Better Buy: Toyota Rav4 or Hyundai Santa Fe

Questions: I'm a retired 67-year-old widow who is torn between a new RAV 4 (V-6) and a New Hyundai Santa Fe.(V-6)

My bottom-line requirements are AWD, AC, enough power to enter and exit I-95 without nail-biting , and safety since my 6-year-old grandson sometimes travels in my car.

I was going to get a RAV 4 but Hyundai has some terrific incentives on the Santa Fe until September 30, 2009 and my local mechanics are inclined to think the Santa Fe is better value.

I've read your remarks on both vehicles at Iguida.com.

So which one would you suggest for my purposes?

Answer: Either of your choices are good ones. Basically, the Santa Fe is slightly more conservative in styling and road manners than the RAV4. It’s a bit less mechanically sophisticated, but equals or beats the RAV4 for, comfort, quality of interior materials, and for features-per-dollar.

By less mechanically sophisticated, I mean that the Hyundai engines are not quite as smooth as the Toyota engines. Overall, the Santa Fe won’t accelerate as quickly as the 269-horsepower V-6 RAV4, though with the larger of the two V-6s – the 242-horsepower 3.3 liter – the Hyundai won’t feel underpowered. It might feel a bit labored with the 185-horsepower 2.7-liter V-6.

Note that the V-6 RAV4 is significantly more fuel efficient than the Santa Fe. With all-wheel drive (when you say “4-wheel drive,” what you really mean with these types of vehicles is “all-wheel drive”) the Toyota rates 21/27 mpg (city/highway). With AWD, the 2.7 V-6 Santa Fe rates 17/23 mpg and the 3.3 17/24.

The Santa Fe will ride a bit softer than the RAV4, and tends to have less road and wind noise. On the other hand, the RAV4 will handle with more agility than the Santa Fe, partly because of a better suspension design and partly because the RAV4 is slightly smaller and lighter.

As for safety, the Santa Fe scores a hair better in one category of the government’s 5-star crash tests (safecar.gov) than the RAV4. It has slightly better ratings for front-passenger protection in a frontal collision. However, the government has not yet tested the Santa Fe for rear-passenger protection in side collisions, a category in which the RAV4 scores a good rating of 4 out of 5 stars. Both score 4 of 5 stars for rollover resistance, which is a good score and even with most other SUVs.

For initial quality in the first 90 days of ownership, it may surprise you to learn that the Hyundai brand actually rates slightly higher than Toyota in owner-satisfaction surveys conducted by industry-standard J.D. Power and Assoc. Some of this is due to lower expectations on the part of Hyundai buyers, I suspect. Toyota buyers have learned to expect perfection and tend to be very critical, citing defects owners of some other brands would not notice or consider serious enough to report.

For dependability, the Toyota brand is the gold standard, getting J.D. Power’s highest marks for owner satisfaction after 3 years of ownership. The Hyundai brand gets average marks in this category.

As for satisfaction among Santa Fe and RAV4 owners, these vehicles both get “average” ratings for overall initial quality. For dependability after 3 years, RAV4 owners rate their vehicle higher than Santa Fe owners, but Hyundai has been improving on this count and going forward, J.D. Power projects both vehicles will have slightly higher than average reliability. Recognizing it needs to reassure shoppers new to the idea of purchasing a vehicle from a South Korean manufacturer, Hyundai has one of the best warranties in the business: 5-year/60,000-mile bumper-to-bumper and 10/100,000 powertrain. Toyota doesn't need to use warranty as a sales tool, and its 3/36,000 bumper-to-bumper and 5/60,000 powertrain coverage is par for the industry.

Note that the current RAV4 generation was introduced for model year 2006. It got a minor facelift and a new 4-cyl engine for 2009, doesn’t change for model-year 2010, and will be all-new for model-year 2012. The current Santa Fe design is one year newer, and it gets revamped for model-year 2010, though the refreshed version won’t go on sale until Spring 2010. (It gets some important updates, notably replacing its 2.7-liter V-6 engine with a new four-cylinder engine, and supplanting its 3.3-liter V-6 with a new 3.5-liter V-6. I don’t yet have horsepower figures for the 2010 engines, but they’re sure to be more powerful and probably more fuel-efficient than the current Santa Fe engines.)

All things considered, the RAV4 edges out the current Santa Fe in my opinion, though if you get a great deal on a model-year 2009 3.3-liter Santa Fe, you probably won’t be disappointed. The 2010 Santa Fe looks to be greatly improved, but it’s a long wait. Finally, don’t buy either of these without first testing the Subaru Forester. It’s more carlike than either the RAV4 or Santa Fe, and I’ll bet you’ll come away with a new perspective that’ll make a decision even tougher.

Regards,
Chuck Giametta
Managing Editor, Iguida.com