Elgin Hyundai

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Driving Impressions

The new 2010 Tucson is a reasonably responsive driver, fully competitive with the other small utilities in its class. Its engine is smooth and quiet in normal driving, but accelerating hard onto a freeway to join the flow of traffic, its thrust is only adequate and the yowl it makes reminds you that this is after all only a small four-cylinder. But adequate is better than nothing, and in this class of vehicles, the Tucson is more than competitive.

The Hyundai-designed six-speed automatic transmission is smooth-shifting and excellent, giving the Tucson a big advantage in efficiency over other vehicles in its class. Additionally, its manual shifting capability is particularly good. In all but the most dramatically ill-advised shift requests, it gives you the gear you command.

The motor-driven electric power steering is one of the Tucson's greatest strengths. It is perfectly calibrated, giving you firm steering response, flawless road feel and no excuse to become uninterested in the driving experience. Absolutely first class.

The Tucson's ride and handling are good, but in our drives we discovered an oddity. We drove both the front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive and found a surprising difference between them. The all-wheel-drive chassis's ride was noticeably harsher than the front-driver's. This proved particularly true when driving the top-of-the-line Limited AWD with 18-inch wheels. This is not to say that the AWD chassis is terrible, and if your planned use for your vehicle dictates all-wheel drive for climatic reasons, then the AWD Tucson will serve your purpose. But if you have no particular need of AWD, save some money, $1500 is the AWD premium, and get a gentler front-wheel-drive package.

Otherwise, the Tucson had good brakes with firm pedal feel and exemplary modulation, and the chassis had only mild roll in brisk cornering, as would be expected of a vehicle engineered and tuned in Germany. Additionally, the Tucson is a very clean Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle, satisfying one's environmental good intentions. All in all as utilities go, a satisfying driving package.

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