2012 Hyundai Tucson
A compact crossover might be the best way to explain the 2012 Hyundai Tucson. While it holds tried and true with a nice upper class feel, and incredibly low price and some nice features. It does fall short in its primary job, driving. Many consider the Tucson to be a bore to drive, and they might not be far off.
Twins
For the 2012 Hyundai Tucson both models (GL & GLS PZEV) offer the much of the same features. The GL has a small 2.0L 4-cyl engine and the GLS PZEV offers a slight upgrade with a 2.4L 4-cyl engine. The oddity here is that the smaller of the two comes with a Manual transmission and the other larger one an Automatic. Other than a few bells and whistles both are pretty much the same. Now don’t get us wrong, there are some nice upgrades with the 2012 Hyundai Tucson, but still it falls short from what was expected.
Under the hood
The Active Eco system changes the engine and transmission response, which is an interesting idea, if it worked correctly. Designed to help with fuel economy it seemed to do nothing more than make the engine feel like it was lagging a bit on pickup. Yes it is not a sports car, but it would be nice not to be beeped at when starting off from a red light. 165 horsepower can be found in the 2.0L and 176 found in the slightly bigger 2.4L. On paper really these seem fine for the size of the mini SUV, but they ended up being grossly under powered.
Number Crunching
23 mpg in town 26 mpg on the highway, not bad but for something so small you would think that you would get a little bit better mileage. That could be use being picky, but when it takes 9.6 seconds to hit 60, it’s not like your burning through gas. 18 inch alloy wheels, fog lamps, dual climate control, touchscreen navigation system, these are sound great. All work as expected, but many of those are massive upgrades that take your from 19k for the base model all the way up to 25k. Once again, this would not be an issue, other than the fact that the upgrades fall short on the added cost of the Limited PZEV. In a poor economy the last thing we want to do is feel ripped off, and when 1000 in upgrades cost 6 thousand to have, something seems off. With luck they are investing that extra money into the engine and rethinking it.
It’s not that we did not like the 2012 Hyundai Tucson. The problem is in the issues with what you’re paying for. It looks sharp, but drives like you’re pushing a rock up a hill. It’s smaller than most and you end up feeling that squeeze for space once you sit in side. There are better options out there other then the Tucson. The 2012 Hyundai Tucson is a prime example of “you get what you pay for”
