Acceptable production to delivery time period?

Hi guys. Took delivery of my shiny new Sonata 3.3L today.

Looked under the hood, and the aluminium engine was covered with white corrosion spots. So I'm thinking, how old is this car.

Bearing in mind I took delivery on the 1st Sept, the car was produced 15th FEB. BTW, there is a different plating system in the UK to the US, for example. The plate that shows the VIN is on the engine bulkhead and does not show a date. As far as I am aware, and from what I can see, there is no production date anywhere on the car. I got the date by asking the dealer. I would have checked the date before paying if it was easy like the US system, but because you have to ask here, I though I would try and make the buying experience as painless as possible and not ask, that is, trust Hyundai to treat their customers right. I'm telling the dealer that 6 1/2 months from production to delivery is unacceptable, especially looking at the corrosion on the engine. He is now going contact Hyundai and ask them to change the car for a more recent build. But he was arguing the case that 6 1/2 months was ok, so he is hardly on my side. Would anyone agree? What would you say would be a satisfactory time period?

nn

Reply to
NickNike
Loading thread data ...

Did you order the car and have to wait 6.5 months for it? I would consider that excessive, yes. If you just picked a car up from the dealer, then you have no beef as long as it is the correct model year. And the engine will corrode on the surface whether the car is in transit to you or in your possession so you are making much ado about nothing, in my opinion.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

I ordered the car on 1st August and took delivery 1st September. The car was produced Feb 18. We don't have 'model years' here in particular. The model came out Sept 2005 and is the current model here. Over 6 months old is excessive hear. I have purchased 7 new cars in total and all the rest did not show signs of corrosion, mostly I suspect because they took about 6 - 8 weeks to come through. I suppose I am mainly miffed at the corrosion. It just does not look new under the bonnet (hood). And that has occurred because of the storage time. I take it from your comments you are from the US. I understand that you purchase previous model years and so yes, the car would have been around a while, but you get big discounts. I did not get big discounts as it is sold as the latest and new.

nick

Reply to
NickNike

Join the club. In New Zealand my "three month" old Sonata 3.3 Elite was actually a year old all ready. Delivered in March-06 - manufactured in June-05? Is anyone in the Hyundai food chain in this country interested? Nope - they reckon this is normal. I call it a rip-off. How anyone by any stretch of imagination can market the vehicle (which has carried serious defects since delivery) as a 2006 model is beyond me. Nine months of sitting in a yard - woo hoo! Really good for the car. Or perhaps it has been dumped here from another market where their sales are crap?

Do Hyundai care? No. Anyone speak Korean?

Definitely the only and last time I will have anything to do with the brand.

Piri

NickNike wrote:

Reply to
wiremu.pareiha

Mine was built March 29, 2006 and I took delivery from the dealer lot on June 16. Not bad at all from what I read here.

FWIW, I took a tour of the HMMA assembly plant last week. Their gigantic back parking lot (and acres of unpaved grass and fields and every other nook and cranny) was absolutely jammed with finished Sonatas and Santa Fe cars waiting for transport.

I don't mean a LOT of cars. I mean a couple miles of them, nose to tail. Maybe 50,000 cars.

No way for me to know if this is normal practice or not -or whether it applies to the Pusan Sonata plant or the one in Europe- but if Hyundai is OK with this sort of backlog, it might explain why some of the cars seem to sit in limbo.

The disturbing thing was seeing them parked in dirt and grass and mud getting filthy. OK, so they can be cleaned but it just looked depressing.

They need to sell these things, not let them sit.

On the other hand, it was nice to see the HMMA employee parking lot was also populated by a good percentage of of personal-use Sonatas. Maybe the workers get a cheap deal, who knows -but they are driving them. Lots of them. If auto assembly plant workers won't drive the car they make, there's something wrong. For example, almost nobody at the Ford Taurus plant drives the car they make.

They also had at least two Equus sedans on site. blech. Boxy worked for Volvo.

Reply to
PMDR

Yes, we have model years that must be listed on the title to the vehicle. When you sell a car, how does the buyer know how old the car is if you don't assign model years to your cars? Is the manufacturing date listed on your title or whatever proof of ownership document you use? Yes, I'm from the US. Here the date of manufacture isn't relevant to vehicle value, it is the model year assigned by the manufacturer.

What part of the engine is corroded. On my Sonata, I can barely see the engine under the plastic cover and other stuff packed around it.

I ask again, what about the corrosion bothers you? If the car had been delivered the day aafter you ordered it, it would still have the same corrosion, and possibly more, after you had owned it for 7 months, so what is the difference?

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

The registration (plate) number. This year there is 06 and 56 on the plate, and that means March-Sept (06) and Sept-March (56) This only shows when the car was first registered, not when it was built. This is the usual UK c*ck-up on how to do things. On UK madels the production date cannot be found on the car. Big error.

Do you have the 3.3L? You can see around the sides of the cover quite easily. Look at,

formatting link

When you use a car on a daily basis, any engine, exhaust, etc. corrosion tends to be burnt off by the heat. Corrosion tends to have quite a long time factor (on aluminium). Sure, the engine looks corroded and tatty eventually, but tends to take years. My point is that I bought a new car and it should look new. Also, the whole car has been subjected to this corrosive environment. Something else that has come to light is that certain features are missing that should have been on a Sept 2006 car, presumably cause of the car's age.

nick

Reply to
NickNike

No, I have the I4. The corrosion in your picture looks pretty trivial to me and the engine isn't exactly a cosmetic feature of this car anyway. I think you are making much ado about nothing, but good luck with your challenge to Hyundai.

Corrosion doesn't burn off, at least not at any normal temperature that an engine reaches. The moisture that causes corrosion will evaporate, but once metal corrodes, you won't burn it off.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

I feel obliged to answer your comment. I cannot agree with the use of your word 'trivial'. That level of corrosion is what you see on an old car, not a brand new one. The corrosion is also indicative of the harsh environment the whole vehicle has been stored in. nick

Reply to
NickNike

Almost every new vehicle I look at on the lot has surface rust/corrosion on the suspension components and some engine components. Many such parts aren't treated to prevent corrosion as the treatment wouldn't last and it makes no real difference in serviceability anyway. Untreated aluminum and steel start to rust/corrode the instant after they are formed. This simply isn't a defect in a car.

Sure, cars are often stored in harsh environments and transported in even harsher environments. Many cars cross the ocean on ships. Ships are exposed to salty air. Many are shipped on rail cars and exposed to rain, industrial pollution, snow, etc. Same when they are transported on trucks. Then again, they are driven in harsh environments in most cases by their owners so why worry about it?

I'll say one thing, I envy you to have so little else to worry about in life that you worry about things like this that make no difference in the scheme of things. Unfortunately, I have far bigger things to worry about like how to pay for my kids' college... :-( A little corrosion on a part of my car that nobody but me even sees just doesn't even rank mindshare.

Matt

Reply to
Matt Whiting

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.