Hyundai Tucson 2019 off-road review: Elite 2WD

It's a smart-looking unit but – sorry, Tucson designers! – it looks only a step or two removed from what has become a distinctively generic SUV kind of appearance. This Tucson does benefit immensely, however, from its cool blue exterior, scalloped sides and intriguingly patterned alloy wheels.

Hyundai touts the Tucson's "cascading grille" and "flowing surfaces" and "sharp lines", but really there's no need to – nowadays unless a vehicle is truly grotesque, then it'll find favour with more than a few new-car buyers. The Tucson is far from grotesque.

The intriguingly patterned alloy wheels add to its charm.

The interior has a real premium look and feel about it, with plenty of leather, stitching and soft-touch surfaces around. Sections of hard plastic here and there threaten to spoil the plush atmosphere, but they're not terrible and are well suited to copping dirt and scuffs during your outdoors adventure lifestyle if that's what you're planning for this Tucson.

Driver and passengers aren't left wanting for room inside either, as there's plenty of wriggle room for head, shoulders and legs as long as no one's an Aussie Rules or basketball player.

In practical terms, the cabin is a well-designed and -appointed space with stacks of storage options.

The tablet-style touchscreen is a nice functional feature as it's clear and bright and easy to operate, even when bumping around the countryside.

In practical terms, the cabin is a well-designed and -appointed space with stacks of storage options: glovebox, receptacle for life's stuff and two cupholders (in between driver and front passenger), two cupholders (in a drop-down centre arm-rest in the second row), and bottle holders in all doors. There are USB points up front and in the back row.

The Tucson has tough plastic-backed front seats which means your second-row kids – and their tendency to kick and scrape the backs of the seats in front of them with their grotty boots – won't ruin your bush adventures with their filthy habits. The cheeky little buggers also get two ISOFIX child-seat mounts, three top-tether points and air vents as well.

The Tucson has tough plastic-backed front seats which means your second-row kids won’t ruin your bush adventures with their filthy habits.

Boot space is listed as 488 litres and easily coped with our day-trip-style load of two camp chairs, picnic blanket, day pack and assorted bits and pieces.

The second row folds flat to open up a claimed 1478 litres of space, but we never had to bother.

Driving this Tucson is mostly an okay, albeit rather sedate, affair. Sure, it looks good and copes with a family and their day-to-day school-and-sport demands, but the Tucson, with this 2.0-litre petrol engine, feels underpowered and is never in any great hurry to go anywhere.

There's no real urge to the engine, even under enthusiastic prompting, it's generally sluggish to respond and even the pedals feel spongy. Worse still, when you do give it a bit of right boot, it's on the wrong side of noisy.

The auto tends to scramble for the correct gear ratio, especially on long gradual hills.

The tablet-style touchscreen is a nice functional feature as it’s clear and bright and easy to operate, even when bumping around the countryside.

It's awkwardly slow in Comfort or Eco driving mode – no surprise there, I know – but it does all tighten up and become much more of an involved drive when you select Sport. The Tucson becomes a more dynamic unit with greater throttle response, pedal feel and all-round responsiveness. It is, however, preferable to cycle through the transmission in manual-shift mode for better drivability.

It tends to bump and skip a little over irregular bitumen – road-going, low-profile tyres don't help – but its suspension – Macpherson strut at the front, multi-link at the back – has been supposedly tuned for Aussie conditions and it does seem to cope better than expected with harsher, chopped-up sections.

Fuel consumption for the 2.0-litre auto FWD is listed as 7.9L/100km. Our on-test figure was 12.8L/100km after lots of low-speed driving and highway hill climbs.

It has a 62-litre fuel tank.

It has a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, and life-time capped price servicing – that's 14 years for the 2.0-litre petrol engine.

Servicing is scheduled for every 12 months/15,000km at an average cost of $301 per visit with a total cost, over five years, of $1505.