Both the Santa Fe and Forester 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 Forester’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 Limited/Calligraphy has a standard Surround View Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The Forester only offers a rear monitor and front and rear parking sensors that beep or flash a light. That doesn’t help with obstacles to the sides.
The Santa Fe has a standard blind spot warning system that uses sensors to alert the driver to objects in the vehicle’s blind spots where the side view mirrors don’t reveal them. A system to reveal vehicles in the Forester’s blind spot costs extra.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the Santa Fe has standard Rear Cross-Traffic Collision Warning and Rear Cross-Traffic Collision-Avoidance Assist automatically engages the brakes to help avoid a collision. Subaru charges extra for Rear Cross Traffic Alert on the Forester and its not available on the Base and the Forester’s Rear Cross Traffic Alert does not include automatic braking.
Both the Santa Fe and the Forester have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front and rear 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 Hyundai Santa Fe weighs 723 to 1032 pounds more than the Subaru Forester. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.
Side impacts caused 23% of all road fatalities in 2018, down from 29% in 2003, when the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety introduced its side barrier test. In order to continue improving vehicle safety, the IIHS has started using a more severe side impact test: 37 MPH (up from 31 MPH), with a 4180-pound barrier (up from 3300 pounds). The results of this newly developed test demonstrates that the Hyundai Santa Fe is safer than the Forester:
|
|
Santa Fe |
Forester |
| Overall Evaluation |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
| Structure |
GOOD |
ACCEPTABLE |
|
|
Driver Injury Measures |
|
| Head/Neck |
GOOD |
GOOD |
| Head Injury Criterion |
89 |
107 |
| Neck Compression |
-22 lbs. |
67 lbs. |
| Torso |
ACCEPTABLE |
ACCEPTABLE |
| Shoulder Deflection |
.87 in |
.91 in |
| Shoulder Force |
178 lbs. |
201 lbs. |
| Torso Max Deflection |
1.34 in |
1.5 in |
| Torso Deflection Rate |
7 MPH |
8 MPH |
| Head Protection |
GOOD |
GOOD |
|
|
Passenger Injury Measures |
|
| Head/Neck |
GOOD |
GOOD |
| Head Injury Criterion |
64 |
544 |
| Head Peak Forces |
no contact |
81 G’s |
| Neck Compression |
-45 lbs. |
290 lbs. |
| Torso |
GOOD |
GOOD |
| Shoulder Deflection |
-.87 in |
2.2 in |
| Shoulder Force |
268 lbs. |
469 lbs. |
| Torso Max Deflection |
1.14 in |
1.26 in |
| Torso Deflection Rate |
5 MPH |
8 MPH |
| Pelvis |
GOOD |
GOOD |
| Pelvis Force |
580 lbs. |
625 lbs. |
| Head Protection |
GOOD |
MARGINAL |
The Hyundai Santa Fe achieved a “Top Safety Pick” rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for the 2024 model year. This recognition was based on its impressive performance in the small overlap frontal crash test, updated side impact crash test, headlight evaluations, and pedestrian crash prevention testing. The Forester last would have qualified as a “Top Safety Pick” in 2023.