Here’s What I Love AND Hate about the Hyundai Santa Cruz Compact Truck After Driving It For a Year!

hey Andre can you believe it's been over a year and 12 000 miles later since we took the Livery of this Hyundai Santa Cruz compact pickup truck no I cannot believe it it seems like only last month we were just getting this yeah and in this video we are going to give you a complete long-term year wrap up basically what it's like to live with a Santa Cruz for a year so we're gonna be talking about fuel efficiency we're going to be talking about off-roading and guess what today we're talking about drag racing power all right let's start where we always start and that is with styling what do you think are you happy with the color and The Styling yeah I I am totally happy you know what I'm most happy about is the design where these lights are actually entering the grill I think it's super unique and when I pull up I don't know when I go shopping at King Soopers grocery store people notice yeah and this Cactus color is really unusual as well I think you know it might be kind of popular and it might get kind of dated quickly but for now I still really love it what kind of Blends into this dirt it's kind of camouflaged so here's the funny thing when we first heard about this car we went to Hyundai we said you called it the car truck sorry you're right truck I first heard about this truck light truckster truckster compact truck yes we went to Hyundai and said hey we want the base one and we didn't get that what did we get no this is a turbocharged one so there's two versions of it really right there's a 2.5 liter base non-turbo and then there's a turbocharged one which is what this is and it's got a dual clutch eight-speed transmission whereas the smaller engine has a classic eight speed with torque converter and that will become important when we talk about off-roading but before we get to all that let's talk about the usefulness of this as you guys know this competes directly well not this one this one's expensive how much was it Andre well this is almost 40K yeah so like 39 000 for this SEL but in terms of size and capability it competes with the Ford Maverick now the Ford Maverick is more of a Truckee truck right this is more of a California surfing cruising truck I would agree and this is a little bit more lifestyle oriented right yeah we actually spoke with the designer and that was what he was going for right he wanted something that you could throw in your wetsuit throw in a surfboard and something with a little bit more kind of Lifestyle potential and less you know loaded up with hay or manure manure in the Maverick but they might fertilizer right it's got a pretty good payload but but this came with this um yeah it does we'll show that soon but this has this retractable counter cover by the way it still works yeah it does I like Caribbeans I like that Caribbean that's always gets stuck uh it's kind of complicated but we we do have the storage cubby yeah and it's useful to an extent the storage cubby isn't very deep so you could put a wetsuit in there you could I don't know make it a kind of a tailgating uh Chiller cooler right so I do have a story about this yes so in January 1st I usually go skiing and I took my entire family with all of our ski boots and our skis and everything fit my four ski four pairs of skis four boots I I put stuff underneath here I I tucked everything everywhere so it's actually kind of useful for a family of four yeah and um the problem with Tano cover is that it takes away a lot of space so if you want to put a motorcycle in here or a bicycle Ah that's tough yeah you're really looking at like a four foot bed which has a half a foot gone because of this cover yes so um and this doesn't have a hitch I mean we did really want it to have a hitch and this one didn't come equipped with it you could add it right you could add a towing package it does not come with a brake controller you should add it later and as Nathan found out some of the wiring harness got recalled on this yeah that's a whole different that's a whole different story but but up to five thousand pounds yeah why don't you show them the uh payload because the payload is pretty astounding for a small truck it is it is really astounding 1411 pounds which is like a almost a full-size truck territory for some full-size trucks well keep in mind that like the Gladiator barely has a thousand yes and that's a mid-sized truck so for all of you guys who aren't truck guys and gals it starts with compactrub the mid-size truck the full-size truck but heavy duty truck yeah and this is a really great payload for it yeah it's pretty amazing now the other thing I like about this is uh you know you've got storage space under the seats which you kind of showed right yeah there's a little bit of there's the big cubby down here uh which is nice uh you know if you've got spare uh I don't know tubes for your bicycle if you're using it as a lifestyle truck I guess sex swags for your skis or is it for your surfboard uh I don't know what you're talking about it's actually not bad so Andre is six three and I'm sitting let me let me I'm sitting behind him okay and I have good Headroom and actually the other nice thing is a lot of mid-sized truck this back seat is Bolt upright and here I'm not bolt upright so it's nice to have a little bit of like wiggle room it's not cavernous you know it's a small truck but it's not bad yeah so your knees actually fit yeah my knees fit look and my head fits we set it over a year right so 12 000 455 and these are I mean pretty tough Miles because we uh drove it in the winter in the mountains see this headrest yes when you put your head up against it it kind of kind of grabs your hair at least mine it kind of grabs my hair and I feel it pulling in my hair I don't know what it is about the material but it's a little like well my shorter hair is okay right now yeah mine mine gets kind of grabbed and it kind of stick I do feel it right now yeah yeah yeah you're right that's kind of weird isn't it yeah yeah okay it's a little velcroy okay yeah you want to pop the hood yeah let's let's pop it now this is full time all-wheel drive you could also get a like front wheel drive versions but here in Colorado that would not be built or Bueno uh no so there's no struts so you have to use a little stick a little prop stick on this side I hate this I hate these little well it's springtime I hate that it's springtime and sorry we did take this off-road we'll talk about that a little bit later so this engine is quite powerful and will actually toss to a drag race in a second in a second but 281 horsepower and 311 pound-feet of torque and and the Dual clutch transmission actually we had an issue with yeah let's talk about that so yeah uh over the course of a year we've really had only one major issue and that was a recall on the Dual clutch transmission and when first we recalled it what happened was it made the car and I'm going to be honest about this almost undrivable yeah so it was kind of jerky right at slow speed it was it never left that stranded no no no but you would but it was jerky and then they said not to drive it until you took it to the dealer right yes yes so that was pretty big deal and then then you know we had it retuned a second time reprogrammed yeah and then it became wonderful yes so it kind of got back to its old self right where it was actually driving pretty well but let's face it Andre dual clutches are great in one condition racing which is racing because they're very quick on shifting but they're certainly not great and we'll talk about this in a second off-road and they're certainly not great and stop and go traffic because they become kind of herky-jerky right the car is always kind of looking for a gear uh and they're actually not good at drag racing as we found out when we took a drag racing now it did well we'll show that video yeah let's just go to it four four one two [Music] okay come on the stool clutch did not take off at all come on [Music] [Applause] you know this thing just does not want to launch it's the weirdest thing Andre oh what happened was it like uh was it was there like a moment of hesitation yeah this dual clutch you know I'm trying to do a little bit of let me try something else here can we do it one more time I think if I just forward it might be better hold on let me just try pouring it yeah it's much better let's do one more okay you're still not gonna win dude well what are you trying to do five four three two one oh much closer much closer he's still getting away but not by as much okay we're here had a better launch but you know I can tell you about a story where I went to Utah and uh test drove uh several rappers there come out a tiny truck 15.33 Andre at 95 miles an hour let's power this up yeah so before we go for our Drive let me tell you another thing that I really don't like about it and that is um this piano black right well I just wiped it yes you did it I'm glad you did because up here you didn't wipe it and you can see all the dust and you can see all of the it's almost a magnet for dust right whereas here it's clean the other thing you get are fingerprints everywhere and I just please automaker stop with the piano black it just is not good because this is this is just too much of a dust magnet all I do is all I do is I walk around and wipe it off every time I get in it there you go well let me start off and pull away you know go ahead I was gonna say I do like the design other than that because it's got this kind of a double double cockpit yeah kind of like an old Mustang yeah yeah I really appreciate that double the nickel yeah double double I also would rather have real buttons for the HVAC oh yes I'm not a big fan of and also radio yeah we do have a two knob which is nice and we do have a volume knob which is nice uh and you know overall this is kind of uh relatively easy to live with uh I think Hyundai does a good job with their infotainment I also like the gauges the steering wheel is a little funky it's a little sporty it's a little funky I like it yeah I'm I'm kind of a fan of it you could put your hand in many places also you can kind of up or downshift do you ever use that no no but I can tell my friends hey I have I have paddle shifters okay and we do have heated seats and we also have like I said a backup camera but no 360. no and for an expensive model like this it needs to have 360. and over here we have a phone charger which is nice USB and us actually two USBS yeah where's that at a 12 volt it's a year old and it's already out of date how does it drive Andre the droves you know it drives like a crossover yeah yeah it drives really really like it's it's comfortable so it's not that's not drive like a pickup truck well you know it is kind of very similar to the Tucson right yeah so it's like I mean once again it's a crossover yeah well like G Pace when you call the Gladiator or Wrangler with a bed yeah I I know that there's more than this is a bit well I know they they kind of took a slightly heavier rear section from the um Santa Fe yep and the rest of it is kind of Tucson right yes so it is a little bit more in a Tucson with a bed how about the brakes uh let me let me test it let me no [Music] you know the brakes I never had the problem with yeah they were really good they were linear and they're uh you know yeah really modulated uh and if you're looking for like Road feel this is probably like you said not the car to heaven oh look at the power Audrey tell her it's really well dude but not from the stop as we find out we drag racing takes a while to get going yeah you have to time it just right yeah and it is a little bit compact now granted we're both big guys but I do feel a little bit too close to you if I'm being honest well it's a small pickup it's like a midsite it's you know it's like as wide as the midsize yeah but a midsize would be a little bit bigger a little bit taller a little bit more uh Road present T now of course people may be wondering how does the turbo do when it comes to fuel economy and we have a video I'm glad you asked because I did a longer Journey on camera and uh I checked out Highway efficiency should we roll that video now yeah let's roll that video before we talk about off-roading ah finally I've been wanting to do this for a very long time I wanted to take the Hyundai Santa Cruz on the road trip this is exactly what I'm doing about 180 miles plus in the Colorado Rocky Mountains okay 87 same thing let's put it in there and we went just about 193 miles all right there you have it basically six gallons so let's do the calculation now 192.9 miles according to the trip meter divide by six point zero eight two gallons equals oh yes 31.7 it's better than the truck is saying it's surprising it's better than the EPA says uh I'm super pleased so yes the answer to the question is the Hyundai Santa Cruz a great road trip little compact pickup truck yes the answer is an absolute yes for me because I don't feel super tired after about three and a half hours in the seat I it was comfortable quiet nice and relatively efficient yeah it drives pretty well and it's actually pretty fuel efficient if you drive it on the highway on the highway yes City not so much now there's one more thing that we did with this which is take it off road so let's start with the tires Andre yeah well these tires are not off-roading percent I mean they're kind of All Seasons these are actually the the Kum ho oke that's it what I'm sorry uh uh uh cruising yeah well that's what I told you I'm sorry 245 60 r18s yes uh and but they've had they have 12 over 12 000 miles on them and the tread I mean usually a brand new vehicle the tread seems to go away immediately right yeah this these tires still have a little bit of life left in them and I actually when I talked told you about um winter driving this is actually not awful in the snow it's it's actually pretty good in the snow it's not greatness though no it's not I wouldn't say get this tire for the snow no but as far as an all-season tire is concerned um I actually had good luck with these can I tell you a secret what any car is excellent with snow tires in the snow but it's gotta be snow tires but this is all-wheel drive I know but look all-wheel drive is nowhere near as good as snow tires in the snow because it's not just about going it's about stopping and turning yes anyway so so if I had this again I would put some tires on in the winter or maybe if we wanted to we could have put a little bit beefier off like all terrainy tires this is not all terrain yeah but it does have some off-road chops so it does have an electronic locking Center diff yes and it has downhill uh Hill descent control but it does have a dual clutch and when we took it off-road we found out that that was the Achilles heel of this dual clutch is sometimes overheat or they got get hot right but what happened you know let's just show the video Let's Roll It welcome to the Santa Cruz so I'm gonna go into Smart Mode now there are uh first we should probably explain that so there's like four modes yes uh there's sport there's smarts there's snow and then there was one other and normal normal that's it every day yeah so I think smart needs to help and figure things out for us and then the center Locker for the all-wheel drive h-track system right is just distributes power pretty evenly 50 50 front and rear essentially um so between that and the traction control system it should mitigate wheel spin which we're having right now yes and which we're having a lot of come on there it goes now there is another video where Andre and I actually took a Santa Cruz up the other obstacle and you guys will be able to see that yes but this is already very challenging for traction and for some articulation and so far we are struggling Andre is staying on the accelerator but we have to stop at this tree and that's going to make these things difficult and you know also I'm using almost 100 throttle on some of these so we're at the tree okay it's a tree so I'm gonna pause uh-huh okay I don't think I can pull any more buttons can I traction control disabled how about that try it come on Dual clutch your clutch sensor all back photographers are going to be safe okay it's okay though no but it did it but really this is near the maximum of this vehicle's capacity I would recommend for anybody who's going to buy one of these and wants to go into the rough change the tires first thing you do definitely tires are a huge part of uh um a huge part of it absolutely but it did it all right Andre I just did a long term well 5 000 mile review over at tflev at our boat okay uh I added a new category you know how we used to have buy it lease it rent it or forget it yes well I added must buy it because I felt that the bolt was a must buy like a like a super good category like a super super good so you spent most of 12 000 miles with this because yeah the truck guy yes so buy it lease it rent it or forget it or must buy it you know what I want to say buy it but I'm gonna say lease it okay why is that um it's mostly because the the transmission I wasn't in love with the transition like like we said it's great power the turbocharger engine is super the the utility of this little trucklet is great but around town driving with the transmission I didn't like yeah so I would say you know as we talked about when we drove it I hate the piano black interior I am fastidious about the interior of my cars and that just like sucks dust and dirt and you can never keep it clean so all I'm doing is wiping stuff off yeah so that that bugs me uh also the hair grabbing thing bugs me and you're right the transmission uh also bugs me but if you were to get the less expensive one buy it yeah then I would say the one that Nathan has in fact Nathan bought it yeah buy it but this more expensive one you know forego some of the fancier electronics and you'll be much happier especially if you go with the a-speed and you know what I don't feel like this is any slower even with the smaller two liter well because it's lighter weight right yeah the more simple ones so if you're looking for the Santa Cruz or this small utility pickup go for the more basic non-turbo one but overall I think our experience with it has been outstanding and I'm gonna be sad to see it go well guys as always this is see you next time and check out all tfl.com if you want to see that bulk review ciao foreign

Channel: TFLnow

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Id: gG7cj-zwFQE

Length: 20min 54sec (1254 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 27 2023