How many trips to the dealer to fix a Sonata?

I wish it was a BS story, but I've heard to many like that (various makes of cars) over the years. I'd contact Hyundai directly. The dealer, evidently, is incompetent. Emissions systems are covered under warranty and given their track record, you should not have to pay again if they can't fix it in the allotted 30 days.

If you have another dealer in a reasonable distance, I'd take it to them after talking to Hyundai.

My only question Bill, is why are you still taking the car to that dealer? Have you contacted Hyundai directly? I can't believe Hyundai would not do something extraordinary for you in light of all of this history. A well presented case to Hyundai is bound to gain you more than a well written post to a usenet forum. Then... after you receive good customer satisfaction from Hyundai, you'll have something to really post here about. At this point, it really seems to me that you don't so much have a Hyundai issue as you do a dealer issue. Nobody here can do much more than bemoan your cause with you. But... we're here to talk about Hyundai's, not Hyundai dealers.

Ouch, that really is a terrible experience man. It sounds like you got a right to get a new one outright per the lemon. law. What's the law over by you? If they had to replace the whole engine on a 2007 already, that's pretty indicative of a major fault somewhere. Any other dealerships you can take it to?

- Thee Chicago Wolf

Crazy story Bill. I would do two things. 1) Call Hyundai Customer Service 800-633-5151 and/or 2) Take it to another dealership

I sure hope you haven't had to pay for a rental car during all this run around!

Paul

There's nothing particularly unbelievable about what you've told me, except that the service manager told you the bolts were installed and they're still not there.

In the dealer's defense, P0302 indicates a misfire on cylinder #2, but provides little information about why it's occurring. This has been an issue with the 3.3/3.8 engines that Hyundai has been looking into for a fair amount of time now, and have only fairly recently decided that they seem to have found the root cause. The technical service bulletin advising that a faulty oxygen sensor is the likely cause for misfires on only one bank was just released July 17. For dealers that wait until TSBs are mailed to them to read them-- this is a silly practice; they're easily accessible on the what's new section of

that could mean that they're reading the TSB just now. The major difficulty is that ECM programming is usually good enough to pick up an oxygen sensor problem and set an actual oxygen sensor code well in advance of any other symptoms. For whatever reason, the ECM doesn't recognize there's a problem with the oxygen sensor readings being skewed-- a relatively new type of sensor failure for Hyundai-- and the ECM continues adjusting the fuel mixture to the point that the engine runs poorly enough to set a misfire code. Normal diagnostics for the P0302 code (or other misfire codes) wouldn't lead to an oxygen sensor replacement.

Since you have a P0302 code stored but no check engine lamp, this is a pending code, indicating that the ECM only saw the problem once. The reason all the monitors haven't run is that the car hasn't been driven enough after the repairs for the ECM to perform all its system tests. The emissions station guy is right on this one. Continue driving for a week or so. In most cases, the check engine lamp will come back on (indicating a problem still present) or the misfire will have been a one time deal (in this one instance), and the code will go away and the rest of the monitors will run.

As for the incompetence in disassembly/reassembly, there is no defense.

Who is paying for the emissions test? Who is paying for the re-test if not done in 30 days? It should certainly not be you.

To answer a few questions, the "who's paying for the retest" didn't become an issue until they couldn't test it within the 30 days. I thought I had made it, but I was out when I brought it in Wednesday night. They didn't charge me because of the not ready condition. I'm sure I can force the dealer to inspect it, but I'd almost rather know that something's not hidden.

Why don't I take it to another dealer? Well, the next nearest dealer is (from wilmington, NC) from 60 to 90 miles away. So, I'd get to drive there, and what sit there for a day, or rent something. At least the dealer I bought it from me a loaner while they play with my car.

Hyundai is involved - by the dealer. They are apparently who is telling the dealer what to parts to keep trying in it.

In the middle of writing this, I did call Hyundai. It turns out that despite the stack of repair slips I have, they have only told Hyundai about the initial issue with the engine. They'll be contacting the dealer and getting back to me.

Well, here I am nearly a week later since calling the Hyundai customer service number last Friday. The car has been at the dealer since Monday. The dealer's service tech decided - supposedly with the assistance of Hyundai tech support - that the root cause of all of this is due to a defective #2 cylinder ignition coil. As it was explained to me, the high voltage is arcing over to the input side of the coil, and confusing the computer. I was supposed to pick the car up Today (Wednesday), but they decided that it needs a computer, which is supposed to be in Thursday.

As far as Hyundai itself goes, I was supposed to get a callback from them Monday. No call. I called back Tuesday, and they said they had not contacted the dealer yet - heavy call volume was the excuse. I called them back today, and was told that they tried contacting the dealer several times, but "no-one was available to talk to them at the dealer". They say that they try three times before escalating the issue. I've tried making some headway by calling the California number, but they want absolutely nothing to do with customers there. I have to talk to the customer service number - period.

So, contrary to what anyone might say, Hyundai's customer service sucks. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place - dealer can't fix the car, and Hyundai could care less. The absolute least that they could do is call me back and tell me that they are not getting cooperation from the dealer, and tell me what they will be doing to resolve that part of the issue.

Hyundaitech, if you've got any phone numbers that go to anyone that can make something happen, please send them to my email address.

19th, that the part was there since July 3. I get there, they've > got a waiting area full of people, and no loaners. I didn't want to wait > there all day, and after the wonderful job they did putting it back together > after replacing the engine (acorn nuts missing on the plastic cover over the >

engine, and bolts that hold the wiring harness in place at the back of the >

engine) I figured rushing them wasn't the way to go. They tell me to come >

back July 27. I do. they give me a brand new Santa Fe to drive. > > I come back at 5:00 because all they were doing was changing a fuel

The Hyundai warranty is just a sales gimmick. They refused to fix my brakes under the bumper to bumper warranty and I called Hyundai America and all. They essentially told me tuff sh_t.

I just looked at the reliability ratings on J.D. Powers website and Hyundai was not rated very high. It was based on three years of polling owners.

I will probably never buy another Hyundai and would not recommend them to others. Have had much better results from Honda. I think they just tried to get a large volume of their cars into the marketplace before they got the bugs out. As a product design engineer myself, I would guess the engineers probably knew most of these bugs before ship date but management declared shipment date anyway.

The service department must be covered up here, they will not even answer the phone.

What was wrong with your brakes? Was this with a Sonata or other model?

Matt

Update: The car is still at the dealer. Tuesday they decided that the problem is a bad coil. They were to have it ready Wednesday. They said they wanted to replace the ECM. Still waiting for that.

Finally got a callback from Hyundai corporate. She didn't understand why no-one followed through with my complaint. Now I get to wait for another week while they look into it.

19th, that the part was there since July 3. I get there, they've > got a waiting area full of people, and no loaners. I didn't want to wait > there all day, and after the wonderful job they did putting it back together > after replacing the engine (acorn nuts missing on the plastic cover over the >

engine, and bolts that hold the wiring harness in place at the back of the >

engine) I figured rushing them wasn't the way to go. They tell me to come >

back July 27. I do. they give me a brand new Santa Fe to drive. > > I come back at 5:00 because all they were doing was changing a fuel

What was wrong with your brakes? Was this with a Sonata or other model?

Matt

The car is an 02 Sonata LX with 72,000 miles on it. The problem has been vibration when the brakes are applied that feels like warped rotors. The original rotors were turned twice, only to solve the problem for a few thousand miles. New rotors were installed by the dealer and they seemed to be OK for around 10,000 miles before the vibration returned. Then the dealer refused to repair the problem, much to my disapointment.

I have just replaced the rotors and pads with high performance models from EBC and there is still a very slight vibration. This leads me to believe there is some other root cause for all the brake problems. Using a rudimentry runout gauge, there appears to be no runout in the rotors. I am in the process of acquiring a more accurate gauge for further investigation.

Been driving since before disc brakes were used on cars and never had this problem before. I think Hyundai should have solved this problem since the car was under bumper-to-bumper warranty. Their decision will cost them a few new car sales over the next few years but I do not think they care.

Might want to peruse this:

Matt

Very interesting, especially - - - - - There is only one way to prevent this sort of thing - following proper break in procedures for both pad and disc and use the correct pad for your driving style and conditions.

During pad or disc break-in, do not come to a complete stop, so plan where and when you do this procedure with care and concern for yourself and the safety of others. If you come to a complete stop before the break-in process is completed there is the chance for non-uniform pad material transfer or pad imprinting to take place and the results will be what the whole process is trying to avoid. Game over.

Keep reading. There is more after "game over."

I had a minivan that was notorious for "warping" its rotors. It got so bad once that I was ready replace the rotors and pads, so I decided just for fun to try a few really hard sopts in sequence. I read, maybe in a different article, that this could reverse some of the uneven transfer of pad material.

So, I went out to a back country road with virtually no traffic and made

10 or so hard stops from 60 MPH to 5 or so with some cooling time in between. Presto! The "warped" brakes were now virtually gone. There was some very minor pulsation still present, but almost negligible. I ran those brakes and rotors several thousand more miles without trouble.

Matt

Am I the only one who doesn't have a crappy dealership? Mine bends over backwards to help me and does address any warranty work I need (none on my

06, but some on my 02 Sonata).

Like it's been mentioned in here before, find a dealer that cares and keep making noise with Hyundai. They'll eventually respond....

Steve

Well? What happened?

I still haven't heard anything further from Hyundai. Wednesday 8/8 the dealer told me the part hadn't come in. Thursday 8/9, they told me that Hyundai hadn't shipped it, but that it would be in at 7:30 on 8/10. I'd been telling them repeatedly that I was going on Vacation to Florida for a week on 8/11. Friday, 8/10 at 9:30 am I showed up at the dealer to see if it was done. They said that the part hadn't arrived, and after they made calls to Hyundai, they said Hyundai had computer problems on Thursday, and it wouldn't be in until Tuesday, 8/14. I still had their loaner Santa Fe, and asked them if they planned on replacing my Sonata that day, or if I would be driving the Santa Fe to Florida. They wound up renting me a Camry from Enterprise. They said they didn't want their dealer plates to be out of state. I really can't complain about how they have been treating me, as I haven't been in a bind for a vehicle to drive.

On 8/16, I got a call from the service manager. He said the part (computer) had finally come in, and they had test driven the car without problems. I picked my car up on 8/20, and so far I've driven about 130 miles. I've not seen a check engine light since I picked it up, but I have felt the "miss" - kind of a momentary loss of power - a few times that usually happens right before the check engine light has started flashing in the past, so I'm pretty sure it's not fixed.

As I said earlier, I've heard NOTHING from Hyundai since the call I mentioned previously. They have no interest in dealing with the problem. I haven't had a change to call them back and ask when they planned on contacting me. At this point, I have five documented, problem verified present trips to the dealer for the same issue, so I am past the four required for North Carolina's lemon law. If that light comes on again, I think that's the path I'll have to take. I've tried to be as patient as possible with them, and Hyundai has shown absolutely no interest in trying to help me. In fact, I think that one could safely say that their customer service level is horrible. The only reason that I have had any hope of getting this fixed is that I also have a 2006 Sonata that my wife drives, and that car has had absolutely no problems.