From a Hyundai hatch to SUV: The story of my i20 upgrade to a Tucson

I did see the Kodiaq launch before I purchased the Tucson, but the heart was set on the Tucson.

BHPian Prof.Otter recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Hi all.

This is my first post on this forum and I thought of making it about our recent purchase of the Hyundai Tucson.

For context, we are a family of five (including wife, daughter and my parents who occasionally come and stay for a few months). I used to drive the Hyundai i20 Asta(O) for the last four years. We are not biased towards any brand, but generally prefer a hassle-free experience over outright driving feel. Having said that, I (designated driver) do crave and love nice driving cars; and more importantly, I value well-rounded cars that may not be the best at one thing; but would be a perfect engineering optimization that would make it good in multiple areas.

How it started:

Well, it started with us visiting my brother-in-law in Mumbai and roaming around in his Jeep Compass for the 3 days we were there.

Although my family had been perfectly happy with our i20, I wasn’t completely satisfied. There was an itch to get a car that feels better to drive; without compromising on the comfort and needs of the family. During our Mumbai trip, the Compass reminded me that better feeling alternatives do exist and maybe I should not settle for the i20.

My wife and I are both generally very anxious people with a strong head that always wins against our weak hearts. This time, however, I mustered the courage to entertain the possibility of being slightly impractical and impulsive. I toyed with the idea of getting a Compass for ourselves immediately on returning home and started looking up details and reviews online. On our way back, I pitched this idea to my wife. I was expecting a practical response and careful evaluation of pros and cons (which would have inevitably led to the decision that the i20 was all the car we needed); but instead, after a quick think, she chimed in and agreed with me!

Of course, we could not throw all practicality out of the window and the decision was not nearly as impulsive as driving to showroom right from the airport; but we did end up discussing about various car options that would be a good upgrade for us. Note that when I say “upgrade” I do not necessarily mean more money, more power, more seats or more features. Upgrade for us meant something that would feel better to drive and will satisfy all of the needs of my family (carries five comfortably, has ISOFIX mounts, 6+ airbags, good space at the back, seats that would not cause aches and pains, decent boot space, stable highway ride, not feeling claustrophobic in the car etc). This meant our search list went all the way from fun-to-drive budget hatchbacks to large crossovers and SUVs across all possible brands.

The Process:

Here I must admit that I was aware of the Hyundai Tucson for quite some time having spent some years living in America, and this name kept popping up in my head frequently. Since I was looking at all options under 50-60 Lakhs, the list was huge and test-driving all of them would be a mammoth task. Further, given that I am generally anxious and not very good with people, especially pushy salespersons, this was daunting. Also, we live in a small town and had to travel 2 hours (one way) to the nearest city to access some of the showrooms. So, the first thing I did was eliminate: find faults and eliminate. I did not make judgments about subjective aspects of the car at this point (so no assumptions about comfort or drive feel), but only focused on quantitative metrics. I was able to whittle the list down to a few Toyotas; the Tucson; Jeep Compass and Meridian and Skoda Kodiaq.

The new version of Kodiaq was about to be launched, so planned on waiting to see that. In the meantime, we decided to test drive the others. The first one was Tucson, as the Hyundai showroom was closest to our home. I called up SA who I worked with for the i20 purchase ( a genuinely nice and caring person) and told him that I wanted to look at some cars. Took an appointment form him, went to the showroom, and without any mention of the car I was interested in, asked him to suggest options for an upgrade. There was some meandering discussion about Creta n-line, i20 n-line, Alcazar etc. but the guy did not mention Tucson even once.

After listening to him ramble on for 15-20 minutes, I meekly asked “What about the Tucson?” and the guy was visibly taken aback. After he had gained his composure back, he quickly apologized saying that selling a Tucson for them is a huge event and this small town dealership considers even a single sale in a year to be a big deal. He also added that there are possibly only about 3-4 Tucsons in our region. Anyway, once he got to know about my interest in the car, he immediately arranged for a TD (my wife asked for it; I had just planned on looking at the car) and, interestingly enough, told me to drive as long as I wanted to get a feel for the car.

The Decision:

The first TD of the Tucson (Diesel) was a very anxious moment for me, but by the time I was out of the dealership compound, I was already grinning ear-to-ear! And so was wifey !!! And that says a lot.

The SA tried to talk us through some of the features, but once he figured out that we possibly knew more than him about the car, he just shut up and let us drive. The decision did not take long after that. We did test all possible on-road manners. On the return trip asked the SA to drive and I sat in the rear seat to check things with wifey and we decided…we were getting this.

Still, we are head-over-heart people, remember. So told the SA that we need time to think, thanked him and left. The most interesting thing was that I was so smitten with this car that I did not even go for a TD of the other shortlisted vehicles. Maybe that was stupid, but this is the most impractical impulsive thing I have done in a long time and I stand by it. The other thing was that all the other vehicles we had shortlisted had some niggles/compromises that other people had reported online like Jeep reliability/after-sales, Innova wait times etc. Interestingly enough, even after scouring the internet, I was hard-pressed to find any reported faults with the Tucson. The most serious allegations were that it is overpriced (not an issue for us) and that the Hyundai badge doesn’t have snob value (again, we do not care).

Still, I waited for the new Kodiaq release; and took my parents and our daughter (3 year old) to the Hyundai showroom again for another TD. Again, it was an instant hit with my parents and the final clincher was my daughter going gaga over the car. She has not been the most interested in road-trips or cars, but she loved every minute of being in the Tucson… and that was it for me. Decision made!

(I did see the Kodiaq launch before I purchased the Tucson, but the heart was set on the Tucson.)

Delivery:

Owning the car was simple and easy. We finalised on the Signature 2WD Diesel variant and informed the SA. He did all the heavy lifting. We exchanged the i20 and got a reasonable exchange value discount. The SA talked to the management and got us further discounts on his own (even though we had not asked for it) and overall, we ended up paying slightly lower than we had expected! Part payments were completed and our car arrived at the dealers almost within a week of booking it. Did a thorough PDI based on the exhaustive list on teambhp (I took a 5 page printed checklist and ran around ticking things off in the afternoon sun which earned me a lot of curious looks ); and completed the rest of the payment. Took delivery on 4th May. We had instructed the SA not to put any ribbon/sticker/garland on the car and asked for no cakes and minimal ceremonial engagements; and they obliged.

Ownership:

I have loved every bit of owning this car so far. It did take some time getting used to a high(-er) driving position compared to the low i20, but it has been fun. Let me share the three most interesting experiences that have happened with/around this car.

The first involves my daughter. During the i20 phase, she wasn’t actively against but was also not very keen on going for drives, especially because she did not like sitting in the car seat (or so we thought). That flipped! Now, she wants to go in the car all the time, suddenly has a newfound love for her car-seat, and is super happy being in the car for hours. On top of that, she loves the acceleration this engine can produce. In her mind, the car becomes an “aeroplane” when accelerated hard in sports mode because she has felt that sort of rush during flight take-offs. She loves it so much that she specifically asks me to “make it an aeroplane” which means find an empty straight road and accelerate (within speed limits of course).

The second involves some of my colleagues. We naturally spoke about the new car and on revealing the price, the inevitable comment is “You could have bought a Fortuner for that sort of money”. On hearing this, I politely ask if they have been in a Fortuner before, which most have. Then I take them for a spin in the Tucson (we have access to a relatively large-ish work-campus with good roads). From the moment they enter the car, the Fortuner comparison stutters and by the time we are back, they are sold on the Tucson! All of this without speaking a single word in praise of the Tucson or against the Fortuner.
(Disclaimer: I have nothing against the Fortuner. It is a good car with a lot of value but most of my colleagues were stuck on the snob value of it rather than what its pros-cons are, and were mostly unaware of the existence of Tucson which might suit the common man better).

The third is the behaviour of our driver. This is a grown man in his forties who has been driving various commercial and private vehicles across all parts of India since of legal age. On hearing about this car from us, this guy was initially shocked that such a car exists. He then possibly went through all youtube/online reviews of the Tucson and told us all about it the next day. He went with me for the PDI and seemed way more excited than my family members. Finally, since getting the car home, he has been going gaga over it. Recently, he came into my office just to tell me what a great car it is and essentially to share his child-like excitement about the vehicle.
So, overall, it has been fun so far; and I am happy that this car has brought a little bit of joy and fun a few people's lives.

We are waiting to go on longer drives and will report back to the community with further updates.

Thank you for reading.

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