2000 km with my Tucson: ADAS, driver assistance & other observations

Upgraded from a Duster and although the Tucson rides well, the Renault SUV handled rough patches better.

BHPian amitdan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So folks finally getting down to writing an update post the vehicle delivery. I have had my Diesel Signature 2WD in Amazon Grey for over a couple of months now and have done over 2K kms. My driving has been around 75% city and 25% highway. A bunch of things I will be writing about, are talked about in some previous posts as well but would be good to call them out anyways.

Ownership Summary:

I am absolutely happy with the vehicle. Solid build, is well equipped and is great to drive.

Some observations.

• The new Tucson is a looker. People turn around and look and especially kids who are all enamoured by its DRLs.
• I myself have been impressed by its entry when the valet drives it into the hotel lobby. Interestingly, as it is not a really well-known popular model, there is inherent curiosity about what car it might be.
• I had test-driven petrol a few times and had actually found it adequate for my use. Diesel definitely drives a bit heavier as compared to petrol. It's absolutely not an issue, and you would not know unless you have driven both of them a bit.
• The car has been returning a mileage of around 13.5 km/l with some mixed-use (75% city and a lot of idling time)
• Auto hold is a super fantastic feature.
• 360-degree views are great, and cameras have good resolution
• Remote start function is pretty useful.
• Electronically operated tailgate is really useful, and I don't know how will ever go back to the manual closing boots. My wife really likes the feature.
• Rain sensing wipers - People have talked about it being a hit or a miss. I have felt the same, but I have seen the feature where the speed of the wiper blades is responsive based on the speed of the car - so if the car is faster the start and speed of the wipers would be faster. The unpredictability comes at slower speeds. Will need to observe it a few more times
• The sound system is ok. AM is not an audiophile but was initially not super impressed with the output. Played around for a bit and moved the epicentre of the sound (don't know the correct term) from somewhere in the front row to the passenger row and that dramatically improved the in-car audio experience.
• My previous car was a Renault Duster and I am both surprised and slightly sad to say that although the Tucson rides really well, I believe the Duster handled rough patches with slightly more refinement.
• Voice commands work well, and they are just not limited to car functions. I can ask the car for the temperature in London, the World cup semifinal scores and similar stuff, and it always got back with the information.
• I am planning a road trip and have been comparing the boot capacity of the Tucson to my Duster and I think the boot may not be as generous in space as it looks. it's by no means small, but I need to see what I can stuff in there during my road trip before I make my final call.
• I have been driving in either smart or ECO mode. Not much of a difference honestly. The Eco is definitely slightly slow to pull, but again the midrange and overall performance is adequate
• I drove in the sport mode on the highway, and the car holds the revs much higher than the other modes. The engine sounds just too busy...that is too unnecessary in this mode. the normal mode does not feel you wanting for power anyways.

Driver Assistance

• Much has been written about it by other users. I will share my personal experiences:
• I am not a spirited driver and I think that helps in minimising any surprises the ADAS might throw in.
• Simply keeping your foot off the accelerator or braking slightly more often than usual definitely seems to help reduce the warnings.
• The warnings still come during regular driving, but they have been warning and not any emergency braking. With all the feedback in the forum, I am very conscious about that happening and try and be extra cautious wherever I can.
• The warnings seem to have been tuned to be a bit safer/cautious, than our regular daily driving styles.
• Emergency braking has kicked in for me only at crawl/parking speeds - once while I was negotiating to park and the car thought there is not enough space, and then once when I was reversing, and it detected an oncoming vehicle. Both times, the braking was helpful - you do get slightly surprised though. I am sure that every time the car tries to take control, you will continue to be a little surprised/shaken as the car pre-empts (or at least tries to) something which the driver can't.
• On a traffic signal or stop-and-go traffic, if the car ahead of you has started to move, and you have not, the car prompts you to move as well - a useful feature
• Using maps and other sensors the central console warns me of schools, speed bumps and road speed limits.

ADAS on Highways

• Every other week I do a 60 KM run on a very well-laid-out stretch of highway (30km each way) and have been using adaptive cruise control regularly
• With adaptive cruise control (ACC) the car will follow the lane and maintain distance from the vehicles in the front. It takes some getting used to honestly.
• Both the auto braking and the auto acceleration used for ACC are very aggressive and this also takes some getting used to. While driving you do get a sense of when the car might go into braking and look behind to see how close the other cars behind you are.
• I have done a bunch of these round trips and have always used the ACC throughout the highway journey, even though before the start of the trip, I think about driving without assistance - just to enjoy the driving. You can get used to it during highway driving
• You will have to find the sweet spot of how much attention you need to pay to every aspect of the drive vs letting the ACC do most of the stuff.
• ADAS/ACC does not seem to recognise traffic cones on highway lanes - actually honestly, I myself have not tried it as the car will come to a sudden halt on the highway (It is not autopilot enabled... it's just ACC). This is one place where I take manual control and then move back to ACC after crossing the lane diversion.
• At high speeds, if a car cuts in front of you (comes into your lane aggressively) and continues its speed I expected the ADAS to do some sort of speed correction, but it does not. This leads to some apprehension as the car in front is now closer to you than your prescribed distance and in other cases, your car would have slowed down. I can understand the logic and even agree with it at a design level, but it's slightly different from the otherwise expected behaviour of the car's ACC
• Lane change during ACC can be enabled by a lane change blinker - this works well on straighter stretches with lesser traffic and is slightly unpredictable in other cases.

Unexpected Issue/Minor Electronic malfunction

So this was one thing which I was really surprised with. All audio/sound/speaker systems in the car just stopped working while on a drive one day. The radio was on but no sound output. The BT-connected Spotify playlist was playing, but no sound output. The map navigation was working, but no sound output. I reset the media setup and tried a bunch of things, but nothing seemed to work, I took the car to the Hyundai SS where they identified an inconsistent behaviour/current in an audio unit. It was not a fuse. It was a minor fix, which made the unit work again. To be on the safe side they suggested a free replacement of the part. The service centre staff was super helpful and was also knowledgeable about the car. The manner in which my issue was handled gives me some confidence in the service centre staff and their capabilities. The part would take 3-4 weeks to come from Korea (this would be something which I knew before committing to this vehicle).

So that's all I could remember for now. I think it is a great purchase for anyone who is sitting on the fence and also for folks waiting for their deliveries. Happy driving folks.

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