Both the Santa Fe and Outback have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The Santa Fe has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The Outback’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
The Santa Fe SEL Premium/Limited/Calligraphy has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Outback only offers a rear monitor and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the front or sides.
The Santa Fe has a standard blind spot warning system which uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them and moves the vehicle back into its lane. A system to reveal vehicles in the Outback’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Santa Fe has a standard rear cross-path warning system, which uses sensors in the rear bumper to alert the driver to vehicles approaching from the side, helping the driver avoid collisions. Rear cross-path warning costs extra on the Outback and isn't available on the not available.
Compared to metal, the Santa Fe’s plastic fuel tank can withstand harder, more intrusive impacts without leaking; this decreases the possibility of fire. The Subaru Outback has a metal gas tank.
Both the Santa Fe and the Outback have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, rearview cameras and available all wheel drive.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does 35 MPH front crash tests on new vehicles. In this test, results indicate that the Hyundai Santa Fe is safer than the Subaru Outback:
|
Santa Fe |
Outback |
|
Driver |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Neck Injury Risk |
16% |
26% |
Neck Stress |
149 lbs. |
281 lbs. |
Neck Compression |
13 lbs. |
57 lbs. |
Leg Forces (l/r) |
50/51 lbs. |
230/249 lbs. |
|
Passenger |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
4 Stars |
Chest Compression |
.4 inches |
.6 inches |
Neck Injury Risk |
27% |
43% |
Neck Stress |
99 lbs. |
147 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration does side impact tests on new vehicles. In this test, which crashes the vehicle into a post at 20 MPH, results indicate that the Hyundai Santa Fe is safer than the Subaru Outback:
|
Santa Fe |
Outback |
|
Into Pole |
|
STARS |
5 Stars |
5 Stars |
Hip Force |
576 lbs. |
674 lbs. |
New test not comparable to pre-2011 test results. More stars = Better. Lower test results = Better.
Instrumented handling tests conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and analysis of its dimensions indicate that the Santa Fe is 3% to 3.8% less likely to roll over than the Outback.