Hyundai Santa Fe Review & Prices

The Hyundai Santa Fe is one of the brand’s longest-serving names - it’s been with us for almost a quarter of a century, evolving over that time from a fairly rough-and-ready off-roader into a fully fledged family SUV. This newest version, however, goes a step further. It throws in a proper helping of sci-fi styling, turning what could easily have been a sensible-but-unexciting seven-seater into something genuinely desirable – so cool it was awarded Car of the Year and the Family Values Award in the 2025 Carwow Car of the Year Awards.

Think of it like a Stanley cup. For years, the brand made extremely practical but deeply unglamorous green vacuum flasks, then almost overnight became a must-have lifestyle accessory once the design caught up with the usefulness. The Santa Fe has pulled off a similar trick: it still does the sensible family-car stuff, but now looks interesting enough that you might actually want one.

Its most obvious rivals include the closely related Kia Sorento, along with other seven-seat SUVs such as the Skoda Kodiaq and Nissan X-Trail. Even so, the new Santa Fe has such an upmarket feel that you could easily see it being compared with pricier options such as the Land Rover Discovery or Volvo XC90. It really does feel that convincing.

The Santa Fe’s squared-off shape is the first thing you notice, and it fits neatly with the design direction of other sharp-looking Hyundais, including the Ioniq 5. It manages to look futuristic without sacrificing usefulness, thanks to an upright rear end that helps free up as much cabin space as possible. LED lighting all round and a surprisingly bold colour palette - including brown, orange and green alongside more conventional greys and silvers - add to the sense that Hyundai has taken a properly modern approach to the way this car looks.

Of course, practicality matters more than anything in a three-row SUV, and the Santa Fe scores very strongly here. The second row is available either as a conventional bench or as a pair of plush captain’s chairs, and whichever you choose, there’s plenty of space. The rearmost seats are more compact, but children will be perfectly happy there, and there’s still a usable amount of boot space even with all seven seats in place.

Storage is another major strength. In fact, the Santa Fe has an almost ridiculous 18 cup and bottle holders dotted around the cabin. That could well be more than any other car currently on sale in the UK…

The cabin itself is smartly designed and feels impressively solid. The dashboard looks properly premium, helped by a huge curved display that wouldn’t feel out of place in a BMW, while the materials strike a good balance between plushness and family-proof durability.

You can have the Santa Fe as either a self-charging hybrid or a plug-in hybrid, with the choice of two- or four-wheel drive. Both versions have enough power to move this large Hyundai around without much fuss, though neither feels especially quick. They don’t deliver the same effortless low-down punch you get from something like a Land Rover Discovery, and it’s a pity Hyundai doesn’t offer a diesel, because that sort of easy pulling power would suit a big family SUV very well.

That said, the hybrid setups return decent fuel economy for something of this size, while the plug-in hybrid’s low CO2 emissions make it a fairly sensible option for company car drivers too.

Verdict

Once you factor in everything else the Santa Fe does well, the fact it isn’t quite as engaging to drive as some alternatives doesn’t feel like much of a drawback - particularly in a family SUV, where the reality is more likely to involve school-run traffic than attacking a mountain road. In nearly every other area, the Santa Fe is an excellent family car.

Find out how much you could save with Carwow’s Hyundai Santa Fe deals, or get a great price on the outgoing model by browsing used Santa Fes. You can also check out other used Hyundais, and sell your car online through Carwow.

With prices starting at more than £46,000, the Hyundai Santa Fe isn’t as much of a budget offering as it once was. That makes it significantly more expensive than a Skoda Kodiaq, though it’s also quite a bit larger - and if you specify the Kodiaq with seven seats and a hybrid engine, it’s much more comparable.

More importantly, the Santa Fe offers as good an experience as a Volvo XC90 or Land Rover Discovery - in most situations - but undercuts them significantly on price. Even the most expensive Santa Fe plug-in hybrid is cheaper than the least expensive Discovery.

The Santa Fe is comfortable over bumps and powerful enough, though you wouldn’t call it fun

In town

The Santa Fe is a massive car, so the laws of square footage mean it’s not going to be the best choice for town driving and parking in tight spaces. However, among cars its own size, it holds up pretty well. For starters, that squared-off bonnet means it’s actually really easy to judge where the front corners are, and all-round visibility is pretty good. All cars get a reversing camera and the mid-spec ‘Ultimate’ model gets a full surround-view camera as well as a digital rear-view mirror.

The Santa Fe’s suspension does a great job of ironing out the worst of in-town imperfections and speed bumps, and it’s wide enough that you can easily straddle speed cushions. The hybrid engines are smooth and responsive, too, with little hesitation from the gearbox - you simply get up and get moving.

On the motorway

Despite its bluff bodywork, wind noise is really well-contained - Hyundai’s engineers have worked really hard to ensure that even though the Santa Fe looks like a brick, it’s actually very aerodynamic. Road noise is minimal too, the only thing that occasionally spoils the silence is the engine, which can be a bit raucous if you ask for a sudden burst of acceleration.

Power delivery isn’t as effortless as it is in something like a Land Rover Discovery, simply because the Santa Fe doesn’t have as much power on tap - but it’s still more than comfortable to cruise all day at the legal limit and there’s enough in reserve for a slip road or a quick overtake. Hyundai’s assisted driving features also work quite well, with adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping aids that make for pretty smooth progress. We wouldn’t bother using the automatic lane-changing, though - it’s far too hesitant.

On a twisty road

The Santa Fe has plenty of grip in the corners, the steering is accurate and the body doesn’t lean too much. So it’s perfectly capable of taking corners on a twisty road - it’s just not that enjoyable to do so thanks to the remote nature of the powertrain, and the numb steering that’s set up to be light and easy rather than to be the last word in driver feedback.

It’s much more enjoyable taking a twisting B-road at a moderate pace and allowing the Santa Fe to waft along, rather than attacking each corner in Sport mode - it surely wouldn’t be very comfortable for your passengers, either. A Land Rover Discovery is similarly afflicted, as are most large SUVs.

A Land Rover Discovery has more space in the third row, but the Santa Fe has it licked for cubby spaces

Up front in the Santa Fe the seats are big and comfortable, with loads of adjustment in the seat and the steering wheel for drivers of all sizes. What really hits you is the storage on offer, though, which is extensive. Not only do you get big door bins and a useful glovebox, but the cupholders are enormous and so is the centre cubby. You can even access the latter from the middle row of seats, very useful.

There’s an additional, shallow glovebox higher up the dashboard - on top-spec Calligraphy models this has a UV disinfecting light for things like phones or face masks. The Santa Fe’s gear selector protrudes from the steering column so there’s space in the middle for two smartphones on grippy rubber holders. One of these is a wireless charger as standard, and from the middle trim they both are.

Space in the back seats

Rear passengers in the middle row get plenty of space, with a 60:40 split rear bench that slides and reclines. There’s space for three adults, too, and though the middle seat is higher and a bit narrower than the outer two it’s still roomy enough - and a totally flat floor ensures there’s space for everyone’s feet.

Rear passengers are also spoiled for features. There are USB-C ports set into each front seatback for charging gadgets on the go, and bag hooks to keep shopping or handbags off the ground. There are two cupholders in each door, as well as a door bin big enough for a water bottle, and if you fold down the centre armrest there’s a further two cupholders - meaning you can have up to eight drinks stowed safely.

Access into the third row is good, you just have to press a button on the shoulder of a middle-row seat and it folds forward electronically. Once back there, there’s enough leg room for an adult to sit fairly comfortably provided the middle row of seats are slid forward just one or two clicks. The seat bases are set quite low, though, so your knees will be sitting high - not too comfortable for long journeys. That’s the same in almost all alternatives, though, with only the Discovery offering true seven-adult capacity.

Third-row passengers also get their own air-con controls, a further four cupholders and USB-C ports.

Boot space

With all three rows of seats in place, there’s room for three or four carry-on sized suitcases. It’s not exactly capacious, but it’s pretty good and better than in a Nissan X-Trail. Fold the third row, and you liberate 628 litres of space. That’s still more than an X-Trail (565 litres) but less than the Skoda Kodiaq (910 litres) or massive Land Rover Discovery (922 litres). In reality, there’s plenty of space for all the family’s kit, and the digital rear-view mirror on most models means you can load right up to the roof with no worries about spoiling your view out the rear.

Drop the middle row of seats and you liberate a hefty 1,949 litres of space, a fact Hyundai proved by having us sleep in the car for its UK launch event. This is somewhat of a growing trend in Hyundai’s native South Korea - it’s called ‘Chabak’, or car camping.

A posh-feeling interior that’s the equal of any premium brand - though it looks a bit boring in all black

The old Santa Fe’s interior was solidly built and easy to use, but didn’t really inspire any ‘wow’ factor. That’s not so much the case with this new model, which has a dashboard dominated by a huge, curved twin-screen display - very much like the one you’d find in a BMW X5.

It looks great, and it operates really well too. The menus all make sense, the screens are bright and responsive, and you can set up customisable shortcut keys to take you to your favourite functions instantly. We had ours set up to quickly disable some of the more annoying driver aids.

Beneath this sits a climate control panel, which is nice to see - it saves rooting around in a touchscreen menu just to do something as simple as turning on the heated seats.

The design is modern and looks good, though it’s best in cars that are fitted with the optional cream or brown leather. In base-spec Premium cars, the sea of black does look rather dull. Quality is also up there with the best - all the switchgear feels expensive, the doors and windows close with reassuring solidity and there wasn’t a single creak or rattle. True, the materials do begin to get cheaper as you go lower down on the sides of the centre console, but that’s the case with all this car’s alternatives.

The Santa Fe self-charging hybrid claims an official fuel economy figure between 38-41mpg. We achieved 38mpg on a long, mixed route without being too careful, which was impressive. You can make the most of this by allowing the car to coast on electric power as much as possible. It’s a shame that the regenerative braking - controlled by paddles behind the wheel - is quite jerky, or we would have used it more, potentially saving even more petrol.

The plug-in hybrid has an official economy rating of 166mpg - a pipe dream for most, but as with all PHEVs it’s very dependent on usage. If you charge up every night and stay mostly within the car’s 30-ish miles of all-electric range, you might use very little petrol indeed. If you do lots of long journeys, you’d be better off with the regular hybrid, as the PHEV has extra weight and a smaller fuel tank.

CO2 emissions range from 145-166g/km for the hybrid model, depending on trim - which is good but too high to make an ideal company car. The plug-in hybrid has emissions of just 38g/km, which puts it in the 12%band for company car tax - good, but the Skoda Kodiaq nips into the 5% band.

All Santa Fes are over £40,000, so attract the high rate of VED for the first few years of ownership.

Euro NCAP score (2024): 4/5

Adult occupant: 84%
Child occupant: 88%
Vulnerable road users: 70%
Safety assist: 69%

Euro NCAP crash-tested the Santa Fe, scoring it four stars overall and five stars with a 'safety pack'. This refers to the 'Smartsense' pack which is a reasonably-priced option on base models and standard on the upper trims. It adds more sophisticated adaptive cruise control, autonomous emergency braking, and blind-spot monitoring tech.

All Santa Fes come with a good basic level of safety aids, including driver attention monitoring, speed limit assist and lane-keeping aids. All cars also get blind-spot monitoring, full LED lights and a reversing camera. It's a shame it couldn't score the full five stars outright, though you should be reassured by its impressive 84% and 88% scores in adult and child occupant protection respectively.

Hyundai offers a five-year, 100,000-mile warranty on all its cars, which is more generous than the three years of cover you get on a Skoda, Land Rover or Nissan. The closely-related Kia Sorento has seven years of cover, though.

Hyundai also posted a fairly disappointing 20th place in the 2025 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey - behind Volvo, Nissan, and Land Rover. No Hyundai vehicle even ranked in the top 50.