My wife and I have had our new Hyundai Santa Fe for a week now and we couldn't be happier with it. We traded in a '96 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with only 25,000 miles on it, so that brought the price of the Santa Fe WAY down. The Caddy was left to my wife when her mother passed away two years ago.For me, It was a fine car, but my wife is very short and had an awful time driving it. I researched some SUV's on the WWW, mainly the Toyota Highlander and Rav4, to name a few. I looked at them both and found the Highlander to be a bit too big for her, AND a bit of an insult to the wallet. The Rav4 I simply wasn't comfortable with for some reason...just didn't appeal to me. I had seen the Santa Fe sitting on the local Hyundai lot, but like most people simply dismissed it from Hyundai's past reputation. I found though that I couldn't get the picture of that vehicle off my mind, and decided to investigate further. The more I read about it, the more I was intrigued so off I went to talk to the dealer. We knew what we wanted in style, color, interior and options, so the only debateable thing was could she drive it comfortably and would I fit in it at over 300 pounds. Not only did I, but with a secure feeling that the seats would not collapse. My wife fell in love with it as soon as she saw it, and was hooked when she drove it the first time. So was I, as it is a very fun vehicle to tool around in and causes its share of double takes. We bought a fully loaded GLS,4WD with all the goodies, the last one they had on the lot. And it was even the color we had chosen, Sandstone! The salesman said that they were expecting 27 more units in the next day, so we might have waited, but the one we wanted was right there so we saw no reason to...and boy am I glad we didn't!!! We live in Northern Virginia and took it into the mountains the very next day and it performed excellently. Its not a rugged off roader to be certain, but no small SUV is. Our only complaint was a scraping noise we kept hearing that sounded like a bit of rust on the rotors from shipping. However it did not go away with use, so on Monday I took it in and the service dept. got right on it. At first they couldn't find the cause, but they did hear the noise. Unlike some places I have been to who will just poo-poo that and say "It'll go away in time", they were determined to get to the root of it. It turned out to be a misaligned backing plate on the drivers side front rotor, which caused it to scrape an area about 1/4" on the lip of the plate as the rotor passed it. Not only did they reposition THAT backing plate, but checked the rest and found the other side front was just a tad off too. Not enough to cause a rub, but they repositioned it anyway. That has been the only glitch so far in an otherwise great vehicle. It is apparent that Hyundai wants to join in on the market, and have commited to making certainly the best looking small SUV by far of any. Yes, they had a reputation for making junk in the past, and this IS still a new manufacture. So the jury will remain out on the Santa Fe's longevity. But with the "Best warranty in the business", Hyundai seems to be sending the message that "Yes, we have manufactured a vehicle that will last. If it doesn't, we will replace what breaks." That in itself is a pretty strong statement of faith. We will have ALL maintainence work done by the dealer at the specified times, just to make sure that if something DOES go wrong, that pledge will be honored. No more "Jiffy Lube" quickies for us!....By the way, out of the 27 vehicles that our dealer took in 5 days ago.....they have 6 left!!!!!
Amount Paid (US$): 13,700
Condition: New
Model Year: 2001
Model and Options: GLS 4wd, fully loaded with every option Hyundai offers.