramic, and the windows could be taller.
+ The car handles bumps at speed excellently.
How it drives
- Slow at overtaking as compared to the Creta.
- Acceleration has a lag, despite not being turbocharged.
- Even moderate acceleration causes the engine to rev a lot. It’s a big deal for the Tucson. It requires a lot of effort and even then, is sluggish. By contrast, the Creta easily moves forward if you tap the accelerator, and if you press it a lot, it rockets forward effortlessly!
- When I take my foot off the accelerator, the engine continues revving for a second.
- This is coupled by the car clutching in, which causes the engine to surge.
- Even the sport mode is sluggish. This is not the car to buy if you enjoy spirited driving.
- The brake pedal has too much play: you need to press it a lot even for mild braking.
± You sit at a much higher position than the Creta and most crossovers.
- The car comes with a torque converter which is no match for the Creta’s DCT.
- The car comes with a 2-liter naturally-aspirated engine that generates the same power as the Creta’s 1.5-liter turbo, but the Tucson weighs 1.5 tons as against the Creta’s 1.2. This 25% higher weight with the same engine naturally makes it sluggish.
+ The rear-view mirrors are wide-angle and big, giving me a panoramic view, while not being finicky to adjust.
+ Auto hold helps in stop and go traffic, though the salesman told me not to use it since it strains the transmission.
- The car is 4.6 m long, longer than the Creta’s 4.3, which makes it less agile if you want to rapidly switch lanes. You end up driving it straight. Though it’s not as bad as the Hycross in this regard.
- It doesn’t show the current gear next to the drive mode, like D3 or D4, as the Creta does. As a curious person, I enjoy understanding how an automatic system is working.
- The car is very wide and hard to maneuver through gaps in the traffic or to park in my basement.
Cooling
+ Climate control
+ Dual-zone
+ Ventilated seats
± The AC fan has 8 levels
Digital features
- There’s no USB-C port, neither in the front nor the back
+ Two USB-A ports
+ 12V 180W port
+ Wired CarPlay
+ Excellent Bose 8-speaker system from the Creta, which makes music come alive.
Front passenger seat
+ 8-way electrically adjustable: front / back, recline, up / down, thigh. The only lacking control as compared to the driver’s seat is lumbar.
+ Good legroom
- The headroom is mediocre unless I move the seat all the way down, but that presses my stomach.
+ Ventilated seat
Rear seat
+ The front passenger seat has controls on the side to move it forward and to de-recline, which can be used when sitting in the rear seat and the front seat is empty, to give more space.
- Dual USB-A ports
+ AC vents with independent up / down / left / right adjustment
- The seats are not ventilated
+ Panoramic sunroof, which also helps the car cool down in minutes when it has been parked for hours in the summer afternoon sun.
- When sitting in the rear left seat, the sunroof begins above my head and extends to the right. It’s panoramic front to back, but not left to right, unless you sit in the rear center seat.
- As with all cars, the sunroof control is finicky — the glass opened when I wanted just the opaque part to open. When I tried to close the glass, the opaque part closed, too.
- The headroom is not enough.
+ The legroom is excellent to stretch my legs.
± The seat is in a reclining position, which is good when I want to rest, but not when I’m active and want to enjoy a spirited drive.
- The windows could have more height to make them feel more expansive.
It’s monocoque / unibody.