2000 Sonata steering/AC drive belt problems

Hi

2000 Sonata, automatic, 4-door, 4 cylinder, 101,000 kms on odometer

In Nov 05 I had an incident where I lost power steering due to a drive belt that frayed and came off. It was replaced and then it happened again a few days later. The tech told me he'd need to replace one of the pulleys which he did.

The other day I took the car in for service. One of the things I asked them to look into was a mild squealing sound under the hood when the car is started cold. He re-tensioned the drive belt and the squeal went away. But 150 kilometres later the drive belt came off again and once again I lost my power steering. Now they're telling me that the other pulley is the problem and it may need to be replaced.

Does it sound like they know what they're doing, or am I being taken to the cleaners?

Is this a common problem on 2000 Sonatas? I've never had anything like this happen on any other car I've owned in my 35 years of driving.

Reply to
Joey Goldstein
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I saw this once on a four cylinder. I don't recall the year, but it had the same engine as yours (if you have the four cylinder). The car had been wrecked and I suspect something was bent on the engine.

I replaced the bracket holding the tensioner pulley and it better aligned the pulleys, but it still wasn't as good as I would have liked. In any event, it was good enough to keep the belt from coming off again.

Reply to
hyundaitech

Thanks hyudaitech.

This time they didn't replace the pulley. They said they just needed to clean some of the rust off of it. But if I lose my power steering again due to the drive belt falling off or fraying, while I'm the owner of this car, I'm gonna be pissed.

Here's something else I want to bounce off of you...

I had a "Check Engine" light thing happening on the dash a few months ago and I took it into this same shop. They told me that they couldn't find anything wrong and that I should go to a Hyundai service centre instead. I did that, but either the warning light went off by itself or the guys in the other service centre had turned it off, and the Hyundai service centre said that they couldn't check anything unless the light was on.

So, last week the light came back on. I took it to the non-Hyundai service centre again. This time they said that their computer was giving them a code but that the number for this code didn't match up to anything in their software. They say they spent hours trying to find info about this code and attempting to trouble-shoot other things in the engine. Anyway...They say they figured it out and that it had something to do with the fuel mixture. They changed the fuel filter (and may have done a few other things too) and they think it's OK now.

The code number was 0171. Do you know anything about this code number?

Reply to
Joey Goldstein

P0171 is a valid code and means that the computer must inject more fuel to keep the proper mixture than it thinks should be required.

Check for vacuum leaks, especially at the PCV hose. Check the air bellows between the air flow sensor and the throttle body. Make sure it's securely attached on both ends and that there are no breaks in it. If all that is okay, the problem is probably with the air flow sensor.

As for not being able to do anything if the check engine lamp is off, that's mostly bs. If the code is there, the shop should be able to tell determine what sort of issue is occurring, even if they cannot pinpoint the cause. Of course, if the other repair facility turned off the light, this means that they erased the code, too.

I'm not particularly impressed with either shop. The first shop should have been able to easily find information on the P0171 code. Furthermore, replacing the fuel filter is likely to have minimal effect. The dealer should have at least been willing to check to see if trouble codes were present. It sounds to me like they don't want to actually help you.

Reply to
hyundaitech

Thanks.

I think they said that the air flow sensor checked out OK. I don't know if they checked for the other stuff you mentioned or not.

The car seems to run OK now. The only problem is that when I first start it up (after about 8 hours of not driving it) it is quite slow to respond to the gas pedal when accelerating from a full stop. After the car warms up it seems OK.

Reply to
Joey Goldstein

It only takes a subtle difference in the air flow readings to set the code. The last time I had a car with this code, upon finding nothing conclusive, I had a sensor shipped in from another dealer and put it on the car. I had taken some readings from the old sensor and then took some from the new sensor at the same rpm's, and sure enough, the new sensor had slightly lower readings, especially at higher rpm's.

Reply to
hyundaitech

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