Congrats. I've been recommending the Sante Fe on this board for awhile. Glad someone finally listened.

And great color.

 

I like the new Santa Fe. I had one as a rental for a week and really truely enjoyed it. I drove it from Norfolk, VA to D.C. and it made for a good road trip. It was the 4 cylinder model but I liked it. Only two things I don't like about your car, I don't like the new Santa Fe tail lights, I like the solid red color ones. And the plastic wood trim, yuck.

 

A family member has one (2 years old?) and I enjoyed driving it around. The only thing that I really hated was the steering wheel....felt hollow or something.

 

Last update to this thread (at least for a while). I took these pictures today as the old one moves to a new owner as soon as tomorrow and I wanted pictures of old and new together. It also does a great job of demonstrating the size increase between the first and second generations.

 

How's the new car smell?

 

This is my favorite thing in the world. My TL still smelled new at 40k.

 

^Omg...same here. Smells so clean and refreshing. OP: you detail cars. What do you suggest for getting that new-car smell? That leather-in-a-bottle stuff?

 

congrats

 

Intoxicating. With Hyundai's better materials comes a better new car smell.

I've never actually had anybody ask about that before but personally I'm not a big fan of scents. The best way to hang on to the new car smell is not to introduce any others like food or cologne. At this point I won't even pick up food with this car let alone eat in it. I will get a drink but it has to be bottle that can easily and securely close up again.

 

^I hear you there about the food thing. I had to go pick up Chinese carry out tonight. I swear I'll be smelling it for days. I think I might give the leather in a bottle a shot though. My car is long past being new so might as well give it a shot. It claims to protect to the leather also.

 

I picked up a cheesesteak tonight and got it to go because I wasn't in the mood to hang around. In a flash of genius, I tucked the sandwich in with the jack and tool kit which has its own compartment under the cargo floor. With the compartment door securely latched, the sandwich stayed warm and the car doesn't smell like cheesesteak....it's a win-freaking-win baby!

 

Congrats!

How come you cross shopped it with the smaller/less powerful CR-V? Why not something like a Ford Edge, V6 Equinox or even a Pilot?

 

Thanks, man.

I was shopping more for price than by size and power and had price ceiling of about $30,000. The Edge starts at almost $28k, I won't support GM because of the bailouts (not trying to start a political war here, honest) and the Pilot was way out of my price range.

A CR-V EX-L minus navigation doesn't include Bluetooth and lists for $26,645. Had I wanted BT with the CR-V I would have had to spring for the navigation, which as I said earlier, I have no use for. The SF gets almost the same mileage and has 100 more horsepower and one more gear plus Bluetooth is standard even without navigation. At that point, the choice was easy. Plus, I have a great relationship with the management at the local Hyundai dealer and they know me so we got a great deal. MSRP for this particular SF was $29,680 and we paid $27,997 all in with tags, title, and license. Not too bad a deal for a car that simply isn't available due to high demand. There were no shell games, no dicking around. They came out, showed us the break-down and the final price. It's nice being able to buy a car without all the that normally comes with it.

 

Couldn't help but notice you mentioned you never had a car with a sunroof, didn't you have an RL before?

 

That's actually my dad's car. He bought it almost 4 years ago and I was looking for an RL forum when I found AcuraZine. I do post in the RL forum every now and again but mostly I haunt the general forums and Ramblings.

 

Okay, folks. I've been busy and have racked up a good 500 miles on the new car so I'm ready to give my impressions so far:

In terms of performance, the 3.5 liter, 276 horsepower V6 is almost over-kill and delivers more power than you'll likely ever need. It has so much that off-the-line starts with any sort of zeal will spin the front wheels. I wish I had thought a bit more before deciding on front-wheel drive because the biggest complaint I have about this car is the utterly catastrophic torque steer. I've driven ballsy, turbo-charged front wheel drive cars before but the torque steer this thing suffers from borders on blatantly dangerous. If you get ready to give it the beans, make sure you have both hands securely on the wheel or you'll wind up somewhere you don't want to be very quickly. Even with both hands on the wheel, full-throttle 'go' takes pretty much all your upper body strength to maintain some semblance of straight-line travel. It reminds me a lot of the 3G TL, actually.

The interior is very roomy and the seats are exceptionally comfortable. Taller drivers wanting a sunroof may also find themselves wanting more headroom. I'm 6' even and barely fit....there's about an inch to spare. Despite this the inside doesn't feel cramped at all, even with the dark leather interior. The new model sports almost 4" more shoulder room over the old model and it makes all the difference. Controls are easy to use and well-marked however many find the dash lighting too bright and intrusive, even on the dimmest setting.

Despite the gripes, I'm more than happy with my purchase.

 

I don't know why but that A/C Screen looks so cool to me lol.