2023 Hyundai Palisade First Look – Next Perfect Execution For Modern SUV

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2023 Hyundai Palisade – When it first came out for the 2020 model year was one of our favorite three-row SUVs, along with its corporate sibling, the Kia Telluride. Both of those SUVs get updates for the 2023 model year.

2023 Hyundai Palisade

2023 Hyundai Palisade

What You Have to Get From 2023 Hyundai Palisade

Exterior

We have this new Grille. It’s like this big sort of Shield Grill. It’s a little bit larger than last year’s model. The bumper is slightly different as well, and we do have some updated LED headlights. I don’t think it’s a huge change, but I don’t think they needed to do all that much because the 2023 Hyundai Palisade was already a charming, luxurious-looking vehicle.

now; you can see we have the calligraphy model. This is the most luxurious version of the Palisade. Still, if you get other trims of the Palisade, you can get a black grill which I prefer to this blingy chrome one. We’ve got this nice maroon color, and I believe that’s new for 2023. There’s also this gorgeous emerald green that is by far my favorite color. I think that is the one you should get

if you are getting a barrier; we have some nice uh Wheels here, very luxurious looking on this calligraphy trim. You can get some black wheels as well, although I do set say, and I will say this later in the review, I think that the limited trim and the SEL Premium trim, they get these cool wheels that kind of look like a ninja throwing stars

I prefer them to the wheels that we see here on this top calligraphy trim. Here on the side, we don’t have too much of a change from last year’s Palisade; they say that they’ve increased the front overhang by about 0.6 of an inch, and they’ve increased the rear by about 0.1 of an inch.

I don’t see it. It looks mostly the same on the side profile and in the back. We have some updated LED tail lights, but I think they look pretty similar. We have this chrome finish on this calligraphy model with dual exhaust, but it is only on one side. It’s a little crooked, but it’s not that big of a deal. This isn’t like a performance SUV or anything like that.

front wheel drive is going to be your standard on the 2023 Hyundai Palisade, or you can get H track all-wheel drive on All trim levels now; I’m going to go ahead and show you the storage space, which is generally excellent here on the Palisade. You can see that we have enough for a few small bags here behind the third row.

so I’m going to go ahead and take these out to show you the room we have here, and then we also have power-folding third-row seats here on the 2023 Hyundai Palisade. You do not get these on this car’s corporate sibling, the Telluride. We have some controls for that here, so if I just tap these buttons, you’re going to see that the headrests are going to drop down, and the seats are going to fold; not the quickest uh third row folding that I’ve seen, but it is rather impressive that you can get a power third row on a vehicle of this price.

Interior

this is under fifty thousand dollars to start. Let me just say that now the second-row seats, you can fold them here from the trunk, but they are not full power. They are just going to do a mechanical drop down, so you can’t lift them back up via power which is fine. I don’t think that’s such a big deal.

I can go ahead and show you the C first. I’ll talk just a little bit. We do have some underfloor steerage here that is quite deep. You could get some lovely bags in there as well. we’ve got our Harman Kardon audio system back here. We have like a speaker back here. The Harman Kardon system. is fantastic as I put my items back in, and we’ll go ahead and close the power tailgate, which is standard on most trims. I think everything SEL and above will have that, which is excellent.

2023 Hyundai Palisade Interior

2023 Hyundai Palisade Interior

so you can see we have our Captain’s chairs back here. You can also get the 2023 Hyundai Palisade as an eight-seater as well now these seats, before I show you the second row are very easy to get into the third row we have these cool Power release buttons you have one up here, so it’s easy for the person in the third row to click them and then you have a duplicate one right there. As you can see, it will slide the seat all the way forward, which is very convenient, giving us excellent access into this third row, where we have many features.

we’ve got two cup holders on this side and two more on this side. These are heated third-row seats, a new feature for 2023 that is amazing. Very few three-row SUVs have heated seats in all three rows, but the 2023 Hyundai Palisade does for under fifty thousand dollars, that are an incredible feature. I can also adjust the lean on these C feet here on this control.

so you can see the seat goes forward and backward for a little more comfort. That is quite nice as well. I’ve got a USB-C on this side and another one on that side, so all of your kids can charge up all their devices with no problems at all.

and we have an amicable split sunroof here so this shade does close if the kids don’t want any more sun, and then you as a parent get your own up there, so great features here on this car. I have plenty of leg room as well in the third row. It’s not as large as something like a Tahoe or a Suburban, but it is not bad back here whatsoever, and with the captain’s chairs, I have enough room to put one of my legs in the middle there

I’m going to go ahead and push that button we’re going to slide that forward so that we can check out the second row here we’ll hop right out um in the second row we have our sun shades which are a nice feature I think the kids will like that we’ve got our cup holders here on the door which is a little bit weird

Where else would you have put them besides maybe the center console there? So let me go ahead and sit in here because I’m going to have to slide this seat back, so we have sliding seats here I can slide them forward and backward. I also have a recline lever there as well. These seats are pretty comfortable. We do have some nice armrests on them.

we have some excellent storage here with these nice elastic straps as well. We’ve got heated and ventilated seats in the second row. You do not even get these on a BMW X7, and that is a vehicle that can approach a hundred thousand dollars, so it’s incredible to me that you can get heated and ventilated seats on this car besides the Telluride; nothing in that in this segment has that

we also have the 12 volts we have our AC outlet here; we have USB-c on the back of the front seat rests again, like I said, just a million places to plug in your devices. This is an excellent backseat. Your kids will love it back here but now let’s talk about you, the parent, because you’re the one buying the car, so you have to like the front seat, and the front seat is excellent.

we’ve got Napoli other here in this calligraphy model with this nice stitching perforation. We have a little piping, some excellent thick stitching, everything you’d want from a luxury seat. This also now has a massage function. They call it the Ergo see it’s similar to what you’ll get in a Genesis vehicle a massage sheet is unheard of in this segment it’s crazy that Hyundai has been able to offer this for under fifty thousand dollars.

we’ve got push buttons start on pretty much all 2023 Hyundai Palisade here. We’ve got lovely displays here as well. This is something that even Kia does not do on the Telluride. We’ve got a digital cluster here that changes with the different Drive modes, so you can see we have some different uh gauge modes as well we also have Hyundai’s excellent blind view monitor, so when you put on the turn signals, you get cameras that show you what is in your blind spot I love that feature.

we’ve got an updated head-up display with slightly better graphics for this model year we have a 12-inch navigation screen this works great just like it did on the previous generation 2023 Hyundai Palisade the only thing that’s a little bit annoying is there’s no Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto you do have to plug in for both of those which is fine, but it is a little bit weird that Hyundai hasn’t figured out how to get that on their larger screens only their smaller screens have that for some reason we’ve got a digital rearview camera that is an excellent addition for 2023.

so if you have like kids in the third row that would kind of be blocking your vision you can just go ahead and put it in really lovely camera mode I like this whole center console design we’ve got kind of like a touch screen, uh to control the fan, but we do have physical dials to control the temperature.

We’ve also got plenty of physical home buttons to control this touch screen, so you don’t always have to touch it again lots of physical buttons are great for heated and ventilated seats up front and a heated steering wheel. This is going to be your drive mode selector you’ve got Comfort sport bright is going to kind of alternate between those two as it needs to eco mode, and then we have a snow mode, and you do have a differential lock it’s not really like a mechanical differential lock it’s just basically to lock it into all-wheel drive.

if you’re doing anything sort of off-roading like I said the 2023 Hyundai Palisade materials are excellent on the seats we also have this incredible, um sort of lined veneer very luxurious looking on this 2023 Hyundai Palisade it depends on the trim as to what you get you also have this nice silver finish here on the doors that are pretty nice as well I’m very impressed with all the materials here.

we have a digital shift button set up here not too hard to use push P for Park reverse you’re going to get your excellent 360-degree view camera push D for a drive I’m gonna go ahead and put it back into P we’ve got a nice storage area here you can take your Waters out and these cup holders like twist away.

2023 Hyundai Palisade Passenger

2023 Hyundai Palisade Passenger

so if you want just to have open storage and then if you do have a cup back there, you can push this button, it’ll twist in. Now you have a cup holder, you do have a Qi wireless charger in there as well as more storage with more plugs uh in there as well so again like I said, a million places to charge your devices in this car.

let me go ahead and make sure it’s in the park again, and additional storage if what’s in there is not quite enough; you have some lower storage down here as well, so you could put like a little snack bag or something like that in there as well, and I do want to mention some other uh small changes here on the inside of the 2023 Hyundai Palisade we have acoustic laminated rear door glass on the calligraphy model only that is a new addition we have an ultrasonic rear occupant alert.

so it’s an ultrasonic sensor up here, I believe. Suppose you have like a child in the back seat of the car. In that case, it will use ultra Sonic sensors to alert you as you get out of the vehicle to make sure that you don’t leave your kid in the back, which is quite lovely we have a digital key you can now use your iPhone or Android device it was previously Android only to unlock the car you do not need to have the physical key fob you do have Smart Park which is the feature where you can bring this car forward and backward just using the key fob into your garage that is I believe calligraphy only

we have a Wi-Fi hotspot on this touch screen now that is new for 2023. This is the first Hyundai to get that we have USBC ports um I showed you those in the back. Those are new. Those will charge up your kid’s devices a little bit better, and that is pretty much it we have a new steering wheel design.

This is similar to what we have on the Sonata, so this is new for 2023 Hyundai Palisade, and the driver assists are excellent. We’ve got Highway Drive Assist Lane to keep assist adaptive cruise control, all of that pretty much standard a few of the things I showed you like the gauge cluster cameras, are optional, but Hyundai packs a ton of safety into the Palisade first for as standard, so this was a lovely SUV on the inside before and they’ve only made it better for 2023.

2023 Hyundai Palisade Specification

now let’s get it on the road to see how it drives all right, so now let’s get the 2023 Hyundai Palisade out on the road where I’m not expecting this to be too different than last year’s Palisade because of all the changes they’ve made are mostly content and styling based but that is not a bad thing because the Palisade was already an excellent vehicle to drive. It still is, so we have a carryover Powertrain 3.8-liter V6 engine producing 291 horsepower and 262 pound-feet of torque with an 8-speed automatic.

you can get that with front-wheel drive, or we are driving a barrier with the optional all-wheel drive. You can tow 5000 pounds. There is a new Towing mode for 2023, so if you have a little boat or something that you want to bring with you on your family road trip, it will be a little bit easier to do that now, so again like I said, not too many changes here, I was kind of like in the back of my mind hoping that Hyundai might give us a hybrid version of the Palisade because I think that is the one area where this thing could just do so much better, and that is in fuel economy.

We are just doing okay as it sits right now with this V6 engine, not any worse than the other V6 engines we have in the segment. Still, a hybrid, I think, would just put it over the top, or maybe I would like to see that two-and-a-half liter turbo engine that they already use on the Santa Fe, but I’m not sure that that eight-speed dual-clutch transmission could handle the towing that.

I think they want a 2023 Hyundai Palisade customer to be able to do with this vehicle now. The ride is fantastic. We’re going over some speed bumps, and I can barely feel them. It is not disturbing the ride too much. The steering is incredibly accurate, both this and its corporate sibling.

The Sibling, the Kia Telluride, has phenomenal steering. honestly, I think that BMW could learn a little from how Hyundai and Kia tuned these SUVs because you would be surprised that although they are designed for a family audience, they are pretty entertaining to drive. We have some Drive modes, although I don’t feel like most Palisade owners will play with those all that much except for maybe that new Towing mode.

I feel like maybe they will use that, but we do have a peaceful cabin in here, making this an excellent vehicle to take on a road trip. I’ve already shown you all of the new features that the kids will love in this car, and I think the parents will enjoy it from the driver’s seat as well. We are taking some tight roads here, and you know, in an SUV this size or even a minivan, you would typically feel like the SUV is flopping all over the place.

2023 Hyundai Palisade Change

2023 Hyundai Palisade Change

I don’t have any idea what the steering is up to, but in this, I feel complete and utter confidence in the steering. I have complete confidence in the chassis as well, just overall very impressed with how the Palisade drives as always, I would have liked to have seen some more powertrain options, but maybe Hyundai is holding off a little bit until their ionic seven comes out that is going to be the same size as the 2023 Hyundai Palisade but all electric we’ve already seen a preview a concept version of what that is going to look like.

How much is the 2023 Hyundai Palisade Price?

so when that comes out, I think that will be an exhilarating vehicle indeed, but as it sits, the updates they’ve made to this 2023 Hyundai Palisade keep it fresh. This was already one of the best midsize three-year-old SUVs you can buy. The 2023 improvements are significant it still is a fantastic SUV to drive.

I recommend this be at the top of your shopping list if you’re looking for a three-row crossover; the 2023 Hyundai Palisade pricing for the base SE model starts at just under $35.000. You still get a well-equipped vehicle if you want more luxury features like leatherette seating and heated seats for just under 38.000 dollars for the SEL.

I think that is a ton of value for under forty thousand dollars. The new sporty xrt trim level is just over 40 Grand, and The Limited, where you really start to get all the luxury features, is forty-six thousand five hundred dollars saving you a little over two thousand dollars versus this fully loaded 2023 Hyundai Palisade calligraphy model.

See also  2020 Genesis G80 Sport


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