The 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe still remained unchanged, for the most part, from some of the earlier model years, even when it came to its towing capacity. These vehicles were still able to achieve an impressive 3,500 pound maximum rating, if your vehicle was equipped with the right options and if your trailer was equipped with its own brakes.
That sounds fantastic, but I do want you to be aware of the fact that if your trailer and vehicle did not have these options or accessories equipped, then the maximum capacity that you were able to haul was less than half of that maximum rating! Let's find out what you need in order to get the most out of your SUV!
I highly recommend that you read through your owner's manual for your Santa Fe in order to get familiar with your vehicle and I also recommend that you follow all of Hyundai's recommendations.
Overall Capacity: The overall towing capacity for the 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe range from 1,653-3,500 pounds and varied depending on three different options.
The engine you had a quick dinner vehicle was probably the main determining factor that affected the capacity range and then the other two variables that had a less significant impact on the numbers where whether you had a trailer package equipped on your vehicle and whether the trailer you were using was equipped with its own brakes.
The Chart:
The chart for the 2010 Santa Fe was simple enough, but there were a few data points that I wanted to go over to make sure everything is clear to anyone looking at this chart. We can see that there are two different engine options on the right of the chart and these were the 2.4 L engine and the larger 3.5 L engine.
At the bottom of the chart, we have the maximum tongue load weight ratings which are referred to as the static vertical load in this chart, but is referring to the same thing.
In the middle of the chart, we can see brake systems, which are referring to your trailer not your vehicle and then we see with and without trailer packages, which was offered for these vehicles but was hard to find out any information on the specifics of these packages, so I did not write a separate section for that, as of yet.
Let's Compare The Data!
By Trim Level: There were still three different trim levels available for the Santa Fe, like the earlier model years, but the data is a little bit different. All I did to get these ranges was to take the available engines that were offered for each of the three trim levels and relayed that data to get the specific ranges I have listed below.
- GLS: 1,653-2,800 lbs.
- SE: 1,653-3,500 lbs.
- Limited: 1,653-3,500 lbs.
By Engine Options: I also wanted to compare the two different engines side-by-side to see how different they really were, in terms of overall capacity ratings and to my surprise, the larger 3.5 L engine only had an additional 700 lb capacity over the smaller 2.4 L engine. Both engines had the same low-end rating because this was the unbraked trailer rating, which both engines share.
- 2.4L (4 cylinder): 1,653-2,800 lbs.
- 3.5L (V6): 1,653-3,500 lbs.
Additional Valuable Information...
There was additional information that I was able to find that pertains to towing with these vehicles, then I think you should also be aware of.
Even though it wasn't a whole lot of information, there was a small excerpt about trailer brakes and how if you are using trailer brakes on your trailer they will need to comply with Federal and local laws and of course, they will have to be installed correctly. The only other information we have on trailer brakes is what we see in the chart, which is that 1,653 pound unbraked trailer weight rating.
I was also able to find the tongue load weight rating recommendation, which was set at 10% of the trailer's weight. We saw the maximum tongue load weight ratings in the chart, which was also set at 10% of the maximum trailer weight ratings for each engine, but this also applies to lighter loads as well.
Here Are A Few Useful Links:
I didn't need to use a whole lot of resources when performing the research for this article, in fact, I only used two resources for all of the information you see in this post. I went ahead and linked to these two resources below for anyone out there that wants to check those out and dive a little deeper into the data.