Unique times march 2014

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Hyundai has also given the Santa Fe with flex-steer, a system which increases the steering weight by up to 20 percent depending on which one of the three modes are selected comfort, normal and sport.

levels, the 2 wheel drive manual, 2 wheel drive automatic and 4 wheel drive automatic. We drove the top end 4x4 Automatic for our test. All the variants are powered by a 2.2liter CRDi diesel engine that makes 194 bhp @ 3800rpm and kicks out a meaty 445Nm of peak torque between 1800-2500rpm. The manual version gets a 6 speed manual transmission while the automatic gets a 6 speed auto transmission. You also get 4wheel differential lock that can be activated at a press of a button during off road activities. Start the engine using the button start and you instantly notice the huge refinement levels of this unit. At idle, the engine is super silent and a big part of this also goes to the cabin damping. The Koreans also carried out extensive work on reducing cabin noise, which means a quieter and more pleasant cabin ambience. Even over the dirt roads

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UNIQUE TIMES March 2014

Hyundai had us testing the Santa Fe over, we were pleasantly surprised by just how little road noise was passed into the cabin. Shift to drive mode and the Santa Fe surges ahead at a brisk pace. The 6 speed transmission does its duty nicely, shifting gears seamlessly and delivering the power in a refined an enthusiastic manner. Hyundai has also given the Santa Fe with flex-steer, a system which increases the steering weight by up to 20 percent depending on which one of the three modes are selected (comfort, normal and sport). It cannot improve the feedback or feel of the system, but it makes it heavier and lighter depending on where you drive. We loved driving around the hills in the Sport mode steering. In comfort mode the steering gives the light feedback and is best suited for traffic and city drives. The suspension setup is very well

suited for India and Hyundai has worked real hard to come to this level. The Santa Fe feels well balanced on highways and on bad roads and at all speeds feels safe and planted. Overtaking is effortless and the power delivery is seamless. On the face of it, the Santa Fe is what a typical Indian SUV customer demands. Hyundai has studied the Indian market well and loaded the New Santa Fe with endless feature list. The New Santa Fe is generously large on the inside and trendy looking on the outside. The 2.2 engine is powerful enough and scores very well on refinement. You get a lot of kit including Differential Lock, Stability Control along with Traction Control and Six airbags. The prices for the New Hyundai Santa Fe start at Rs. 26lakhs for the base 2WD Manual and go up to 30lakhs for the 4WD Automatic ex Delhi.


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