all right people always ask me about lower priced SUVs in this case this is a
2008 Hyundai Santa Fe so how does it stack up now as far as I'm concerned
it's not a horrible car it's not a great car it's an in-between car no let's take
price this thing was twenty one five when it was new relatively cheap for an
SUV sixteen thousand dollars less than his Acura that's a year older but
what a difference this thing has a v6 engine but it only puts out 185
horsepower I've been driving them both today hey
guess what I'm driving to get lunch and go to the bank and get parts the acura a
lot of fun to drive this is a real boring vehicle no it's not turbocharged
like the acura is it is a lot less horsepower less zip that gets about one
or two miles a gallon better gas mileage than that one it's real isn't all that
much we can see it's got a v6 but it's a smaller v6 it's even hard to figure out
the size but if you look closely you can see a 2.7 here that means 2.7 liter got
on all the man transmission that's nowhere near as tight as that acura
relatively sloppy shifting especially now that this is high mileage one kind
of a slop shift and when we look inside you can say it's more of an econo box
you can see the armrest is kind of falling apart a conventional interior
seats are stained but it's not the car boy it's got a reasonable amount of room
there's no arguing with that thanks you're like a quality that doesn't work
from the inside or the outside so that doors broken saw the other side opens
once you get inside you can see got a reasonable amount of room and where we
going the trunk the spacious we've got a lot of junk in
it but you can see the seats of course flop down you can carry a reasonable
amount of stuff in it room isn't a problem with this thing the real problem
is it's just a lower quality vehicle yeah doors broken we start it up we can
see a couple of things the tire pressure monitoring systems broken as is the
airbag system not scanned it with my scanner sending units and the tires are
bad tire pressure monitoring system isn't working because it's not receiving
any info from some of them well you'd
have to replace them all they're all probably going out the batteries go bad
you know that's typical but then again I see Toyotas Honda's that are 20 years
old and they're still working the young guys a little cheaper quality and the
airbag system has problem in the electronics they can get relatively
expensive now seat belts work perfectly fine when you buckle them in but hey for
safety's sake they're putting these airbags and if the system doesn't work
right you're not too safe but you see me on dice all the time particularly one is
front-wheel drive only it's still got disc brakes front and back as you can see
it's got sort of a roof racky thing the paint's coming off of that nowhere
near is nice and the Acura but it still has it
let's take it for a drive yeah it starts it starts right up doesn't sound too bad
but that's because I fix the ignition system was you're on a pretty crappy
before this so okay first pin back we go yeah well she rocks on there it's just
up on the gas and now it doesn't take off all that fast considering it's got a
v6 engine and that Acura only have a four-cylinder engine I was talking about
it's much faster as we corner got a sloppy steering it's not too tight us
again it's nowhere near as good as the Acura and when you're going over bumps
you feel it quite a bit more you can just tell it's an overall cheaper car
before it makes noise but it doesn't really take off of it fast it sounds
like it's going fast but it really isn't like I said yeah feel the bumps it's
more like a boat than a race car you got a point and drive but but you have to
say if you look at the speedometer thing does have 192 thousand miles on that it
is still driving down the road stop falling apart a relatively rough riding
rough steering let's start a slow vehicle but it's still going down the
road they see still blowing nice and cold hey for a vehicle it's got 192
thousand miles on it it's still running decently you want a cheaper SUV they can
last a while yeah terrible cars middle of the road I think it's the usual
middling gas mileage than any middle sized SUVs gonna get not a total gas hog
but certainly not extremely economical especially when you consider the lack of
power that it had you'd expect a little bit better gas mileage for something that's
too slow is this thing yes but then again here you get what you pay for you
pay a lot less hey if you don't mind paying a lot less having a so much
slower vehicle that doesn't shift perfect kind of sloppy corner and
doesn't have the greatest ride but hey this thing hundred ninety two thousand
miles it's still running decent enough for the owner this is an older one
probably the newer ones is they're all worried about that gas mileage crap so
they're throwing turbocharged four-cylinder engines in them that have
more power and theoretically on paper get better gas
mileage but those engines you're not gonna have a hundred ninety two thousand miles
on and be running as smooth as this thing is I'll start burning oil
sometimes they blow head gaskets the turbos can break there's a lot more
strain on a smaller engine you are better with a vehicle like this if you
get something like a normally aspirated v6 at this ask not a race car but it'll
get you where you're going you want an SUV like that you want to pay a lot less
nothing wrong with buying one of these just don't expect crisp handling things
that don't break doors broke in all those lights are on the air brake system
doesn't work anymore welcome for a cheap used SUV you know one of these cheap
enough might last a few years for a small amount
of money back in 2008 you bought a brand new Highlander with a
v6 instead of a Hyundai it was over twenty thousand dollars more than this
almost twice the price and if you paid half the price and you got 190 something
thousand miles out of it I'd say you're doing ok if you don't mind the lack of
quality worse handling it's not like it's falling apart every two minutes
let's say so a lot of people these days with money is a prime object if you
could buy one that's half the price of a really quality one but it still goes 192
thousand miles a lot of people say it's a fine deal buy me nicely secondhand
they go for peanut money suck it hand you never know like I always say you
want a mechanic like me to check it out before you buy the thing you never buy a
used car especially high mileage one without a mechanic look at it but you
can get a pretty good deal on that try getting a good deal on a used highlander
this is in good shape you're not gonna find too many of them said i know the
truth about you and i santa face so you can make a wise decision next time and
here's some bonus questions and answers well things may change but some things
still remain the same ford has to recall sixty eight thousand twenty twenty
f-150s Rangers and expeditions a part that they might have placed wrong can
make the driver put the shifter in park but the transmission is still in drive
so you could park the vehicle you got it in park and you walk away you could roll
away cuz it's no longer in park it's actually in driving it could roll away
now if you put your emergency brake on you're not
have to worry about it so if you own one of these 2020s 468 thousands are being
recalled just make sure that when you stop and put it in park put the
emergency brake on you want to make sure you put the emergency brake on so that
doesn't happen the problem is a clip that's supposed to
keep the gear shift when transformation connected to each other if it's not
seated then it slips and so you think you're in park
but actually it slips so it's still and dry so like I say if you're one of those
just make a point always using your emergency brake when you stop and put it
in park so that didn't happen and you would also have to be careful if you
start it up in park make sure your foot solid on the brake and hold it tight
because if it's in park and the computer allows it to start because it's in park
but it's in Drive if you start it would immediately take forward but if you have
your foot really firmly placed on the brake even if you started and drive you
got your foot on the brake so it won't move do that too just to be safe they're
gonna recall and but you know in the meantime that's how you can save
yourself as always put the emergency brake on when you put it in park and
when you start it keep your foot solid on the brake so it doesn't roll because
if a car actually is in Drive when you start it it'll start rolling down to
multi-master Scotty I was thinking about getting a fun weekend cheap car to drive
fast what I honesty do you think would be better to last a little longer an old
five Chrysler 300c Hemi or a 2005 Audi a6 4.2 v8
well the Chrysler if it was in decent shape by far the are deviates are just
endless money pets and that's a 15 year old one man the money would fly out the
Chrysler 300 seats I mean they had problems cuz they're Chrysler's right
but that's an old five you know that was before fiat took over two company you
made it worse than it was the Hemi engines are excellent engines it was the
rest of the vehicles that had problems with the 300 electronic problems
transmission problems but if you got one and you could get it cheap and off you
did say cheap and you're gonna use it as weekend oh I have a mechanic check it
out that could be a fun car if you get it cheap but the real big word here is
cheap don't pay much for 15 year old Chrysler they have no resale value in
the real world madman says my brother his family
recently moved to Central PA with country driving at 45 to 50 miles an hour
mostly everywhere be less wear and tear and their oil burning 2012 Passat 2.5
liter with hundred thousand miles compared to busy western
New York City traffic well of course it would be but I don't
know how busy western New York City traffic is anymore I grew up in Niagara
Falls used to be 120,000 now it's 40,000 there's not that busy anymore and the
last time I went to Buffalo looked like a ghost town and our houses were knocked
down things were abandoned got less people in Buffalo so it's not as
busy in western New York as it used to be but then again my mother-in-law grew
up in Pennsylvania yeah then times I've done there's hardly any traffic and of
course it's less wear and tear and you're going 45 to 50 miles an hour
there's less worrying Angela it's just going down the road, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell