Hyundai santa fe or Freelander

[squanky]

Furhet to my mini towbar crisis we are considering changing the car to suit our van. has anyone towed with a Hyundai Santa Fe? I have seen lots of good feedback on the Freelander, although it seems a little hit and miss at times. Also we are unsure if a switch to an automatic may be better - getting old, dodgy knees....

Many thanks

[Langy01]

I have a Santa Fe (04 plate). This is the petrol 2.4 and seems to tow my Caravan fine. Yes in 5th you do have to drop down at times with some small hills, probably main reason would be oncoming wind.

The economy isn;t great but this is one of the cheapest 4x4's out there and they are very reliable.

When I looked in to the 4x4 market I think I checked out the What Car website where you can review all of the 4x4's on one of their links. For me it was a choice between the Santa Fe (which I chose), RAV4 (too small for a family), XTrail (again too smal in the back for a family car) or the CRV (heard too many issues that this was not a great tower).

The website reviews gave very little problems with the Santa Fe which was why I chose one.

Don't forget you will probably fall in to the high road tax bracket aswell.

Not sure what the Diesels are like but you will pay a lot more for those.

Paul

[roboughton]

I think i would choose the Freelander, although do some research as some modles were quite unreliable so i am told. I know little about the Sante Fe but my brother seems to like Hundai. I would go for a bigger 4x4 personally to fit everything in, since you are going for the smaller of the 4x4s have you considered the Jeep Patriot i think the CRD won a Green 4x4 award last year.

[hidehigo]

[snowy]

Hi mate, i tow a 1200kg ABI with a 2005 Hyundai Tucson 2.0 diesel with auto gearbox. This is the smaller bodied version of the Santa Fe with the same engines and gearboxes and has a max towing weight of 1600kg.The Santa Fe will tow 2000kg. It tows really well and has been very reliable needing only a power steering pump in the last 5 years I've owned it. Getting around 36 mpg average when not towing and anything between 25 to 30mpg with the van on, dependant on wind, weather and terrain The only downside is the road tax at £280 per year - would recommend and you will get 3 or 4 years newer model than a Land Rover for the same money, cheers Snowy.

[topdog14]

We have a 2004 Santa fe with which we tow our coachman VIP. It has a 2 litre diesel engine and the caravan is around 1400-1500kg.We find that the Santa fe pulls the caravan well,though it does get a bit slow on hills.perhaps a bigger engine or lighter caravan is needed.Other than that we have had the car five years and find the Santa fe a solid reliable car.I would have no hesitation in buying another one.


Topdog14.

[robwat]

We use a Freelander 2 HSE auto which tows our Swift 530 very well. The HSE SE4 has more HP that the standard and comes in abou t195. The Swift is a heavy van at 1638kg but the Freelander manages no problem.

[nancy_vinci8]

Any SUV with high torque and above 2000 cc will work in this case.