- Doors and Seats
5 doors, 7 seats
- Engine
3.8i, 6 cyl.
- Engine Power
217kW, 355Nm
- Fuel
Petrol (91) 10.7L/100KM
- Manufacturer
FWD
- Transmission
Auto
- Warranty
5 Yr, Unltd KMs
- Ancap Safety
5/5 star (2022)
2023 Hyundai Palisade review: Australian first drive
A midlife facelift leaves the Palisade with more and better safety equipment, along with extra technology and a swag of smaller updates. Hyundai's biggest SUV hits the right notes for big Australian families.
- Improved ride quality and noise insulation now very good
- Properly huge and spacious across three rows
- Plenty of practical interior touches for everyday usage
- Pricing pins it against proper four-wheel-drive options
- Up to five thousand dollars more expensive now
- Infuriating traffic sign recognition system
How much does the Hyundai Palisade cost in Australia?
Although it has only been on sale in Australia since 2020, the 2023 Hyundai Palisade is at the receiving end of a midlife refresh. There are a wide variety of changes with this new model – both small and big – that will help it remain competitive and popular for the coming years.
This is not Hyundai's only option in the large SUV space. There's also the Santa Fe, which has been around for much longer than the Palisade. While it can seat seven, the Santa Fe is a smaller, less boxy style overall. For more information in this regard, you'll be well served checking out this comparison on that very subject.
And don't forget about the Staria people mover as well, complete with sliding doors and room for up to eight. This Palisade can seat eight as well, but comes in a more popular SUV format.
Those on a lower budget won't be able to access an eponymous entry-level Palisade specification any more, as the 2023 Palisade range starts with the more expensive Elite specification. Hyundai tells us only six per cent of buyers opted for the base-grade model, leading Hyundai to focus on the mid- and high-spec variants.
This means the 2023 Hyundai Palisade now carries a starting price of $65,900 and goes up to $79,900 in its most expensive guise. So aside from losing the entry-level variant, prices have been cranked up between $3700 and $5711 with this facelifted model. Full price and specification details can be found here.
At least Hyundai has opted to crank up the standard inclusions of safety and technology for this new Palisade.
Powertrains are a carryover affair, with a petrol and diesel available with the 2023 Hyundai Palisade. A 3.8-litre Atkinson-cycle petrol V6 delivers 217kW/355Nm to the front wheels, while a more efficient 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine has 147kW/440Nm going to all four wheels.
Key details | 2023 Hyundai Palisade |
Price | From $65,900 plus on-road costs |
Available colours | Creamy White Shimmering Silver Graphite Grey Abyss Black Gaia Brown Sierra Burgundy Moonlight Blue Olivine Grey Robust Emerald |
Pricing breakdown | Palisade Elite petrol V6 FWD – $65,900 (up $3700) Palisade Elite diesel AWD – $69,900 (up $3700) Palisade Highlander petrol V6 FWD – $75,900 (up $4788) Palisade Highlander diesel AWD – $79,900 (up $5711) |
Rivals | Mazda CX-9 | Toyota Kluger | Kia Sorento |
How much space does the Hyundai Palisade have inside?
Covering nearly five metres in length and on a big wheelbase of 2900mm, the Hyundai Palisade is on the large side for a large SUV. It's also quite squared off overall, giving it quite a truck-like presence on the road.
And while I'm sure many love this for the kind of attention it gets in suburban carparks, the shape the Palisade offers is a really tangible benefit: loads of interior space.
In fact, before you consider the all-conquering Kia Carnival (the king for seating six or more, plus their gear in comfort), this Palisade would be one of your next best options for true three-row space.
Starting in the rearmost seats helps drive this point home. You'll find ample amounts of leg room and head room, with enough overall space for adults to get comfortable – provided that the second row scooches forward a little bit.
Thankfully, they have space to burn. So if they don't, they're just being jerks.
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Inclusions in the back are USB power outlets, four cupholders and air vents in the roof. Access is pretty good as well, with one-touch buttons on the second row yielding a good amount of space. There is little to complain about back there, and that often isn't the case for rearmost seats in this segment.
The second-row seats are particularly capacious, with huge volumes of leg room and head room available for occupants. General comfort and visibility are all very good as well, even if one needs to slide the seat forward a little for those in the back. There's an additional sunroof towards the rear of the roof in Highlander specification, which is always a winner with kids.
Cupholders on the door – two on each side – make you wonder why other cars don't have such a feature, and makes for a dizzying number of cup and bottle holders all up. Ten cupholders and four bottle holders, by my count. The third zone of air-conditioning has its own set of controls in the second row, and the Highlander also benefits from retractable sunblinds for the second-row windows.
Up front, the experience of the Palisade has been tastefully refreshed with this midlife update. There's a new steering wheel design, along with a new dashboard design with updated materials and an in-vogue full-length air-conditioning vent.
While both grades of Palisade proved to be quite comfortable for long and short periods inside, the Highlander benefits from nappa leather (compared to leather-appointed seats in the Elite), driver's memory function, and heating and venting for the first four occupants. It's certainly not lacking for equipment and premium touches in Highlander specification, and all comes together in a well-made and practical manner.
What's especially good is that Hyundai has built a lot of storage into the Palisade. Along with the huge number of cupholders, there's a big storage spot – nice for a handbag or small backpack – underneath the centre stack and gearshifter buttons.
The centre console is huge and is hiding an additional 12V power outlet. This new model has subbed in a few newer oval-shaped USB-C power outlets around the place, but phone mirroring is still handled by a rectangle-shaped USB-A outlet. The wireless charging pad in the lidded storage cubby has more grunt now, and the cupholders can be folded away for additional storage space.
2023 Hyundai Palisade | |
Seats | Seven or eight |
Boot volume | 311L to third row 704L to second row |
Length | 4995mm |
Width | 1975mm |
Height | 1750mm |
Wheelbase | 2900mm |
Does the Hyundai Palisade have Apple CarPlay?
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both accounted for with the 2023 Hyundai Palisade and accommodated through the new 12.3-inch infotainment display. This is shared across both Elite and Highlander specifications, wrapped in piano black and running an operating system similar to many of the latest Hyundai and Kia vehicles.
It works well, and is helped by the inclusions of native navigation, digital radio and a handful of buttons – on the screen and the dashboard – to navigate about. Three buttons, two of which are on the steering wheel, can also be assigned with custom functions, which can help with handy personal shortcuts.
The digital instrument cluster is also 12.3 inches in size, mimicking analogue gauges with a speedometer and tachometer. Different driving modes offer up a variety of different themes, and you can customise the centre information like a multifunction display. However, it doesn't go so far as to include things like maps and more immersive customisation options.
Highlander specification also adds in a good quality colour head-up display, which includes things like speed, lane positioning, traffic sign recognition and navigation instructions.
Is the Hyundai Palisade a safe car?
This is perhaps the area where the facelifted Hyundai Palisade has taken the biggest strides forward. There's new and improved technology and features, all of which have resulted in a five-star ANCAP safety score in 2022.
Before this facelift, the Palisade was only good enough for a four-star result in 2020.
What's changed? Firstly, there is a new front centre airbag located between the two front occupants and designed to minimise head-clash injuries in the event of a side impact. There's also traffic sign recognition, intersection support for the autonomous emergency braking system, low-speed reverse collision avoidance, multi-collision braking and safe exit assist.
Carryover technology like lane-keep assistance, lane-departure warning and adaptive cruise control has been reworked, and the body of the Palisade has been stiffened up a little as well.
The main bugbear for me was the traffic sign recognition, which I found to be infuriating while driving around Sydney. When you accidentally exceed the limit by a few kilometres, it's a welcome beeping. However, when it misreads or misses traffic signs completely, the beeping when you're not actually exceeding the limit annoyed me to no end.
School zones ping you regardless of the day or time, and the Palisade seems to have particular difficulty with electronic overhead traffic signs, which happen to be all the rage on Sydney motorways.
You can turn the traffic sign recognition off, but that also presents a couple of problems. You can't simply turn off the beeping, you need to lose the whole system completely to stop the noise. And once you start the car, the system defaults to being back on.
Hyundai’s new Bluelink connected service debuts on the Palisade as well, which equips the vehicle with an internet connection along with the ability for a variety of remote controls. You’ll need to download an app on your phone and register your vehicle, but then you can do things like check the vehicle location and condition, operate remote start, climate control, windows, and even seat heating and ventilation.
You can also use the surround-view cameras to take a remote snapshot of your vehicle’s surroundings, and operate the lights and horn – along with the help of augmented reality – to help locate it. All you need is phone reception at both ends.
Bluelink offers some additional functionality in the event of a crash as well. If the vehicle detects something has gone awry, it will patch a call through the hands-free system to a call centre, who can then ascertain the severity of the situation and – if need be – engage emergency services.
2023 Hyundai Palisade | |
ANCAP rating | Five stars (tested 2022) |
Safety report | Link to ANCAP report |
How much does the Hyundai Palisade cost to maintain?
While the higher consumption of the petrol Palisade will see more frequent visits to the bowser, a lower asking price and cheaper servicing costs (at least over the first five years) will help to even the ledger on true cost of ownership.
Of course, those who simply want diesel or all-wheel drive will have already made up their mind. But figure out how many kilometres per year you're going to be travelling to see which option will be cheaper, because you might be surprised.
Otherwise, pricing of the Hyundai Palisade puts it at the higher end of the large SUV segment. $79,900 plus on-road costs at its most expensive is a solid jump upwards from the pre-facelifted model, and those lower entry-point models have been removed with this facelift.
And although there is a little bit of additional equipment to help justify the jump, this Palisade sits noticeably higher than other top-spec seven-seaters like the Kia Sorento GT-Line 2.2D ($65,070), Hyundai Santa Fe Highlander 2.2D ($66,050), Toyota Kluger Grande Hybrid ($75,700) and CX-9 Azami turbo ($70,969), all before on-road costs.
This Palisade offers more space than those, especially in the third row, so it has its appeal. But you'll want to be using the third row plenty to justify the additional spend, and you'll also need to consider non-SUV options like the top-spec Carnival Platinum 2.2D ($67,580 plus on-road costs) and Staria Highlander 2.2D ($66,500 plus on-road costs).
The high asking price also pins the Palisade against the likes of a LandCruiser Prado VX ($76,348 plus on-road costs) and Everest V6 Platinum ($77,690 plus on-road costs).
An indicative insurance quote for the Palisade reveals an annual premium of $1827.82, with a $1000 excess and based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.
At a glance | 2023 Hyundai Palisade |
Warranty | Five years, unlimited km |
Service intervals | 12 months or 15,000km |
Servicing costs: 2.2 diesel | $1467 (3 years) $1956 (4 years) $2445 (5 years) |
Servicing costs: 3.8 petrol | $1197 (3 years) $1596 (4 years) $1995 (5 years) |
Is the Hyundai Palisade fuel-efficient?
On our test drive, we spent our time jumping in between combinations of Highlander, Elite, diesel and petrol specification Palisades, frequently enough to make it hard to get a good gauge on true fuel economy. However, the carryover powertrains don't seem to hide any nasty secrets in this regard.
Whereas the diesel-powered all-wheel-drive Palisade claimed to use as little as 7.3L/100km on the combined cycle, you'll use more than three litres more in the petrol Palisade (10.7L/100km). On an extended highway drive of a 3.8-litre Palisade Highlander, we saw 10.2L/100km, which compares against an extra-urban claim of 8.3L/100km. If you're going to be driving around town exclusively, you're likely to see figures somewhere north of the 14.9L/100km claim.
For more accurate reports in this regard, we will have to wait until we spend more quality time with Palisade variants in the future.
Fuel Consumption - brought to you by bp
Fuel Usage | Fuel Stats |
Fuel cons. (claimed) | 10.7L/100km |
Fuel cons. (on test) | 10.2L/100km |
Fuel type | 91-octane unleaded |
Fuel tank size | 71L |
What is the Hyundai Palisade like to drive?
While the powertrains – both petrol and diesel – are carryovers from the pre-facelifted Palisade, there are a handful of important changes in this new model that make a noticeable difference in driving demeanour.
Firstly, additional sound insulation has made things a little quieter this time around. It was never a raucous experience, and I'll admit I haven't got decibel readings to back up my claims, but this new Palisade does seem a little bit quieter against road and engine noise while driving. The 2.2-litre diesel engine in particular goes against the reputation of rattly diesels, and it's impressively muted even when working hard.
The eight-speed automatic gearbox has had a birthday as well, now sporting a host of smaller changes aimed at smoother and more efficient operation. Petrol-powered Palisades also get a new torque converter design. But having a torque converter is a good thing. It might not be the last word in terms of efficiency these days, but it's efficient enough in my opinion, and is smooth and predictable to drive.
Its suspension has also been tweaked, with new dampers that have something called 'Selective Damping Control'. This isn't an electronically controlled damper, but rather a shock absorber with additional damping channels and valves for the oil to run through. In a nutshell, it gives the Palisade a softer, more compliant ride quality, without having a negative impact on steering feel and handling.
And it works well. There is a definite improvement here, with a suppleness through rough surfaces and larger impacts (like washouts) that the previous-generation model couldn't match. And at the same time, the Palisade seems to steer and hold onto the road as well as you'll ever need it to. This is a big rig after all, and understeer can be found if you go looking for it. But why would you?
More importantly, the Palisade responds well to sharp steering inputs – like surprises or emergencies – and holds its composure pretty well for such a big bus.
The turning circle of 11.8m seems decent for a vehicle of this size as well. Overall length has grown by 15mm, but that is due to the new look adding 20mm of front overhang. It sits on the same 2900mm wheelbase, and the rear end is actually slightly shorter. This is all only millimetres, so it's unlikely you'll notice a difference in the real world.
Key details | 2023 Hyundai Palisade petrol | 2023 Hyundai Palisade diesel |
Engine | 3.8-litre V6 petrol | 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel |
Power | 217kW @ 6000rpm | 147kW @ 3800rpm |
Torque | 355Nm @ 5200rpm | 440Nm @ 1750–2750rpm |
Drive type | Front-wheel drive | All-wheel drive |
Transmission | Eight-speed torque converter automatic | Eight-speed torque converter automatic |
Weight (kerb) | 1911–1984kg | 1980–2070kg |
Spare tyre type | Full-size alloy | Full-size alloy |
Tow rating | 2200kg braked 750kg unbraked 100kg maximum ball weight | 2200kg braked 750kg unbraked 100kg maximum ball weight (180kg with Hyundai Genuine load assist kit) |
Turning circle | 11.8m | 11.8m |
Should I buy a Hyundai Palisade?
If you need to fit more than five or six large humans into a car, and you simply can't stomach the idea of a people mover, then the Hyundai Palisade should be at the top of your list. You're going to pay a bit of a premium for this larger large SUV, with smaller competitors asking for up to $10,000 less.
What helps the Palisade in this case is its high levels of equipment and technology, and a driving experience that is impressively premium in many respects. It also presents a slightly different SUV experience as well – more squared-off and imposing than other large SUVs that have swooping shapes to hide their size. This hides nothing, and the benefit of interior space is a major drawcard.
Ask yourself the hard question: do you actually need a proper seven-seater? If not, save some dollars and look at the broader large SUV range. However, if three rows of proper space and comfort are what you need, then this is the next best SUV to a people mover.