2018 Hyundai Tucson vs Kia Sportage

What's the difference?

The Tucson has given Hyundai its next step forward, especially when it comes to design. It truly is one of the nicest looking rigs on the road today. It doesn't overplay itself, but yet it also has a boldness and a confidence that makes it look good in any driveway.

It’s a shame, though, that the Active X – as well as most models in the Tucson line-up – miss out on important safety aids like AEB, lane keeping and blind spot warning systems.

Combined with sensible practical touches, clever speccing to get it to a good price-point and a low-key yet fuss-free drive train, though, the Tucson Active X is one of the highlights of the Tucson range.

Does the Hyundai Tucson tick your adventure boxes? Tell us what you think in the comments.

The Sportage is a clear example of why people are picking SUVs over hatchbacks. 

The equipment levels and the notable bump in practicality are real boosts to the appeal and, although the Sportage SLi is a tad pricey compared to some competitors, it nails the look and feel most couples or small families are looking for.

While the SLi is our pick of the range, keep in mind there are strong rivals in this crowded price bracket that can offer all-wheel drive, a more comprehensive safety suite or are slightly more practical. So your SUV choice will largely fall to which features are more important to you.

In this reviewer’s eyes, at, least, the Tucson is one of the most handsome cars currently on the road in any category.

It's a sign that Hyundai's design language has really matured under its European influences, and the Tucson has the rare honour of appealing across both genders and throughout the age spectrum. It's muscular yet still slender, handsome without being too macho, and very well balanced despite it being a relatively simple shape.

The interior is more workman-like than others in the category with evidence of hard plastics in plain view, while soft-touch materials are found under elbows and in other areas where body extremities can reach.

The relatively sombre grey black interior theme is cleverly offset by the subtle use of satin silver highlights, while the pale roof does belie its price point a little.

If you stare for too long into the Sportage’s insectoid face, you might be forgiven for seeing a touch of Porsche influence. It’s those light clusters that ride on top of the bonnet rather than integrating into the front, and the rear LED light housing that runs horizontally across the back of the boot.

Bold design choices, but they really help to give the Sportage its own personality. It looks nothing like other SUVs, whether you compare it to the delicate lines of the CX-5 or the wacky angles of the CR-V.

The giant alloys are more attractive than the ones available on the previous-generation Sportage, but the chrome bar that integrates into the fog light housings does nothing for the whole bug-like look. 

I pointed it out to a friend who agreed they look like little mandibles with which the Sportage feeds… creepy, but less boring when compared to the pre-facelift model.

Inside is where the SLi starts to set itself apart from the lower grades. The powered leather seats are nice and comfortable and offer an ergonomic seating position that’s not too high up.

Smart little design bits like the asymmetrical centre console that increases knee space for the driver have been carried over from the last Sportage, as well as soft-touch surfaces in tactical positions.

On the negative side, having an 8.0-inch screen embedded in the top of the dash is starting to look a bit dated, and the abundance of similarly-coloured plastics makes it all a little boring to look at.

Another thing I noticed about the Sportage was the solid build quality. All the doors including the boot had a hefty amount of weight and a thick thudding sound when closed. Remember when that was just a European car trope?

The Tucson Active X is a great family rig with plenty of clever storage touches and useful items to get you through the day.

A deep phone and wallet recess in the centre console is designed to hold inductive charges in higher models, but works perfectly well as a secure phone holder. Cupholders of different sizes reside in the centre console, although a manual handbrake does take up more room than an electronic equivalent. Bottles up to about one litre in size can be stashed in all four doors, and those door pockets are divided to stop items sliding around. The centre console bin is tall but narrow, while rear seaters also have their own pair of cup holders in a pull-down centre arm rest.

No chargers or vents as mentioned are supplied for that second row, but there are two ISOFIX baby seat mounts.

Cargo room is good at 488 litres, even with the full-size spare that hides underneath the boot floor.

The rear seats, too, can be locked vertically to create a squared-off area for stacking boxes against it; it's essentially like a cargo barrier if you haven't got backseat passengers. Of course, each passenger can then recline the seat back to a favourite position, which is a nice touch.  There's plenty of head room and toe room back there, even for our tall teenage passengers.

Once the seats are flipped, there is 1478 litres of cargo space to drag along all of the accoutrements that a family collects over a weekend.

Kia shares much of the same philosophy with sister brand, Hyundai, when it comes to cabin storage. It’s smart, and there’s plenty of it.

The nicely-sized centre console has two big cupholders to the side, a deep centre box and a large stowage area underneath the air conditioning controls. Much like Hyundai’s range, the storage available in the doors is purpose built for large bottles (even 1.25 litre vessels aren't out of the question). 

In the back seat, the Sportage continues to shine with ample leg and headroom (an SUV selling point over a hatchback) as well as rear air conditioning vents, and two power outlets. Extra rear-seat luxuries include neat little cargo nets on the back of both front seats, as well as a drop-down armrest with two more cupholders.

Room is such that the middle seat would even be decent for an adult.

Boot space with the seats up is 466 litres. So yes, it’s bigger than a hatchback, most of which top out at around 395 litres. It’s also bigger than the CX-5’s 442L capacity, but is dwarfed by the Honda CR-V with its 522 litre capacity.

On our trip the boot managed to swallow a four-man tent, sufficient supplies for at least two nights of camping, as well as some chairs and recreational items. It was a snug fit. 

This is partially due to the high boot floor which is there to accommodate a full-size alloy spare. This is standard across the whole Sportage range, and allowed for peace of mind when driving those unsealed roads… 

One of the big hooks of today’s SUVs is the often-ridiculous equipment levels they come with. The Sportage is no stranger to this. Since its recent 2018 facelift, it has received even more standard equipment than it had before (and a bump in price).

Standard features on the SLi now include an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Bluetooth connectivity, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well as built in sat-nav, JBL eight-speaker audio system, dimming rear view mirror, reversing sensors, reversing camera, massive 18-inch alloys, LED DRLs and rear lights as well as a slew of aesthetic touches over the Si and Si Premium that sit below it.

Total cost for all that is $36,790 before on-roads, but our car is pushed to $37,310 due to the $520 premium ‘Steel Grey’ paint (only ‘Clear White’ is a free colour).

That cost pitches it against the Mazda CX-5 Maxx Sport ($36,990), the Honda CR-V VTi-S ($35,490) and the Toyota RAV4 GXL ($38,490). The worst part? At this price point all of those competitors are all-wheel drive (AWD) compared to the Sportage’s front-wheel drive (FWD). To get AWD on the Sportage SLi you’ll need to spend $5400 and switch to diesel.

On the upside, the SLi has power-adjustable leather seats as standard which is part of an option pack on the RAV4 GXL, and unavailable on the CX-5 Maxx Sport.

A lot of the extra cost is down to the significantly boosted standard safety offering, but we’ll get to that in the safety section of this review.

Stepping up to the top-spec GT-Line variant ($44,790) mainly adds equipment luxuries like a sunroof, auto parking assist, heated seats, a Qi wireless phone charger and sporty trim bits. It makes the SLi the pick of the range, but you’ll see there’s a bit of a catch in other parts of this review.

Hyundai's in-house 2.0-litre naturally aspirated four-cylinder combines well with Hyundai's own traditional torque converter-equipped, six-speed automatic gearbox.

While the outputs of 121kW and 203Nm are relatively modest, the engine is honest, seamless, and very linear.

The 1580kg Tucson does feel the strain when it's loaded up, and steep inclines aren't its best friend, but on the whole, it's a very dependable, very faithful drive train to this category of car.

The 2.0-litre petrol engine in our SLi produces 114kW/192Nm. Those numbers aren’t bad, but in reality leave you wishing for just a smidge more oomph once you’ve hit peak torque at 4000rpm. This is especially true with the car loaded up with three passengers and a bunch of camping gear.

Kia has pulled a bit of a sneaky here and made the larger 2.4-litre petrol with 135kW/237Nm available on the top spec GT-Line, only at an $8000 premium. It’s exactly the power bump you’d need, but perhaps not worth the significant extra cost.

For those who don’t mind diesel, you can get your torque fix via an optional 2.0-litre diesel (that’s also AWD only) on the SLi at a $5400 cost. It has a whopping 400Nm of torque.

The SLi drives the front wheels via a six-speed traditional torque converter auto.

Hyundai rates the Tucson Active X auto as consuming 7.9 litres per 100km on the combined fuel economy cycle – it’s the thirstiest Tucson in the range by a small margin.

Over our 320km test loop, we recorded a dash-indicated 9.1L/100km, and a fuel top-up of 28 litres works out at 8.75L/100km.

With a fuel tank capacity of 62 litres, it’s got a theoretical range of around 780km on a single tank, and it’s perfectly happy with regular unleaded fuel.

Unsurprisingly, asking a 2.0-litre non-turbo petrol engine to haul a 1532kg SUV comes at a bit of a fuel cost compared to a turbocharged alternative. 

Kia claims the 2.0-litre Sportage variants will drink 7.9L/100km on the combined cycle. Not great, but not bad. 

On my week-long drive over almost two tanks of fuel I landed on a figure of 9.2L/100km. It’s a little over Kia’s figure, but given I asked a lot of the free-revving little engine I was pleasantly surprised it was less than 10.0L/100km.

All petrol Sportage variants happily drink 91RON unleaded and have 62 litre fuel tanks.

In daily use, the Tucson Active X really excels. Its relatively small capacity, 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine matches well with Hyundai's in-house automatic six-speed transmission for seamless forward motion.

The engine can feel strained when pushed, but around town, it works perfectly well, especially in conjunction with the Tucson's front-wheel-drive layout. Its steering is firmly weighted, too, and easy to manage.

Hyundai goes to some lengths to tweak the suspension of its cars to suit Australian roads, and the Tucson is no exception. As a rule, the local tune generally imparts a slightly firmer ride quality with less body roll, and this suits the Tucson perfectly. There's great visibility out the front with a sloped bonnet, as well as all around the car.

The Tuscon's doors open wide allowing for easy access, too. It's just basically a lovely, simple, no-fuss car that does everything right and pretty much nothing to annoy you or your passengers.

The local engineering edge to the Sportage pays dividends. It’s a pleasure to commute along Australian roads and was pretty impressive on the unsealed stuff.

While it doesn’t quite achieve Volkswagen levels of suspension wizardry, the Korean automaker has relied on German expertise (via ZF Sachs dampers) when it comes to the ride.

The result is a close to giant hatchback ride and drive experience, without some of the nastier surprises that often come with extra weight.

It’s not as soft as the CR-V, but not as stiff as the CX-5, and I think that’s a good middle-ground. Reasonably heavy steering adds a bit of sporty flair, but that’s becoming more common on today’s Korean and Japanese SUVs.

I was expecting the Sportage to become rattled on the unsealed part of my journey, but it stuck to the ground and (laterally and horizontally) coped well with rutted dirt.

I put this down to the large rubber and suspension improvements but will concede the extra weight of three people and equipment on board probably helped.

As mentioned in the engine and transmission part of this review, the 2.0-litre engine could use more power to go with the well sorted road feel. It revs hard, but leaves you wanting more, especially up hills. 

Around town though, it’s responsive and smooth, if a tad noisy. The six-speed torque converter auto is near-unnoticeable. 

The recent update to the Sportage was largely focused on safety inclusions, and the standard kit is now reasonably impressive. Annoyingly, the full active safety kit is still reserved for the top-spec GT-Line.

All Sportage variants now come packed with 'Auto Emergency Braking' (AEB), 'Forward Collision Warning', 'Lane Departure Warning', 'Lane Keep Assist', auto high beams, a reversing camera and rear parking sensors.

Only the Si misses out on front parking sensors, but even our SLi misses out on 'Blind Spot Monitoring', 'Rear Cross Traffic Alert', active cruise, and the wholly unnecessary park assist (which can reverse park for you).

I found the Lane Keep Assist is best kept for the freeway only, as it tends to make frequent micro-adjustments to the steering. It can get a little tiresome for suburban driving. It left me wishing the Blind Spot Monitoring was standard instead…

All Sportages carry a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating from 2016 onward.

Big props must be given for the full-size alloy spare which is realistically a safety feature for Aussies who face long distance drives, and there are two ISOFIX child seat anchor points on the outboard rear seats.

Hyundai offers a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty for the Tucson, as well as a free 1500km service and 12 months of roadside assistance. Service intervals are at 12 month or 15,000km intervals.

Five-year fixed price servicing costs for the 2.0-litre engine equals $1525.

Kia’s seven year/unlimited kilometre warranty as always outshines most rivals who have only just updated to five-year unlimited kilometre warranties.

The service schedule isn’t too demanding either, with the SUV requiring attention once a year or every 15,000km, whichever comes first.

Service prices are capped, but vary from $252 for the first service, to $604 for the fourth service.