Hyundai Venue: Review, Specs & Pricing for South Africa.

In December 2019, the Hyundai Venue came on sale in South Africa. This is the first-ever compact SUV produced by Hyundai. They hope to leverage off the success of the Creta and compete in the ever-growing market of small SUVs, with models such as the VW T-Cross & Ford EcoSport. 

From the outset, the Hyundai Venue’s fun appeal is evident in the design. Sleek curves and bulky wheel arches give the Venue a very cute, but adventurous feel. The color of our test model was Fiery Red, it suited the car well and contrasted nicely with the greenery of the Durban landscape and the 16″ alloy wheels.

Hyundai Venue Price in South Africa

The pricing for the Hyundai Venue range in SA is as follows:

• Venue 1.0 Motion (manual)      R 274 900

• Venue 1.0 Motion (DCT)     R 304 900

• Venue 1.0 Fluid (manual)   R 309 900

• Venue 1.0 Fluid (DCT)             R 339 900

• Venue 1.0 Glide (DCT)             R369 900

Included in the prices are Hyundai’s 7-year / 200 000 km warranty, 7-year / 150 000 km roadside assistance, and a 3-year / 45 000 km service plan.

Hyundai Venue Interior

The interior of the Venue isn’t anything partially special. The layout is clean, simple, and focused around the 8 inch LCD screen which features Apple Carplay & Android Auto. From a personal perspective, I really enjoyed this, connectivity is more important than ever and a simple interior with a great infotainment system is a great way to go. Unlike other brands, the infotainment system is designed very well, it’s easy to understand and navigate. Less is more, except when it comes to USB ports, we all need more of those. The Venue features dual USB ports. Thank you Hyundai. 

Hyundai Venue Specifications

The Venue has three specification options, the entry-level model Motion, the middle of the range Fluid and top of the range Glide. 

The Venue Motion comes Standard with Two airbags – front passenger and driver, whilst the Fluid and Glide models have 6 airbags. Seatbelt pre-tensioners, Isofix child seat attachments, Electronic stability control, ABS, and Hill Start Assist are standard across the range.

The body colors available are Phantom Black, Star Dust, Denim Blue, Typhoon Silver and Fiery Red.  For a more sporty and quirky look, A contrasting roof is also offered with two colors – polar white with phantom black, and lava orange with phantom black.

The Venue models pack a host of tech and convenience features as mentioned further down in this article, where we compare the Hyundai Venue with the VW T-Cross. 

To get a good relation for size, the Hyundai Venue is just short of 4 meters with a length of 3.95m, a width of 1.77 and a height of 1.59m. 

Hyundai Venue Boot Space

As the Venue is a compact vehicle, space won’t be as generous as a typical SUV.  The Venue offers a solid 350l of boot space, which should be good to fit most essentials, a pram or even a couple of suitcases. The Venue’s boot space is on par with the Ford EcoSport, but slightly lacking the 380l offered by the VW T-Cross – which features a sliding rear bench seat to increase boot space to over 450l.

VW T-Cross v Hyundai Venue

A close competitor to the Venue in this segment is the well-received Volkswagen T-Cross. The T-Cross comes in at a higher pricing bracket, with the starting price of the base model, the 1.0 TSI 85kW Comfortline DSG®,  coming in at R334 600 compared to R 274 900 for the base Hyundai Venue. As we go through the model range, pricing becomes closer, with the T-Cross Highline starting at R365 000, and Hyundai Venue 1.0 Glide with DCT gearbox coming in at R 369 900. 

Both the T-Cross Highline & Venue Glide offer a decent range of standard options. Comfort Sports Seats, Inductive Wireless Mobile Charging, Driving Profile Selection, Climatronic Aircon, LED Headlights, Composition Media with App-Connect and 18-inch ‘Cologne‘ alloy wheels are the included features on the T-Cross Highline, above and beyond other standard features such as leather multi-function steering wheel with multi-function display, Park Distance Control (front and rear), cruise control, LED daytime running lights and Rest Assist. 

 The Venue offers comforts such as glovebox cooling, rear air condition ventilation ducts, automatic cruise control with buttons on the leather-wrapped steering wheel,  16-inch alloy wheels, 8-inch Display Audio touchscreen system, and rearview camera, with options such as premium LED headlights.

There is a strong argument that the VW T-Cross is the more premium vehicle of the two, one way this is proven by the wider range of options available such as the Active Info Display – a digital cockpit that replaces the analog dials and is unique to this type of vehicle. 

Both the T-Cross and the Venue are powered by 1.0 turbo-charged, 3 cylinder petrol engines, a setup becoming very common to smaller vehicles.  The T-Cross produces 85kW and 200Nm of torque, while the Venue produces 88kW and 172 Nm of Torque. In smaller cars like this, Torque is probably the more important figure as this is the cars “ pulling power” and makes a big difference when overtaking and pulling off from a standstill.

From a driving perspective, both cars drive very well and are pretty nippy. The engines put out good all-round performance and it’s pretty hard to tear them apart from a performance point of view. The Venue was a pleasure on my usual pre-lockdown routine which normally compromised of both town and highway driving, tight parking at the coffee shop and a good amount of music while sitting at a standstill.

I was always comfortable and would be happy to run the Venue for my morning commute every day.

The T-Cross comes standard with a 3 year/120 000km warranty, a 3 year/ 45 000km Volkswagen Service Plan and a 12-year anti-corrosion warranty. This is sub-par when compared with the  7-year / 200 000 km warranty, 7-year / 150 000 km roadside assistance that Hyundai offers with the Venue. 

Hyundai Venue Ground Clearance

We know many of you are interested in the ground clearance of small SUV’s such as the Venue, as it gives a good idea of how much exploring the vehicle can handle. The ground clearance of the Hyundai Venue is 195mm, which is plenty enough to handle dirt roads and mild off-road tracks with ease. The ground clearance of the Venue is more than the Hyundai Creta, which offers 190mm and the VW T-Cross which offers 180mm. 

DCT & Manual Gearbox

The Venue can be specced with either a manual gearbox, which our test vehicle featured, or a double-clutch automatic gearbox. The automatic gearbox is inherently more expensive, but if you’re planning on spending longer trips and commutes in the Venue, it may be worth the additional cost to improve driving comfort.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the Hyundai Venue offers a great all-round package for those looking for a compact SUV in South Africa. The Venue looks really cool, has a good amount of tech and comes in at a good price point – with a fantastic warranty and service plan. If you’re not too worried about the premium feel, the Hyundai Venue may be much better suited to you than competitor models.

Spec yours here