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2022 Hyundai Tucson, my 1st SUV: Buying experience & initial impression

11th October 2022, 16:16 by Utkarsh Chaudhary

Other cars that we considered in a span of 2 months include the Taigun, Hector, Alcazar, Meridian and a couple more.

BHPian The Blue Panda recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Getting a new car is always exciting, and it was nothing different for me, especially when it is my first SUV and that too in the luxurious range. Goosebumps!

Before I jump into my overall buying experience, here is a quick update on my car collection:

Elite i20 ASTA 1.2 VTVT -> 2016 - Present
Grand i10 Sportz Auto -> 2017 - Present
VW Polo Highline TSI -> 2012 - 2020
Santro Xing XG -> 2004 - 2018

A new car was on the cards from almost 2020, but due to Covid, things changed and I did not prioritize for obvious reasons. However, it was at the start of this year, as things normalized, I started looking for options actively. We are a family of four, mostly I am the one who is too choosy/picky on things, and it continues for cars as well. However, we were expecting the following things from our next car:

A car in the range of 30 lacs
Safety (No compromise)
Reliability (Mom was against any compromise and experiment)
Sunroof
Spacious leg room
Sufficient boot space for long-journey luggage
Strictly petrol
Preferred automatic as my wife & father loves it, I was open to manual as well

With these expectations, we started the casual search for our new car in April 2022. I was keeping an eye on the new Tucson launch, as my Father in law, who himself is a car enthusiast, was also looking forward to it. As we kept exploring the existing cars, we were in June without any specific car of interest. In the meantime, I did hear a lot of rumors about Tucson being launched by July. After reading a few articles on the expected features, etc., I thought of waiting to at least see the car in person before taking a call.

Finally, the launch date announced was 4th of Aug 2022, and Hyundai started the pre-booking on 18th of July (I may be wrong but this is the best I can remember as of today). Considering the high waiting period on other cars, I thought of grabbing this opportunity and immediately did my pre-launch booking on 20th of July with the required token amount with Kothari Hyundai, Aundh, Pune.

My pre-booking experience

I did my pre-booking with Kothari Hyundai, and the process was pretty smooth. The SA helped me with the entire formalities and mentioned the delivery time as 2-3 months (from the date of launch). The car model was final beforehand itself, as I had decided to take the top end (due to inclination towards ADAS), Petrol variant, in white color (mandate for all cars in our family).

I was excited to see the car in person, however, the “grand” launch was postponed again by 1 week to 10th August. Finally, D-day came and they invited us to the launch at the Swargate, Pune showroom. It was love at first sight. The looks were absolutely stunning, and we were intrigued by the features, quality, and boot space. There were two cars on display, one in black and the other in white. All of us just loved the design, features, interiors, etc.

We decided to continue with the pre-booking, though the search for other cars continued as I struggled to get a test drive until mid of September. In between, the prices were revealed, and the model I chose was costing 36 lacs OTR, frankly at least 5-6 lacs more than what I expected. Finally, we test-drove the car on 14th September, that too a diesel one, as the SA confirmed that there is no Petrol TD car available.

Before I get into the driving experience, here are the options of the cars we considered in a span of almost 2 months:

VW Taigun

Liked

Solid VW built
Typical VW driving pleasure and German engine feel. I compared it to Polo which I drove for almost 8 years
Easy ingress and egress for my parents

Did not like

The overall feel was ok, did not feel premium from inside
Lacking basic features of panoramic sunroof, 360 cameras etc.

VW Virtus (Almost booked)

Liked

Classy looks and comfort. Especially for rear seats, the leg-room was spacious
Suspension was good, the ride was not bumpy
Premium feel
Paddle shifters
Typical VW engine and driving pleasure. I drove 1.0 TSI & DSG GT
Big boot space

Did not like

Typical sedan feel, not fulfilling the need of an SUV. It would not solve the purpose as i20 is sufficient as a sedan to some extent.

MG Hector

Liked

Huge car
Ample features
Driving experience was good

Did not like

Fuel efficiency is too low
No free services. Not even the first one
3-4 months of waiting period
New facelift model on the cards (no date confirmed by the SA though)

Hyundai Alcazar

Liked

Spacious
7-seater
Ample features and safety standards

Did not like

Bumpy ride, parents were not comfortable sitting in the rear
A 7-seater Creta in all forms. No different at all

Merc New GLA

Did not test drive as the cost was going to ~55 lacs OTR

Jeep Meridian

Was open to considering. However, recent experiences of some fellow Team-BHP members and the trouble my brother-in-law (@rda) faced, my mom was completely against taking the risk in terms of reliability.
We did not test drive the vehicle as it was not available in Pune.

Finally, we got an opportunity to test drive Tucson.

What we liked

Since it was a diesel car, of course, it was powerful. However, the SA told me that Tucson carries the same petrol engine like Alcazar. The overall driving feel was nice.
Premium quality interiors and finish. The seats, dashboards, steering everything was way better than other Hyundai cars.
ADAS. I tried blind spot monitoring, lane assist, electronic power braking, 360-degree camera, turn camera on indicators, sensors while taking a too close turn in heavy traffic.
Memory seats and electronic adjustment of them.
Dual AC, separate for driver and co-driver.
Panoramic sunroof.
Huge boot space.

What we expected more

Paddle shifters
Rear sunblind (provided in Alcazar)
Rubber mat kits & mud flaps are not part of standard accessories. Expected Hyundai to provide such basic things in this segment. Even though I wanted to purchase them, they were out of stock with a waiting period of almost 3 weeks

Overall, it was either we park our decision for buying a car for at least 6 months and wait for the new Creta (with no date on the charts as of today), or we go ahead with Tucson.

After numerous discussions, trust me this was the only topic the whole day for almost 2 weeks, we decided to finalize Tucson.

This was based on the things we liked, and majorly the kind of reliability, trust, presence and experience we had with Hyundai for 17+ years. However, we didn't get any loyalty bonus from them.

I got my car delivered yesterday, on the auspicious occasion of Dusshera.

My delivery experience

Total 70 cars were scheduled for delivery. Kothari Hyundai invited us to their workshop for delivery
The car deliveries were already planned in a systematic way
Breakfast and proper sitting arrangement was in place
The entire team was super helpful
It took ~1 hour for the entire delivery process
The car demo will be done at my home within next 2-weeks

Some initial experiences (I have driven for almost 75kms)

Super smooth driving. I didn't feel the gear change jerks
Comfortable drive. Potholes are not felt
Little lag if I put the complete foot down. Need to handle gently
Since ADAS is on, and I didn't touch it before demo, it shows front collision warning, lane change, etc. Even when I was too close to a car in-front, it applied auto-brakes
The navigation is continuous, the commands are via rear left speaker, and the music is intercepted. It warns for all the cross-roads or schools
The car lock and unlock has a separate horn linked to it. It's not loud as the normal car horn
Used memory seats feature. Worked as a charm

I will share my experiences after driving for a month or so. Thank you for reading.

Some pics. The last one is the NOMAD Mat from 3M. Planning for CR70 as well. Kindly recommend if there are better options, in terms of performance and cost.