The 2020 Hyundai Palisade Is a Bargain Luxury SUV

this is a 2020 Hyundai palisade limited and it's a bargain now that may be hard to believe because the sticker price on this one is just under forty eight thousand dollars which means this thing is almost 50 grand for a Hyundai and that doesn't really sound like a great deal but it is a great deal and today I'm going to explain why first a little overview now the palisade is Hyundai's new midsize three row SUV designed to compete with rivals like the Ford Explorer and the Toyota Highlander and the Honda Pilot and the Mazda cx-9 it has a 3.5 liter v6 with 290 horsepower and mechanically it's basically the same as the Kia Telluride which I've already reviewed the difference is market position the Telluride is supposed to be like the sporty fun one while the palisade is intended to be more upscale more luxurious now normally distinctions like that are just a bunch of marketing crap that you can ignore but in this case Hyundai and Kia have gone to great lengths to distinguish their two SUVs the biggest differences relate to design where the palisade has a smoother more luxurious looked on the Telluride especially on the inside I say that because the palisade is a step above the Telluride when it comes to the interior and in fact the palisade is a step above most other mainstream brand midsize SUVs it also has a lot of equipment for 48 grand which I'll show you in a minute and when you add up the interior and the feel and the look of the palisade and if you take away the Hyundai badge it almost starts to seem like a luxury SUV and that is where it becomes a pretty good deal and today I'm gonna show you what I mean first I'm gonna take you on a tour of the palisade and I'm going to show you all of its interesting quirks and features then I'm gonna get it out on the road and drive it and then I'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the palisade click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also compiled a list of some cool old-school family SUVs currently listed for sale on auto trader alright I'm gonna start the quicksand features of the palisade with a discussion of some of its features now like I mentioned this thing is loaded it has a ton of stuff heated steering wheel cooled seats got a heads-up display adaptive cruise control a lot of features you'd expect from like a modern sort of luxury SUV but it also has some features you wouldn't expect including one of my very favorite features in the entire car industry turn-signal tamra's alright check this out you're driving down the road you want to make a two lane change normally you'd have to like look over your shoulder to look into your blind spot or a near mirror in this thing put on the turn signal and a camera turns on and it shows your blind spot it shows exactly what's next to you in high resolution so you can see if there's a car in your blind spot when you go to make a lane change no more like confusion with your shoulder check no more is my mirror perfectly adjusted this camera does a fantastic job and they have one on both sides right and left and it perfectly shows your blind spot every time you put on the turn signal I showed you this feature in the Kia k900 so I guess Kia and Hyundai are starting to add it to their cars but it's fantastic and I hope that every car has it before too long no next up another interesting feature in the palisade is something called driver talk let's say you're driving down the road and your kids are being annoying in the third row you could turn around and yell at them but that's distracting and then you take your eyes off the road and that's why this car has driver talk going to the infotainment system select driver talk and then your voice in the front is picked up by a microphone that transmits to a speaker in the third row take a look at what I mean alright check this out I am in the front obviously and you are where the third row passengers would be and I unplugged my own microphone so you can just hear me as you would if we were in the palisade together so take a listen hello everyone my name is Doug and we're riding in the palisade blah blah blah pellets say all right check this out I'm going to turn on driver talk we're riding in the palace a now quicksand features that is the type of guy to talk to the palisade and now back to normal and you can hear the difference it is heavily amplified when I'm on driver Drive and next up another cool feature of the palisade is it has something called quiet ride if you go into quiet ride in the infotainment system it will turn off all of the rear speakers and keep the front speakers at a low volume that way if you're driving home from a family road trip and your kids have fallen asleep in the back you can still listen to music in the front without having to turn it on on all the speakers and wake up your kids brilliant idea and next up here's another excellent idea in the palisade a lot of cars have a blind spot monitor I don't let you know if someone's in your blind spot so you don't accidentally change lanes and hit them the palisade takes it a step further it actually has an active intervention system so if you're about to change lanes into someone this blind spot monitoring system will actively steer you away from them and keep you from colliding that's impressive a lot of cars will stop you from a forward collision not too many cars will also stop you from like a lane change blind spot collision and next up another innovative palisade feature now when you put this thing in Reverse obviously the cameras come on which is true of all new vehicles now and this one has several different camera angles which you'd expect from an SUV at this price point but it has one particularly innovative camera angle it will show you from the top down in the back with a little yellow line out from the middle to help you hitch up your palisade to a trailer if you want to tow now there are several pickup trucks that have this feature but it's not common on midsize crossovers and if you want a tow this can be very useful and that little yellow line will swivel as you turn the steering wheel to let you kind of know how what your palisade is lined up it's a really good feature and it's nice to see it making its way into SUVs now beyond some of the cool new features of the palisade this thing also has a really impressive interior for a midsize BAM we cross over from a non luxury brand specifically take a look at the seats leather seats obviously but the tops are this nice quilted stitch leather you typically only see with really expensive luxury vehicles same thing on the door panels you have the same quilted stitch leather that just gives it a really nice look on the dashboard you have this nice dashboard trim that kind of glistens in the sunlight also a really really nice look meanwhile in the center console instead of the typical gloss black plastic everyone is using you have this sort of textured silver trim that looks a lot nicer and right above that you have these silver buttons which look and feel like something from a luxury car there are a few plastic buttons in the center control stack as well but these silver buttons look really nice and feel really nice to press overall if you look around this interior especially from the front looking at the dashboard and all the materials and trim they've used it's a really nice place to be and it's surprising that you're getting this from a $48,000 Hyundai instead of like a $65,000 mercedes-benz it really is top quality in here but beyond the cool new features in the nice interior there are some rather interesting quirks of the palisade and I've got to start with the gear selector which is just strange no typical gear lever here instead you have these four buttons P off to the left and then R N and D in a line very strange but a lot of modern vehicles are sort of adapting weird gear selectors one especially weird thing about this one though is if you go from park to drive it doesn't just light up D instead it actually lights up R and N on the way as if you're using an old gear lever and shifting between them same thing if you switch back to park it will light up neutral and reverse on the way back to fire again is a very strange thing I'm not sure why they do that but it does now despite the look of that weird gear selector actually has a substantial benefit by not having a giant gear lever here like in older vehicles that frees up a ton of space in the center console for storage which is really important if you have like a family SUV and there's all sorts of family and kid accessories around for instance you have this storage panel in the front you push this little tab that says push and it opens right up and you can see it is a large storage compartment or a wireless charger and you can also push these little buttons on the side and cupholders will pop out so it's very multifunctional in this storage compartment then there's a second storage compartment behind the first storage compartment which itself is huge so there's a ton of center console storage space and it's still not over because below the center console you have this empty hole where you can store even more stuff all of this is just really practical really nice for families who end up taking a lot of gear with them wherever they go next up other interesting quirks in the palisade now when you first start the engine in the palisade this little red group of people lights up to the right of the infotainment screen like a red army of seatbelt warriors that is actually a pretty innovative feature it lets you know which seats in the back are not buckled in place and that way you don't have to turn around and kind of try to see if your kids are buckled in instead it shows you right when you start the car which kids are buckled and which ones aren't also pretty cool next up another item I like in the center control stack is just how easy it is to adjust the rear climate controls there is a button marked rear near all the front climate controls you push it and then the rear controls pop up on the infotainment screen and then it's simple you just adjust them from there that's a lot better than a lot of cars which bury the rear controls in some sort of menu in the infotainment screen so you have to find them in this thing just a simple button you push in next up since I'm talking about the climate controls another thing I like with them is right below the climate control screen Hyundai has printed the words clean air yes the air you're getting the palisade is not dirty air and if you need a reminder just look to your climate controls and it will tell you now next up below the climate controls you have probably the strangest thing in the center control stack here and that would be the rotary dial that adjusts the drive mode I say it strange because it's like the visual focal point of the center control stack and yet who's really adjusted in the drive mode and a family crossover but you can and you can twist it to five different things smart sport comfort eco or snow now the strange thing about this dial is that even though it is in fact a dile you cannot turn it all the way around if you turn it to smart and then continue turning it will not go to snow instead to excess snow you have to go all the way around the other direction the strange thing is it allows you to keep turning it when you're on smarter snow but it won't do anything it's like the dial is broken this is bad dial design from Hyundai and yet I suspect no palisade owner will ever care because no palisade owner will ever change it from comfort now one thing I will say is if you do change it from comfort you are treated to quite a show in the gauge cluster let me show you what I mean you start on snow and you turn it to eco and it gives you this like display of green to let you know that you're an eco then you turn it to comfort and it gives you like a display of blue I guess to let you know that you're in comfort but my favorite one is you turn it to sport and there's like an explosion and then the Foxhall change and everything is red because now you're in sport and things are about to get rowdy now I drove it in sport for a while and I didn't really notice any change except maybe a slight difference in shift points but it's there and it's explosive when you turn your dial and next up speaking of the gauge cluster there are a couple of interesting features in the gauge cluster I want to start with something called lead vehicle departure alert alright say you're driving along you pull up to a stoplight behind some other cars and then you know you're stuck texting or eating or looking down you don't notice the latest turned green the cars in front of you are driving away lead vehicle departure alert will beep to let you know that the lead vehicle has departed and that way you won't hold up cars behind you and people don't get angry and honk because you've missed the green light when you're looking down at your phone pretty cool feature another interesting feature in the gauge cluster is that you can set it to show you which wheels are currently working and how much so when you're driving around it shows the front wheels are working and precisely how much work they're doing the question I have here of course is who cares this is a mid-sized family crossover I know the front wheels are working I don't really need to see that but it's there now other than those things the gauge cluster is pretty standard for a modern vehicle just a nice high resolution screen with a lot of information and decent configurability it's pretty good but while the gauge cluster screen is pretty average for SUVs like this the infotainment system is specifically really good to start on the home screen it has three different sort of areas of stuff right now it's showing a map the music and the weather but this is configurable you can have it show kind of whatever you want and three things is a lot better than some infotainment systems which will only show you two on their home screen I also like the fact that it's very responsive to the touch if you do want to change it or if you want to quickly zoom in on any of the items you have in your home screen but anyway if you want to go past the home screen just slide your finger over and then it shows all of your settings and your apps and you can click on any of them to make further adjustments one example of something you can configure with the infotainment system is something called the welcome sound which is a little song that plays every time you turn on or off your palisade to welcome you take a listen now next we move on to the second row of seats and when you first come back here it's especially noteworthy again because of how nice and luxurious it is once again take a look at the seats you have the typical leather but also this quilted part on the top half of the back and then on the door panel again you have this nice quilted stitched leather a very very nice look for a mid-sized family crossover another important item in the second row is that you have a lot of power back here which is obviously a big deal for a family SUV with iPads and all sorts of other devices in the back of the front center console you have a household style power outlet then you have a 12-volt like cigarette lighter style power outlet and then you have USBs on the back of each front seat so two different USBs all for a lot of power for charging different devices if you're in the second row now next up I want to talk about the third row seat in the palisade but before I do I have to cover just how insanely easy the third row is to access all you got to do open the door and push this button at the top of the second row seat it slides forward and tilts and then you're in the third but let's say that button is like a little too high for a child to reach if they're trying to climb into the third row well Hyundai thought of that there is a nother button at the bottom of the seat that performs the exact same function press that and again the seat tilts forward and slides and you can easily access the third row now once you push either of those buttons getting in to the third row is really simple even for me obviously it's mostly intended for kids but it's just not all that hard to get into by the way one other thing I like when you're trying to get into the third row is this sill plate on the doors that says palisade line line line line line line line line line line line anyway since I'm back here in the third row I can tell you that this isn't exactly an ideal spot for adults there's not a ton of room back here but it would be great for kids and adults in a pinch if it's necessary for a short trip it's just not exactly where I'd want to spend my time now other than that other interesting items in the third row you do have a USB port on either side so there are two back here for charging more devices and one other interesting item there's a switch back here that allows third row passengers to power adjust the seat back to their most desired comfortable position this is not something you often find in third rows but this car has it now fortunately it won't let you adjust it all the way down so it's flat instead you have a little range of seat comfort ability and next we move on to another interesting quirk of the palisade and that would be what I like to call the headlight situation alright take a look at a headlights here you go fairly standard right no not quite up here the headlights this is actually the turn signals you can see the turn signals are on that's where the turn signals are at the top in the normal headlight position so where are the headlights well it isn't this swirly the little thing through the middle that is the running light and actually I'm going to think that is a pretty cool design so you're thinking well okay that doesn't leave any more space than the upper bit for the headlights and indeed you're right the headlight is here where the fog light is in most other cars because this has LED headlights they can put it in a smaller area and so they've put the entire headlight into this the area down in sort of the lower bit of the bumper very unusual headlight placement and speaking of unusual lighting in this car you have the turn signal mirror light usually it's just a straight little white line and this thing they've stylized it into two kind of curved pieces that turn on when you turn on the turn signal not sure why they got so weird with the front lights but they did it next up moving around to the lighting in the back nothing particularly strange about these you have the turn signals down at the bottom the brake lights up top maybe the strangest thing is that the reverse lights are mounted down here in the bumper I'm seeing more and more cars do that not that weird probably the most unusual thing back here about the brake lights has nothing to it the light blue cells but this little sort of white silver panel that goes beyond the brake lights it has these lines in it like a piece of school notebook paper and I guess it's supposed to make them seem bigger than they are something I'm not really sure why it's there it ends up looking a little funky and next I'm moving into the cargo area of the palisade you can see there's nothing particularly noteworthy or unusual back here there's not too much space behind that third row if you want to carry a lot of people and a lot of stuff you're gonna have some problems but underneath the load floor in the third row there is additional lower load floor that's kind of protected by that cargo cover so there's that obviously if you actually want to get a lot of stuff in this car you're gonna have to drop the third row of seats which is fairly easy because there are buttons you can use on the side of the cargo area to lower the third row pretty simply you press the button it drops down you press the button the other direction and it pops right back up which is a feature you commonly see on a lot of luxury SUVs and not as commonly on mainstream brand SUVs and it's also worth noting there are buttons in the cargo area to lower the second row of seats but this isn't power operated instead it's just a mechanical release so once you lower the second row of seats if you want to raise them back up you actually have to walk around and pull them back up yourself and so that's a tour of the 2020 Hyundai palisade and now I'm gonna get it out on the road and drive it alright drive the palisade now a couple things I want to discuss that I didn't mention in the review just now what is the styling I like the look of the palisade but I do think it's a little bit more generic than I would want I prefer how the Telluride looks I think to tell you right as a sporty or you know it really does have that more aggressive look whether it is actually more aggressive you know there's not that many mechanical differences between the two but I like how the Telluride looks a little bit better powertrain wise for this car 290 horse and it does well it has a good performance good pickup it's not you know fast I wouldn't consider it to be like aggressive or exciting but certainly fine for the class Explorer Highlander pilot they're all right in that - 80 to 90 300 horsepower range so it's it's right where it kind of needs to be this car really does have a lot of impressive technology I mentioned a lot of those kind of unique features like quiet mode and driver talk it's cool stuff they've really kind of gone above and beyond just making a good family SUV and they're like what do people really need and so those USBs on the back of the seat that's a cool idea instead of having you know sticking at someplace else that's less reachable very easy to access third row probably be easiest in the business the turn signal cameras are really really good very little reason to do it shoulder check anymore except maybe for motorcycles but between the mirror and the the blinds of the turn signal cameras it's excellent you can see everything back there and they're so good and they come on right when you put on your signal it's just a brilliant piece of technology in terms of the driving experience generally this is surprisingly quiet I would say for a midsize SUV and the quietest thing about it is undoubtedly the engine the engine is just really really soft you barely hear it run when you're even at full acceleration you don't hear it in the cabin it's a really really impressively quiet engine you do hear road noise a little bit of wind noise more than you would in like a Range Rover an x7 real luxury SUVs but for the class it's just fantastic steering feel fairly mediocre you know soft steering soft handling soft ride that's you know what these cars are supposed to be about nobody buys these because they're looking for a performance or fun but only speaking it I'm impressed with this thing the technology is really good if they've really made it count where it's important that make it count which is to say it's it the technology is good the driving experience it's nice and comfortable the seats are easy to access they're comfortable there's a lot of USBs that sort of thing obviously it's not incredibly exciting obviously it's not really fun and thrilling it doesn't have to be it's just a midsize crossover and I'm fine with that but I think for a midsize crossover it's an excellent one and that's important for Hyundai because you know Hyundai was kind of the success story of the car industry from like 2009 to 2014 for like five years in there and then they they did not develop SUVs quickly enough and for a long time they've really only had kind of the Tucson they had the Veracruz which was a three row for a while it was not very competitive nobody bought it but finally they're back in the game this is a truly competitive excellent family crossover and so that's the 2020 Hyundai palisade limited now this thing isn't as nice as a Range Rover or a BMW x7 but it's not as far behind as you might think especially when you consider that this is half price compared to luxury SUVs like that this is a good family crossover and it's a good deal when you consider the features the technology the interior and it very much deserves a spot on your shopping list if you're looking for a new family sv and now it's time to give the palisade a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the palisade is fine nothing more and it gets a 5 out of 10 acceleration does 0-60 in about seven point four seconds which gives it a 1 out of 10 handily is average acceptable for a midsize SUV but not thrilling and it gets a 3 out of 10 fun factor is very low as this thing isn't about fun at all and it gets a 1 out of 10 cool factor is also at the bottom this is a mom or dad car not anything that will turn your head and it gets a 1 out of 10 even lower than its Kia Telluride sibling for a total weekend score of 11 out of 50 next up are the daily categories and features this is well equipped but it's still missing a few items like swiveling headlights and a full panoramic sunroof and it gets a 7 out of 10 comfort is excellent for the class and it gets a 7 out of 10 quality is very high higher than the Telluride they're not quite to true luxury SUV levels and it gets a 7 out of 10 finally value and this is well priced and it features Hyundai's excellent warranty it gets an 8 out of 10 for a total daily score of 39 out of 50 add it up and the Doug score is 50 out of 100 which places it here against other three row SUVs including some luxury models it ties the Telluride and these two SUVs are pretty close on paper with only minor differences whether you get a Telluride or a palisade though take comfort in knowing that you have one of the best family SUVs on the market Halas aid line line line line line line line line line line line

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,145,480

Rating: 4.8015375 out of 5

Keywords: hyundai palisade, palisade, hyundai palisade review, palisade review, 2020 hyundai palisade, 2020 hyundai palisade review, 2020 palisade review, 2020 palisade, new hyundai suv, hyundai suv review, hyundai review, doug demuro, doug de muro, demuro

Id: kpfAY3LqmXk

Length: 25min 16sec (1516 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/unitedfuck]

This is a mid sized SUV?

[u/2Fast2Boogooloo]

I am pretty surprised they didn’t release it as a Genesis since they screwed up that launch is badly not having any crossovers.

[u/Iudico13]

I would love if more SUV-manufacturers put their headlights so low. Visibility stays pretty much the same but it keeps them from blinding me through my rear view mirrow with the power of a thousand suns.

[u/durrtyurr]

Unlike the telluride, this actually looks like a premium vehicle. I'm not sure that time will be kind to the styling of the palisade, but at least it has style.

[u/DoTheEvolution]

Zero mention of the adaptive cruise control / lane keep?

Heard hyundai is suppose to be pretty damn good with them and after dougs recent video about ACC in general I expected it to be in focus more. Especially during the driving part.

[u/xtra_medium]

Damn didn’t you just shoot this yesterday?

[u/Furmentor]

We test drove this exact car. It was nice. Very nice. While a bit out of our price range, the turn signal cameras were cool, the interior was great, except for a the dash plastic under screen.

Ride was good, power was mediocre. Wife didn't like the push button transmission though. I don't mind the styling, but prefer the Telluride.

These things and the Telluride can't be kept in stock where I live. They are selling at or above MSRP. Hopefully I only have to wait a couple months to find a barely used one...

[u/Jimmy422]

I'm really surprised Doug didn't review a higher trim Telluride when he did his review of it. The fully loaded Telluride has the same blind spot camera system and active collision avoidance features that this fully loaded Palisade has, but Doug missed out on those because he reviewed an EX model.

Dunno if that would have affected the DougScore but 🤷🏻‍♂️

Either way, I hope either Genesis or Kia makes one of these platform SUVs with the Stinger's 3.3T engine in it. That would be awesome.

[u/jbmass]

As an Age of Empires II player, I'm expecting this car to cost 30 wood.