The Car Connection Expert Review
Likes
- Bulldog styling
- Comfortable ride
- Versatile bed
- Great warranty
- Potent turbo engine
Dislikes
- Inefficient
- Crime scene touchscreen
- Compact but clever bed
- Gets expensive
- Wired smartphone connectivity
Buying tip
features & specs
The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz lifestyle pickup cures the crossover boredom blues.
What kind of vehicle is the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz? What does it compare to?
It’s a pickover, part small pickup, and part compact crossover. Direct rivals for the 2024 Santa Cruz include the Ford Maverick and Honda Ridgeline, but crossover intenders looking for something different might cross-shop the Chevrolet Colorado and Toyota Tacoma as well.
Is the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz a good car?
The Santa Cruz balances crossover comfort with pickup utility, and comes with great safety features and an even better warranty. But it’s inefficient and the pickup bed is limited. Decidedly different, the Santa Cruz earns a TCC Rating of 6.7 out of 10. (Read more about how we rate cars.)
What's new for the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz?
An XRT appearance package replaces the old SEL Premium trim, adding beefier bits to the turbo-4 all-wheel-drive model.
It adds buffer fender flares, new door garnishes, and side steps to the small pickup, but the Santa Cruz is still more of a weekend adventure truck than an off-road vehicle.
The front end wears the same grille as the Hyundai Tucson, but it marks the difference down the sides and around the back with its longer profile and four-foot open bed. Inside, it features a winged dash similar to the wing tips of the grille, and a smudgy touchscreen and climate interface.
SE and SEL employ a pokey 191-hp 2.5-liter inline-4 with front- or available all-wheel drive and a payload that maxes out at about 1,900 pounds, while the gutsier 2.5-liter turbo-4 comes standard with all-wheel drive. It’s sold with Night, XRT, and top Limited trims, and can tow up to 5,000 pounds. All models use 8-speed automatic transmissions, but unlike its rival Ford Maverick, there’s no hybrid option. Fuel economy sits at just 22 or 23 mpg combined.
Inside, the Santa Cruz has crossover-like space with flip-up rear seats with underseat storage. The real action happens behind the cab in a bed that is smaller and narrower than any other pickup bed on the market, but has clever features such as an integrated tonneau cover and a hidden drainable storage bin.
Also new this year are blind-spot monitors and LED projector headlights that helped the Santa Cruz earn a Top Safety Pick from the IIHS to complement the NHTSA five-star crash rating. Standard safety tech includes automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection and active lane control, while a surround-view camera system and adaptive cruise control are optional.
How much does the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz cost?
The Santa Cruz lineup starts at $28,275 (including a $1,375 destination fee) for the base SE and its manual seats and 8.0-inch touchscreen with wireless smartphone compatibility. It and the $30,500 SEL with its heated power front seats only come with the base engine, however, and AWD adds $1,500 on either.
AWD comes standard on the turbo-4 but the price jumps to just under $40,000 for the Night trim, and peaks at $42,695 for the Limited; the new XRT slots between those two.
Where is the 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz made?
In Montgomery, Alabama.
2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Styling
Though related to the Hyundai Tucson, the Santa Cruz looks like nothing else on the road.
Is the Hyundai Santa Cruz a good-looking pickup?
The four-door crossover with a bed attracts appreciation ranging from the El Camino generation to Gen EV. It earns two points for its daring if not busy exterior.
Sharing the climbing wall grille of the Tucson, flanked by cascading running lights, the 2024 Santa Cruz stretches longer and appears brawnier than the related crossover. The chunky headlight housings, black cladding over pronounced wheel arches, flared rocker panels, and rear bumper step lend it a ruggedness, even with the optional star-shaped 20-inch wheels.
Inside, it looks much more like the Tucson, and that’s mostly good. The available 10.3-inch crime scene touchscreen harbors fingerprints all over the screen and glossy black climate panel below. The upper dash houses a thin band of vents that curve into an M at the center screen, and the console armrest doubles as a diving board edge for the heated and cooled seat buttons. Form and function marry in the Santa Cruz cabin.
2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Performance
The 2024 Hyundai Tucson drives more like a crossover than a truck.
Is the Hyundai Santa Cruz 4WD?
SE and SEL models come standard with front-wheel drive, while all-wheel drive with a center locking differential costs an extra $1,500. It’s standard on Night, XRT, and Limited trims that also come exclusively with a 281-hp turbo-4.
We still haven’t tested the base 191-hp 2.5-liter inline-4 but prior experience with it in other Hyundai models—and its conventional 8-speed automatic gearbox—suggest smooth operation but a deficit of power to move a 3,900-pound vehicle (with AWD).
The Santa Cruz offers a Subaru-like ground clearance of 8.6 inches but somewhat long overhangs (17.5-degree approach angle and 23.2-degree departure angle) and no low-range option limits its off-road ability to dirt trails or gravel access roads.
Towing maxes out at 5,000 pounds with the turbo-4 and AWD. A standard load-leveling rear suspension ratchets up the stiffness with a loaded bed, so it still rides even and balanced.
What about the Hyundai Santa Cruz XRT?
Adopted from other Hyundai crossovers such as the Tucson, Santa Fe, and Palisade, the new XRT model affects an off-road persona with wider fender flares, side steps, black trim, and orange trim elements, as well as bed rails. Mechanically it adds nothing.
How fast is the Hyundai Santa Cruz?
The 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-4 makes 281 hp and 311 lb-ft of torque, giving it plenty of spirit off the line and at speed. Paddle shifters encourage drivers to override the indecisive 8-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission in demanding situations. At low speeds, the dual-clutch can hesitate, resulting in acceleration that can be more jerky than smooth.
The Santa Cruz handles well for a vehicle with an open bed, thanks in part to its long wheelbase and multi-link rear suspension; MacPherson struts buffer the front.
2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Comfort & Quality
The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz blends pickup utility with crossover comfort.
The Santa Cruz seats five and its flexible but small bed offers up enough versatility to make for a weekend getaway car, great for cyclists, paddlers, adventurers, and dogs alike. The 36.5 inches of rear legroom matches many small crossovers though it’s tighter than the Tucson, and the 27.0 cubic feet of cargo room in the bed exceeds what’s behind the rear seats of many crossovers, too. Those attributes earn it a point each to a 7 of 10.
Step over the base SE to the SEL trim for power front seats that are heated, but you’d have to step up another trim to upgrade from cloth upholstery to synthetic leather; only the top Limited trim comes with leather. Front seat comfort matches the Tucson, and a deep storage console and smart layout of the seat controls open up cabin space.
In back, the rear seats recline more like a crossover than the vertical backs of extended cab pickup trucks, but headroom can limit comfort for taller passengers. They’re far more comfy but no less useful: the seat bottom flips up to reveal a removable storage bin. Taking it out would benefit transporting items more securely than in the bed, as well as make for a better pen for the hound, especially when equipped with a power sliding rear window.
At 48.4 inches long at the top, or 74.8 inches with the tailgate open, the bed is small and not comparable to other pickups. It can still accommodate 4x8 sheets of plywood over the wheel wells (but sticking out over the gate), and the available locking tonneau cover secures whatever gear you’re OK leaving exposed to some elements. It can fit four mountain bikes (with the front forks over the gate) or other items that would pose a challenge to a crossover, whether in the back or on the roof. The drainable storage bin under the floor could house fish or beverages on ice.
The Santa Cruz rides in much more quiet and comfort than larger pickups, and Hyundai finishes it with similar materials as the Tucson, so it feels nicer and continues to get nicer up the trim ladder.
2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Safety
The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz aces crash tests.
How safe is the Hyundai Santa Cruz?
It earns a five-star rating from the NHTSA, and now that it comes standard with LED projector headlights, it earned a Top Safety Pick rating from the IIHS. It’s a 9 here for those top safety ratings and its standard and optional driver-assist tech.
The IIHS rates its standard automatic emergency braking system with pedestrian detection as “Superior.” Santa Cruz also comes with blind-spot monitors and rear cross-traffic alerts this year to complement active lane control, a driver-attention monitor, and a safe exit warning that alerts occupants getting out of the car of a vehicle or cyclist coming up beside them.
Options include adaptive cruise control and a surround-view camera system that helps compensate for thick roof pillars. An optional blind-spot camera projects live views of the blind spots into the instrument cluster.
2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Features
The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz bundles good standard features, but turbo models get expensive.
Santa Cruz pricing is a tale of two powertrains. The base SE starts out reasonably enough at $28,275, including a $1,375 destination fee. It rides on 18-inch alloy wheels and comes with cruise control, power windows and locks, two USB ports, keyless entry, and an intuitive 8.0-inch touchscreen with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. That earns it a point, as does its overall value, as well as its excellent warranty: 5-year/60,000-mile limited, 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain, and three years or 36,000 miles of complimentary oil changes and tire rotations. With four more trim levels (SEL, Night, XRT, and Limited), it also has an extensive options list to earn another point to a 9.
Which Hyundai Santa Cruz should I buy?
The $30,735 SEL harnesses what truckiness the Santa Cruz can offer with the $3,300 Activity Package. It adds a sunroof, a sliding rear window, a tonneau cover, roof rails, a wireless smartphone charger, and a 10.3-inch digital instrument cluster and 10.3-inch touchscreen (with wired smartphone connectivity).
AWD costs $1,500 extra or it comes standard on Night ($39,545), the new XRT ($41,185), and the top Limited ($42,695).
How much is a fully loaded Hyundai Santa Cruz?
The difference between the SEL with Activity Package and AWD is at least $5,000, and its value proposition falls apart above $40,000. But the Limited rides on 20-inch alloy wheels and has leather upholstery, a heated steering wheel, and cooled front seats.
2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz Fuel Economy
The 2024 Hyundai Santa Cruz gets 23 mpg combined.
Is the Hyundai Santa Cruz good on gas?
It’d be a whole lot better if it were a hybrid, but that hasn’t happened. Yet. On the upside, the EPA rates most models at 23 mpg combined with front-wheel or all-wheel drive. That earns the Santa Cruz a 2 here.
The Santa Cruz with front-wheel drive is rated at 22 mpg city, 26 highway, 23 combined, and AWD rates at 21/25/23 mpg.
AWD Turbo versions rate 19/27/22 mpg.
The Ford Maverick hybrid gets 37 mpg combined, but doesn’t come with AWD. The non-hybrid Maverick with AWD rates at 24 mpg combined.
