South Africa's best selling medium-sized SUV comes
from Hyundai, not Japan.

QUICK — guess what is South Africa’s top selling medium sized SUV?

The Toyota RAV4?

No, that popular sport ute comes in at third, behind the very capable Mazda CX5.

The sport ute most sold by dealers in SA is the Hyundai Tuscon, with seven in every 10 SUVs in Msanzi being from this Korean marque — most of them the Tuscon 2.0-litre Elite with an automatic transmission.

But this petrol can now expect stiff competition from two turbo diesel engines, which Hyundai has this week added to the five petrol Tuscon models on sale in SA.

While the AA this week predicted a small drop in the fuel price come December, the fact remains that diesel is well over R11/litre, which translates into about a rand a kilometre just for fuel in most cars
on a combined cycle of city and open road driving.

We can reveal that sales staff who had to put miles on the two new diesel Tuscon got a very good 15 to 18 km/l (5.5 to 6.3 km/l) and that was while putting foot in the Highveld with stiff, new engines.

AWD only by popular demand

Now you know why the petrol Tuscon’s are so popular — it ain’t just for those fluidic design lines.

Of note is that neither of the diesels has all-wheel-drive yet, but if enough customers ask for it, Hyundai South Africa’s sales and operations director Stanley Anderson will make a case to have it imported.

Hyundai is especially pleased with the rate at which South Africans have asked for the new Tuscon, which is selling on average 615 units a month, well ahead of the competing medium-sized SUVs from Mazda, Toyota and Nissan.

General manager of corporate communications at Hyundai SA Deon Sonnekus predicts the new diesels Tuscons will maintain this top position. Both have fuel frugal Euro 6 engines, with the 1,7-litre making 85 kW at 4 000 rpm and 280 Nm between 1 250 and 1 270 rpm. Both also have six-speed gearboxes, a manual in the 1,7-litre and an auto in the 2,0-litre Tuscon.

The 1,7 engine is built in Korea and will hit the sweet spot for anyone living on the coast. The 2,0-litre engine comes from Hyundai’s factory in Nošovice, the Czech Republic.

We drove it and from my position as legroom-tester in the passenger seats I can testify that its impressive workrate of 131 kW at 4 000 rpm and a stump-pulling 400 Nm between 1 250 and 1 270 rpm gets the vehicle through even the gluiest black gunk in KZN’s sugarcane fields, using only two-wheel drive.

Sitting in the rear, I had ample leg room and especially liked the hard plastic cladding on the back of the front seats, which protects the pleater cover against kicking and scrapes from the children.

It is safe too. The European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests gave it top ratings of 86% for adult occupant protection and 85% for child occupant safety.

Niggles

In fact, the only niggles my 20-something co-driver and I had in the Tuscon was the road clearance and to pair our phones to the optional R15k audio system, which works with Android 5.2 or later, but not easily on Apple.

The Tuscon’s 182 mm road clearance is ample and higher than the RAV4’s 152 mm, but requires more careful placing over the ruts than Nissan’s X-Trail, which is the highest medium SUV at 209 mm.

Mind, I have a few rather harsh winters on the younger man, so my failure to figure out which icons to press is understandable, but when a millennial fails to hook up his hip hop, the Koreans may want to relook the over-simplified design of their icons. Of course for owners, connectivity never poses a problem once the nice salesperson has paired the phones. But still, for my money, the Tuscon’s standard radio, which also comes with Bluetooth, will exceed most visiting teenagers’ musical connectivity needs, and for anything else there are AUX and USB sockets.

The quickest way to see which of the two diesel Tuscons are driving ahead is the twin exhausts, which denote two litres.

This engine comes with a 2 000-bar common rail injector, variable vanes on the turbo, electronic gas recirculation which reburns waste gasses over and over, and a variable low pressure fuel pump, to name but a few of the current modern technology found in most European cars.

While the Korean cars are not first to the market with new tech, they do make doubly sure it works before they launch it, explained Sonnekus.

Which is why Hyundai can offer a five-year or 150 000 km manufacturer’s warranty, enhanced by the additional new groundbreaking seven-years/200 000 km drivetrain warranty, which comes standard with the all-new Hyundai Tucson package, as well as roadside assistance for five years or 150 000 km.

All derivatives come with a five-year/90 000 km service plan, and service intervals are spaced at 15 000 km, except for the Tucson 1.7 UII Executive Diesel, which has 30 000 km service intervals.

Tucson diesel pricing

1.7 UII Executive (manual)
R439 900

2.0 Elite (automatic)

R519 900