2019 Hyundai Santa Fe, Accent Earn Crash-Test Kudos
Two redesigned Hyundai models have earned new safety distinctions, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced today. To get the safety features needed for those awards, however, you’ll have to shop carefully.
- ${price_badge()}
- ${battery_badge()}${ev_report_link()}
- ${hot_car_badge()}
- ${award_badge()}
- ${cpo_badge()}
${price_badge_description}
The EV Battery Rating is based on this vehicle's current expected range relative to the vehicles expected range when new. ${battery_badge_text}
Certified cars are manufacturer warrantied and typically go through a rigorous multi-point inspection.
This car is likely to sell soon based on the price, features, and condition.
${award_blurb}
${award_two_blurb}
Shop the 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe near you
The redesigned 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe SUV earned top marks in six crash tests, plus evaluations of its automatic emergency braking system and headlights, to nab IIHS’ top safety award for the 2018 calendar year, Top Safety Pick Plus. (The designation doesn’t apply to the 2019 Santa Fe XL, a rebadge on the prior-generation Santa Fe.) The 2019 Accent sedan, meanwhile, earned top marks in six of the eight categories, plus acceptable grades in the other two, to earn IIHS’ lower-tier safety award, Top Safety Pick (no “Plus”).
But just 3 in 10 Santa Fe SUVs on the market — and only about 1 in 20 Accent sedans — have the necessary features to earn their respective safety awards.
Crashworthiness Caveats
The Santa Fe includes a superior-rated automatic braking system as standard equipment, but its well-rated LED headlights, which are necessary for the Top Safety Pick Plus designation, come only on Limited and Ultimate trim levels. The bottom three trims — SE, SEL and SEL Plus, which together account for 7 in 10 new 2019 Santa Fe SUVs on Cars.com — have halogen headlights that earned the second-lowest IIHS rating, marginal.
Redesigned for the 2018 model year, the Accent added LED headlights to its top trim for 2019. IIHS rates those lights acceptable (out of good, acceptable, marginal or poor), but they come only on the Accent Limited. The agency rates the halogen headlights on the Accent’s two lower trims, SE and SEL, as poor. Ditto for the sedan’s superior-rated automatic emergency braking system, which likewise comes only on the Limited grade. Buy the SE or SEL — a pair that accounts for 94 percent of new 2019 Accent inventory on Cars.com — and you’ll miss out on two important features necessary for the Top Safety Pick designation.
Standard Top-Rated Features Rare
To be sure, Hyundai is hardly the only automaker that does this. IIHS awards are a moving target, with crash-test and equipment requirements ratcheting up by the calendar year, and it’s common that only certain variants of a given model make the grade. A Cars.com analysis in 2017 found that, of nearly 100 cars that earned a Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick Plus, only 13 carried the designation with no strings attached — which is to say that all examples of those models had the equipment necessary for their respective awards. For the vast majority of cars with IIHS awards, getting the safety technologies that qualify for the awards requires ponying up extra cash for higher trims.
Cars.com’s Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com’s long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don’t accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com’s advertising, sales and sponsored content departments.
