The door handles and the fairing pieces behind the handles on my 2006 Sonata are turning dull and changing color slightly. Has anyone else had this problem?
When I bought the car in 2005, the dealer asked me to bring it back shortly after I bought it for several "recalls" (what they called them, but no recalls in the legal sense). One of them was to replace the fairing pieces behind the door handles. He said he had no idea why they had to replace them as the new ones looked identical to the old ones, but I think now I see why. The fairings on the front doors are not turning dull and still match the paint well. However, the door handles themselves are turning dull and changing color and both handles and fairings on the rear doors are doing likewise. Apparently, they replaced only the front fairings during the "recall."
It appears that the paint they used on these parts (or the color in the plastic - I can't tell for sure if they are painted or not) doesn't deal well with UV and/or weather.
I have to look up the warranty coverage again, but I'm guessing this won't be covered as the car is more than 3 years old now and has 47,000 miles. They sure are starting to look ugly though and this isn't a very good advertisement for Hyundai.
Matt