The mildly refreshed Tucson skips too much. Literally.
2025 Hyundai Tucson XRT review by The Road Beat
Words and pictures: Mitchell Weitzman
I've always enjoyed the way the new Tucson looks, standing out in a sea of myriad dullness, but this refreshed model fails at too many fundamentals. While I do appreciate creativity and unique design, and that is at least what the Tucson boasts in spades, yet it's not enough once the underlying problems are revealed. With a sad little base engine and a bouncing ride quality, this Tucson is not worth visiting.
On a positive, this 2025 model year example finally features wireless Apple CarPlay - it only took half a decade for that! Inside as a whole, the interior remains the strongest selling point for any Tucson, with an open and expansive dash that gives a great view ahead of the road and increases the perceived space of the cabin. New for 2025 is a hugely long display that combines the infotainment with the gauge cluster. Even on this mid XRT-level trim, the cabin is generously fashioned with soft touch materials on the doors and comfortable vinyl 'H-Tex' seats, but the Limited model does step up the luxury accordingly with lots of leather for an upgrade. If you're curious what the heck XRT means, it's basically an appearance package to make the Tucson look more rugged and cool and includes standard AWD; More Subaru-like in other words, with its black cladding and trim, roof rails, and 'sporty' two-tone wheels.
Where the interior does not score big is the introduction of that big new screen, which somehow already looks dated, and you can best believe in a couple short years that it will look ostensibly obsolete. I don't like the weird little kink in the middle either, which angles the infotainment half towards the driver which disrupts it the flow. There are also digital touch controls for the HVAC, which are never as accurate nor as satisfying to use as traditional knobs and buttons, and often requires a glance away from the road ahead to properly find your way around them. The idea of a screen like this is modern and currently chic, but the way it's lazily tacked on and without integration is what particularly ages it already right out of the box. Hey, maybe you'll love it.
Where things really go awry, though, are in the powertrain and chassis department, which are pretty basic fundamentals of a car. With just a measly 187 horsepower and 178 lb-ft of torque, this Tucson can barely get out of its own way and necessary throttle inputs lack response. Further, the transmission is geared completely wrong for this weak engine, with a 3rd gear that often leaves it completely dead and lost when accelerating even normally, as if you've deployed an anchor that you're now dragging along. Fuel economy may be 30 MPG on the highway, but that's not really impressive at all in 2024 for a crossover with such little power. And when the engine is wound up, it's an annoying and noisy racket that honestly helps make the case for those that are pro-EV; Silence would be preferred here.
Worse still is the chassis, which admittedly can be fine in many cases if you're just freeway commuting, and the steering is even decently direct if devoid of feel. Turning into bends, though, reveals a lack of composure as the body rolls and meanders through corners, favoring understeer and tire squeal in cases where rival manufacturer's crossovers maintain balance. But the single weakest aspect of this Tucson is the ride quality, which is borderline chaotic. Even on smooth roads with the slightest defects, it somehow manages to transfer any and all bumps to its occupants, and on larger bumps, especially on a series of undulating, swollen waves of tarmac, the Tucson completely comes undone and bounces around endlessly like it has blown shocks.
I was on a cool little backroad into Livermore, a route I had tried (successfully) previously in a big Mazda CX-70 prior with the same occupants, but this time in the Tucson, one of passengers was literally getting car sick from the constant oscillations up and down, even at a moderate 40 MPH or less and keeping carefully conservative speeds through corners. At first it was almost funny how bad it was, but then it quickly went beyond annoying to actually troubling with its severely disappointing ride and lack of composure. Did any of the engineers ever test this car on bumpy or undulating country roads? Or with passengers? I've noticed other Tucsons exhibiting the same bouncing behavior, but never to this degree, and there's no way a brand new car should drive like this. If the car didn't have less than 1,000 miles on the odometer, I would have taken it to the service center for new shocks, but no, this is just normal Tucson behavior I guess.
Look, if you want to buy the Tucson just because you like the looks, then fine; You do you. But after a week with this latest Tucson, not only is it a step backwards in some ways, but the suspension seems even worse, exacerbated by even the slightest of bouncing country roads. I was annoyed with the Tucson XRT, and with so many, many alternatives to choose from these days, I would completely skip this crossover the same way it chooses to skip over pavement.
2025 Hyundai Tucson XRT AWD
Price as-tested: $36,240
Pros: Divisive, but unique looks; Good value
Cons: Terrible suspension; Weak engine
Basic Specifications
2.5-liter inline-four
187-horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque
Eight-speed automatic
25 MPG overall
183" x 73" x 66"
2,000 pound towing capacity
More photos of the 2025 Hyundai Tucson XRT
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