A decent motor vehicle that serves its purpose
I have owned the 2025 Santa Cruz for about 2 months. I like the roomy interior and wide video information screen. The ventilated seats are nice, however they do not blow very forcefully. The touch screen is decent, but very dimly lit with no way to increase illumination. As such, you have trouble seeing what options are activated and what setting the options are set to. The onboard navigation stays constantly in the night or dark mode which makes it impossible to read. As I am not an android car play fan, it renders the onboard navigation screen useless. If you happen to use the android car play and use google maps or the waze app, the navigation screen will be normal colored and easy to see and read. However, using this app interferes with the steering wheel controls for your radio / media. The steering wheel media controls will no longer change your Sirius XM favorite radio stations in the order you have saved them. They reversed the steering wheel controls from my previous Hyundai Kona. The radio controls are now in the right and the cruise and other options are on the left. I'm also not a big fan of the round scrolling button. As a matter of fact, I had my radio muted and when I used the round scroll button on the left side to scroll between information screens, it raised the volume on my radio. I actually prefer the old tab like buttons which made it easier to control screens and options. They also redesigned the cruise control. There used to be a button to activate it and a button to deactivate it. Now there is only one button that serves both functions. The pause and resume function for the cruise control is now operated like the mute and unmute for the radio volume. Not an ideal set up in my opinion. The adaptive cruise control works very well as does the all around camera view option, which I think is great. The lane keep assist cameras are way too off and need to be recalibrated. They do not give a warning sound until after you have touched or crossed the center or fog line. My previous Hyundai was calibrated precisely and gave warnings if you even got close. Another thing I would like to have seen is an overhead storage compartment for sunglasses. The open storage area on the passenger side allows everything to slide around as the vehicle is maneuvered around curves or during turns. Again, not an ideal set up. The bed cover is good, however it is not waterproof and will allow water to leak into the bed Last, the towing option is great, however the receiver hitch sits very low to the ground. I had to buy a 4 inch drop receiver and use it upside down to get the proper height for towing.
While I am satisfied after 2 months of owning the Santa Cruz, I am disappointed with the rearrangement and change to many of the features.
Verified Owner
