2024 Hyundai Palisade Review: Still the Champ
The verdict: Comfortable, posh and loaded with features, the 2024 Hyundai Palisade three-row SUV provides a premium family-hauling experience at a value price.
Versus the competition: It’s not the freshest offering, but it’s still one of the best. While rival SUVs have bigger interiors, better handling, quieter rides and more useable third-row seats, the Palisade puts in a solid performance in all these categories — and it beats all comers on sheer value.
We’ve made no secret about how much we like the Hyundai Palisade. It won our Best of 2020 award, and it’s consistently been one of our highest-ranked family vehicles ever since. Every time we get into one, we’re amazed at just how far Hyundai has come as a company, with products that lead the industry in so many ways.
The Palisade got some updated tech and a styling refresh inside and out for the 2023 model year, and it continues the trend of each new Hyundai being better than the one it replaced. Almost every aspect of the Palisade has seen some improvement, maintaining the big SUV’s status as one of our favorite vehicles for drivers who need to carry a lot of people, but who absolutely refuse to be seen doing so in a minivan.
Related: 2024 3-Row SUV Challenge: Repeat Champ Hyundai Palisade Proves Hard to Beat
Sharper Styling
The old Palisade pleased us with its modern looks and attractive styling, and the new one looks even better. Changes to the light patterns up front continue to give it a distinctive look; there’s no mistaking what this is from a distance, whether you’re looking from the front or the rear. While some entries in Hyundai’s lineup are starting to go boxy (check out the redesigned 2024 Santa Fe — wow, eh?), the larger Palisade keeps its smoother aesthetic, which Hyundai says it’s likely to do for some time. Given its heft and body lines, from the side you could even be convinced it was a Chevrolet Tahoe, despite the fact that it’s a bit smaller than that body-on-frame, truck-based SUV. But this isn’t a truck-based SUV; the Palisade uses a front-wheel-drive chassis with optional all-wheel drive, as do most three-row SUVs these days.
If you’re interested in going all out on the trim and options list, you can get a Palisade as decked out as our test model: a new Calligraphy Night Edition. Calligraphy is the Palisade’s top trim and comes with plenty of premium features and luxurious upholstery, while the Night Edition moniker tells you this one also has a black-out trim package. In short, it’s loaded with everything you can get on a Palisade, but with dark-chrome finishes on the bumpers and grille, body-colored door handles, and dark-painted 20-inch wheels and roof rails. There are some changes to the interior, as well, including the regular Calligraphy trim’s leather upholstery being swapped out for premium microfiber fabric — an interesting choice you don’t often see on a premium-trim vehicle.
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Interior Upgrades
Pop into the driver’s seat of one of the Palisade’s higher trim levels and you’ll be greeted by a digital dashboard. Front and center is a 12.3-inch digital display with reconfigurable gauges that can change appearance based on what drive mode you’re in or can be manually changed to suit whichever theme you prefer. To the right of that is a standard 12.3-inch touchscreen that runs Hyundai’s newer multimedia system, which remains one of the easiest to use and best-organized systems on the market. It includes plenty of icons, but nothing is hard to find. There are lots of menus and configuration adjustments, too, but none are difficult to figure out, even on the go. Its only foible has been a problem for some time now, and we’re still confounded by it: Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are not available, meaning you have to plug in your phone to use these features. Lesser multimedia systems on other Hyundais have wireless connectivity, as do the larger screens in recently updated models like the 2025 Tucson and Santa Fe, but the Palisade’s 12.3-inch touchscreen system apparently can’t accommodate it — and Hyundai can’t be bothered to spend the money to make a design change to enable it. It’s a weird, glaring omission.
Comfort is king in the Palisade. Front-seat comfort is truly exceptional — unless you’re a driver who likes to spread your legs a bit, in which case you might find it a bit cramped due to the shape of the door pulls and the very wide center console. The dash is also high; if you’re looking for a more airy feeling, the dashboard in the related Kia Telluride has all the same content and equipment, but is a few inches lower. The Telluride also has a narrower center console and door, leading to a more spacious feel in the front seats.
The Palisade’s seats themselves, however, are lovely, as are the second-row captain’s chairs that come in the Calligraphy Night Edition. They’re power-folding and can tilt and slide forward to allow access to the third row. Space in that third row is decent for adult humans on short trips, but it’s best-suited for younglings. That third row is also powered on most trims, and — amping up the features-for-the-money quotient — all three rows can have three-mode heating. Everything is covered in premium fabric, which might not be best for families, but if your kids are a bit older and spills aren’t a concern, it shouldn’t be a problem.
What’s truly nice about the Palisade’s center console is that there’s a ton of storage room, and the console’s reconfigurable cupholders-or-big-bin system is novel and useful. Of course, to allow for that kind of space, Hyundai has fitted the Palisade with a push-button transmission selector. While we love having buttons instead of touch-sensitive controls in any interior (they’re far less distracting and easier to use), push-button transmission selectors are still difficult to use quickly. The Palisade’s Kia Telluride cousin has a transmission shift lever, and while that setup is infinitely preferable, it does mean the Kia doesn’t have a massive center console bin like the Palisade’s.
Calm, Cool and Collected, if a Bit Cranky
Driving the new Palisade isn’t all that different from driving the old one, as everything under the skin carries over unchanged. It’s powered by a naturally aspirated 3.8-liter V-6 engine at a time when some automakers are moving to turbocharged four-cylinders (like in the Volkswagen Atlas) and even hybrid drive systems (like in Toyota’s Grand Highlander). The Palisade’s V-6 produces 291 horsepower and 262 pounds-feet of torque, which is adequate to get this big SUV moving, but it doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot of low-rpm power. An eight-speed automatic transmission sends power to all four wheels in the Calligraphy Night Edition, though FWD is standard on the regular Calligraphy trim. It’s not the quietest engine under full chat, but the noise isn’t intrusive. In a word, it’s fine. Nobody will be wowed by the Palisade’s acceleration, but neither will this SUV embarrass itself trying to accelerate onto a highway with a full passenger load.
Ride quality in the Palisade is acceptable, but not what anyone would call posh due to the big, available 20-inch wheels with low-profile tires. Road noise is also rather pronounced due to those tires, but despite their size and stickiness the Palisade’s handling properties match its engine performance — it’s fine. It’s not athletic, and steering is rather numb, but for family duty and around-town transport, it’s absolutely adequate. Brakes, however, are a high point, with strong initial bite and excellent feel and modulation; they’re capable of hauling this big SUV down from highway speeds with no drama or sketchiness. The Palisade simply feels like a big family wagon; nobody is going to drive one spiritedly, so it hasn’t been tuned to provide spirited driving characteristics. If you want a higher dose of sport in your three-row SUV, you’ll want to wander over to a Volkswagen showroom and have a look at the Atlas, which quite handily fills the role of “the sporty one” in the three-row crossover class. If you’re just looking for comfortable, well-equipped and spacious accommodations in a vehicle that will do what’s asked of it without drama or sparkle, the Palisade is a totally fine choice.
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Wide Variety of Prices
Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the Palisade is the wide variety of trims and prices you’ll find at the showroom. Pricing starts out just a tick over $38,000 (all prices include destination) for the base Palisade SE FWD, which is an incredible bargain for a vehicle this big and well equipped. That 12.3-inch touchscreen is standard on all trims, as is the 3.8-liter V-6 (it’s the only engine available), and even adding AWD for $2,000 means this vehicle will sticker at just about $40K.
Hyundai likes to organize options into trim levels, and the Palisade has six trims to choose from, each with increasing levels of content. Above the SE is the SEL, then the off-road styled (but not off-road capable) XRT, then Limited, Calligraphy and the Calligraphy Night Edition. The total as-tested price for our Calligraphy Night Edition (which had only two options: floormats and Hyper White paint) was $55,600. That’s as loaded-to-the-gills as the Palisade can get, so selecting a lower trim means you can quite easily get a truly well-equipped Palisade for well under the average price of a new car in the U.S. (which is around $48,000). That makes it an even better choice for families eschewing minivans who still need something solid, spacious and affordable. The newest Palisade truly excels in only a handful of areas, but it’s so solidly competent in so many areas that, in the end, it all adds up to be an outstanding choice.
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