Hyundai Santa Fe

If you ever get trapped in a conversation with someone over the age of 40, discussing the merits of modern technology, you get the impression that things were much better in the 60’s than today. Life was simple, you worked 9 to 5, you had great music around, and it seemed the sun was always shining. Even the people were more beautiful back then. The cars were simple so you could fix them yourself, if you had the nous, or your mate could fix it for a slab of beer. Prices were cheaper then too, you could even buy a new car for a few thousand dollars. Great times indeed.

What they don’t mention is that modern medicine didn’t exist then, wars were rife, and frankly, the cars were rubbish. The reason why you don’t see many old cars around today is that they tended to rust. Quite quickly too, if you lived north of Sydney. You bought a car every three years, not because it was trendy to do so, because the whole driveline had rusted into one piece of iron, the floor of the car had holes you could see the road through, and bits fell off quite regularly.

Which brings me nicely up to today. Is it possible to purchase a bad car? They may not rust, or fall to bits after you drive around the corner past the dealership. Car companies have cleaned up their acts, and are making reliable cars these days. Well, most of them are, at least.

But is it possible to actually buy a crap car? As we have seen above, the boundaries need to be adjusted. You can purchase reliable cars, that have strong residuals, and we’re also lucky to have a plethora of models to choose from. The small things begin to matter, fuel economy, driveability and looks.

Unfortunately, for Hyundai, the Santa Fe is a miserable car. I can say this quite confidently, having driven it on both sides of the world. I drive a Toyota Echo quite often, and this is a brilliant city car, but rubbish on the open road. It’s noisy, the engine is buzzing away at 3000rpm, and gets blown around quite badly in crosswinds. The Santa Fe is not a city car, and it suffers the same problem the Echo does. At 110kph, the radio has to be turned up so loud, that when you slow down to 60kph it’s blasting at you. The engine makes so much din, it’s still audible at highway speeds. When taking off from the lights, it sounds thrashy and strained.

Fuel consumption is so bad, it’s actually comedic. Hyundai have designed the first small V6 that has a drinking problem. It has the fuel consumption of a much larger engine. Which brings me to the worst point. The styling. It looks like they designed a well proportioned car, then in a vain attempt to make it look like something, tied a rope around the middle and squeezed. The headlights look like they’re bulging out from the front, like a cartoon character’s eyes, the radiator grill looks like someone punched it in the nose, and has swollen up unreasonably large. The middle looks similar to a fat man sucking in his chest, but doesn’t know how to suck his butt cheeks in, and leaves it all on show. This is not an attractive car.

The interior makes the exterior look simply benign. The last time I’ve seen such tinny plastics was on yoghurt containers. They even tried to put a leather texture on the dashboard to give it some visual appeal, but failed. It looks like an elephants hide. The big three knobs that control the heating and cooling aren’t even put in properly. If you push hard enough, they disappear into the dashboard. The drive is just as bad, it leans horribly in the bends, the steering has no feedback, and just does not enjoy a spirited drive one bit. Sure it can go around corners quickly, but it’s a bit like asking your grandmother to the 100 meter sprint. Yes, she can do it, but you feel bad for making her do so.

So what is actually good about this car? I discovered that up in the cold climes of Sweden, where snow and beautiful women are bountiful, sunshine was not. When filling up the car at remote fuel stations on the highway, I came across massive empty car parks covered in snow. Having a few minutes to spare, and being rather mischievous, I found that with a few degrees of opposite lock on, and a right foot welded to the floor makes this a brilliant donut maker.