Hyundai Santa Fe practicality and boot space

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The Hyundai Santa Fe affords its passengers in the front and second row plenty of leg, head and shoulder room thanks to the car’s hefty dimensions and reasonable packaging. There’s also a completely flat floor in the back, too, meaning that those lumbered with the middle seat shouldn’t suffer the usual problem of having nowhere to put their feet.

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However, the rearmost two seats are considerably tighter and lack any real usable leg or headroom for adults, plus they’re difficult to access. With this in mind, it’s best cordoning off the third row as a kids-only area. Outright space lags behind rivals such as the Skoda Kodiaq and Peugeot 5008.

This is a large car, but despite that it’s not too difficult to park. This is largely down to the standard-fit reversing camera helps, while the driver also has a lot of glass to look out of and the high seating position means overall visibility is good. Front and rear parking sensors are also standard on all models.

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In five-seat configuration the Santa Fe’s boot measures 547 litres, which is smaller than both the Skoda Kodiaq and Peugeot 5008. We don’t have numbers for when all seven seats are up, but you won’t get more than a few soft holdalls in there. Meanwhile, in two-seat mode, bootspace expands to 1,625 litres. The third-row seats can be folded in a 50:50 split, allowing users to accommodate six passengers with a little extra luggage room if needed. Folding said seats is an easy enough task, plus the load bay is peppered with handy netting and luggage hooks for added practicality.

Is it safe?

• Five-star Euro NCAP score achieved 
• Lots of safety and assistance tech 
• Fundamentally strong with lots of airbags

At its most basic level the Hyundai Santa Fe should be a safe car - it certainly appears to be with a five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating. It has six airbags, including curtain ones that extend to protect occupants in the third row of seats. It’s also made of stronger stuff than the previous version; specifically with 15% more high-strength steel.

It’ll also feature the following safety kit, though it’s not clear which will be standard-fit or optional for the UK market yet: 

• Blindspot warning
• Forward collision warning with pedestrian detection and automatic braking
• Rear cross-traffic prevention
• Active lane-keeping assist
• Rear Occupant Alert – alerts driver via message on instrument cluster if occupants are in the rear seats. If the driver leaves the car, it’ll flash headlights and sound horn to warn them 
• Safety Exit Assist – aims to prevent accidents when opening doors if vehicle approaches from behind, either via a driver alert or activating child locks to stop doors operating

Our experience with the Santa Fe showed that this is a company barging its way towards the forefront of driver-assistance technology. We found it smooth, unintrusive and easy to use. It performs better in this regard than many more expensive machines.