Hyundai Santa Fe review - Reliability & safety

It’s too early to get an idea of Hyundai Santa Fe reliability data, but as a wider brand, Hyundai performed averagely in the 2023 and 2024 Driver Power customer satisfaction surveys, coming in 17th place out of 32 carmakers. Reliability is also middling for the company, with 22.8% of owners reporting an issue with their Hyundai in the first year.

How safe is the Hyundai Santa Fe?

The Hyundai Santa Fe was crash-tested by Euro NCAP in December 2024 and received a disappointing four-star rating. While scores were good in the adult occupant and child occupant protection categories, it was let down by less impressive scores for vulnerable road user protection and its safety assist tech. While it comes with lots of safety tech as standard, the Santa Fe’s autonomous braking function unfortunately failed to stop quickly enough when approaching a cyclist, pedestrian and motorcyclist that were placed ahead of it in testing.

A comprehensive suite of safety and driver assistance tech is standard on the new Santa Fe, including Lane Follow Assist, which helps the car stay in the middle of its lane on the motorway. 

It’s part of the brand’s Highway Driving Assist 2.0, which uses sensors and GPS data to deliver Level 2 autonomous driving capability which allows the car to automatically brake, accelerate and overtake on the motorway when activated.

What is the warranty on the Hyundai Santa Fe?

Hyundai offers a famously generous five-year warranty with no mileage limit. That impressive coverage should be enough to give you peace of mind, although many manufacturers are starting to catch up. Kia has long offered a seven-year warranty, although this is capped at 100,000 miles, and Toyota offers a warranty for up to 10 years or 100,000 miles so long as you get your car serviced by a main dealer every year.