2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Long-Term Road Test

Our 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe is easy to get in and out of thanks to its rockerless overlapping doors.

Read the full story here

7driver

Looks like your CX5 has it too, as does your recently departed CR-V. Your MDX might, but there aren't enough pictures that I can really tell.

hank39

Pardon my ignorance, but even with the detailed description, I'm not getting what's different between this door from others.

duck87

@hank39: To put it bluntly, the bottom of the door, instead of terminating above the car's rocker panel, actually reaches the bottom of the car. Take for example (and I'm just picking one car out of the fleet) the Passat. The door bottom terminates before

legacygt

My CX-9 has these doors and I agree with all the benefits outlined here. I will share two drawbacks that are worth noting as well. By wrapping around, the door extends lower (below the sill height) than it would on a more traditional design where the bottom of the door would end at the sill height. Why does this matter. If you park next to a high curb or a tree well or other obstruction you might not be able to open the door. This doesn't happen often but in NYC I can't be picky about my parking spots and I've found myself having to climb out the passenger side on more than one occasion where a more traditional door would have been able to open. The other downside is that I've noticed than in rain or slushy snow conditions, the doors transmit a lot of the splashing noise up into the cabin. This might only be the case with the CX-9 where the doors really wrap around the underside of the car.

banhugh

The seam argument is moot as there is a line defined there anyway from the black plastic and the white paint, similar to the would be rocker panel...

legacygt

@banhugh. Not so. If the door was of a more traditional design, the door would end below the area where the white paint meets the black plastic. You would see that line and then another cut line lower down separating the black plastic on the door from bla

hank39

@duck87: Thank you for clarifying the post. I got it now. Interesting thing is that I went and looked up pics of the Kia Sorrento (which is the Santa Fe's cousin and built at the same LaGrange Kia plant) and it has doors that do NOT go all the way to th

actualsize

@legacygt: yes, that can be a disadvantage, though I've only had it happen once where the curb or adjacent lawn atop the curb was particularly high. The noise thing is specific to particular seal designs that will vary from application to application, I t

explorerx4

This design has been around for a while. 2011 Explorer, off the top of my head.

tysalpha

I wish they could make the doors like this on cars, too. Except for banging the doors into curbs, which would be a problem.

hybris

My 1999 F150 has this as well and my fathers even older 1991 MB 350SDL has this as well.

actualsize

@tysalpha: I think you explained why they don't have them yourself. Sedans and coups sit low enough that the curb issue is more significant. Taller SUVs and crossovers have more body-to-ground clearance to work with.

gerardr

Coming late to this party, but it would be greatly appreciated if you list all vehicles with this particular feature. BTW, Consumer Reports calls it a flush or nearly-flush sill. It appears that the 2014 RAV4, CX-5, Highlander, Santa Fe, and a handful of others have this feature.