Warranty repairs?

The best advice I can give you regarding the clutch issues is to remove the 'pressure valve' from the end of the clutch slave cylinder. It's a stupid piece of engineering that guarantees you a premature clutch failure. It's not hard to do, remove the slave cylinder from the transaxle, remove the banjo bolt from the end of the slave cylinder, take out the tiny spring and the clip, reinstall banjo bolt, reinstall slave, bleed hydraulics. It would probably take anyone with a set of hand tools and some common sense less than an hour; someone with a little more experience can probably get it done in about 20 minutes.

Having not seen a hyundai flywheel considered to be damaged beyond repair, I can't comment on that. But in my experience I've yet to do a clutch job where I wasn't able to have a competent machine shop re- deck the friction surface for about 30 bucks.

Chris

How does it guarantee a clutch failure? If you don't get on the throttle too quickly, the clutch will still be fully engaged and not slip. I think this valve is a dumb idea, but my 06 Sonata can be driven such that the clutch doesn't slip. It does require much coordination than should be necessary, but I don't see how it "guarantees a premature clutch failure."

Matt

If you take your foot off the clutch the clutch should retract instantly. As in, as soon as your foot is off the pedal the clutch is fully engaged. With hyundai's system, that isn't the case. The small valve in the slave cylinder restricts the flow of brake fluid trying to get back to the master cylinder, and as such, it delays full engagement. I'd rather have the clutch engage when it is supposed to instead of having it scrub the life right out of the disc every time I change gears.

Having to think ahead and 'coordinate' to get around a feature as you describe is just absurd. I can especially feel the pain for the folks with the tiburon. What kind of idiot puts a system purposely designed to delay clutch engagement on a sports car? C'mon..gimme a break. A clutch should last 100,000 at a minimum.

Chris

Hal said: "It would probably take anyone with a set of hand tools and some common sense less than an hour; someone with a little more experience can probably get it done in about 20 minutes."......

Which probably means it would take me 4-5 hours. Common sense I have - common mechanical sense is a problem. :-)

Tom Wenndt

In normal driving, yes. In spirited driving, not necessarily. Used hard a clutch will wear out faster just as brakes wear out faster. I really doubt that the valve in the clutch is causing the premature wear-out. I think it is the aggressive driving. If you read the site that tells how to remove the valve, the guy who wrote that even admits as much.

Matt

Totally agree. Today, I could probably get 200k out of a clutch. When I was

18, I'd be happy to get 20,000.

Well, I'm not sure this comment really sides one way or another, but it's a clutch comment all the same. I had a Chevy S-10 with a 4 speed standard that I plowed snow with. As I've said before, I live in upstate NY where we get a ton of snow in the winter. I put 176,000 miles on that truck, plowing snow every winter before it finally got totaled in a roll-over. I suspect the abuse on that clutch was every bit equal to the abuse that aggressive driving would create. Aggressive driving is really not that abusive if you are not dumping the clutch. If the clutch is engaging properly, the amount of acceleration is irrelevant, just as the amount of work was irrelevant to my truck. Clutches wear when they slip on the flywheel face. Aggressive driving does not usually slip a clutch. Actually, more conservative driving tends to slip a clutch more than aggressive driving does. In my case, I installed exactly 0 clutches in that S-10 over its lifetime.

I plow snow with my 5-speed K1500 also and I don't think it abuses the clutch at all. I drove OTR trucks for a number of years so I'm pretty familiar with shifting. :-)

The problem is that most drivers today aren't taught how to drive a standard shift car properly. I ride with people all of the time that make me cringe when they start out and shift, but up and down. The rev to 2500 RPM when the light turns green and then feed in the clutch slowly to get a fast launch. This is fine for the drag strip, but wears both clutch and pressure plate heavily and can cause heat damage if done in succession too many times. And when upshifting they get on th throttle before engaging the clutch and the car lurches forward as the inertia in the engine is dissipated. And then on the downshifts, there is no blipping of the throttle to match the flywheel speed to the input shaft speed and slippage occurs again. This happens much more often during spirited driving than during more sedate driving. In my pickup, I can start out with the RPM never getting above 1,000 (it idles at 700) and never stall it. I can match the RPM pretty well on both up and down shifts such that little slippage occurs. I don't know how long the clutch in the truck will last, but it is working fine at 97,000 miles, including plowing snow which does require a lot more starts and stops per mile than normal driving!

I'll be the first to admit that the Sonata is the worst standard shift car I've ever owned. It is very hard to modulate the throttle and I often rev to 1500 or even 2000 RPM if I get on the throttle just a little ahead of the clutch. Alternatively, it is easy to get the clutch just a little ahead and stall the car, especially if starting out going uphill. I've gotten better with practice, but it isn't an easy car to drive well with standard shift and I can see where the clutch wear in the Sonata will be much higher than in similar cars with a well designed throttle. However, I think the issue IS the electronic throttle much more so than the valve in the clutch cylinder. Having said that, if I get time, I would consider removing mine as well as I don't see it being necessary either. I don't believe that will automatically quadruple the life of my clutch, however.

Matt

I know lots of drivers that have never driven a standard transmission, and never will.

OTOH, I got a free lunch a few months back. I took the company pickup, a Silverado with 5 speed and bet the guy I was with that I could drive to the restaurant and only use the clutch to start out and when I stopped. He said it was impossible. He bought lunch.

It's not necessary to remove the slave cylinder from the transaxle. As soon as you remove the banjo bolt, the parts are accessible. Although people always remove the spring, the only part you need to remove is the valve itself (a small steel cap with a tiny hole in it).

Another good reason for doing this is that contamination in the clutch fluid can clog or reduce the opening size in the valve, causing excessive clutch slippage, even after normal shifts. The valve is a bad that was intended to make shifting easier for incompetent drivers and beginners. It's nothing but a handicap for anyone who knows how to shift properly, as all it does is slow down clutch engagement and make less inconsistent.

I wasn't asking about the clutch. It is documented that it is a faulty design. The question WAS: Have you had any warranty repairs on ANY drive train parts that Hyundai actually paid for???

Matt Whiting wrote in

Is your truck diesel? I can't imagine getting any kind of acceleration on my 01 elantra at or below 1k rpm. I'll try it tonight on the way out, but it sure seems like it'd be lugged horribly, well below its useful powerband. Difference in engine characteristics perhaps, more torque at the lower rpm?

And I've got 120k miles right now on the 1st clutch in the car, the first 60k happening back when I used it for a restaurant delivery job.

Ben

If I can park on a slight grade, I don't need the clutch at all! :-)

However, this is still pretty rough on the synchros and I wouldn't recommend it as a normal course of action. :-)

Matt

No, it is a 4.3L V-6, but it does have 4.56 ratio differentials. Unless you are racing or it is an emergency, you really shouldn't be trying to accelerate hard when you are just starting out. Save the acceleration for once the clutch is fully engaged.

And, yes, this engine has a lot more low-end torque than many newer engines, especially the little 4 cylinders. However, on level ground, there is no reason that even a 4 cylinder shouldn't have the ability to start out with revs in the 1,000 to 1,250 range for normal driving. My Sonata certainly has the torque to do that, it just doesn't have a throttle that modulates precisely enough to keep the engine in that rev range. My truck has a much more controllable throttle. I can easily modulate it when starting out to keep the engine RPM between idle and

1,000 until the clutch is fully engaged (which takes only 5-10' of forward travel). At that point, you can accelerate to your heart's content and not bother the clutch at all.

That sounds perfectly normal. As Ed or someone said earlier, a modern clutch driven properly should last 200,000 miles. I've owned standard shift cars since my first car (a 1972 Opel Manta) and I've NEVER replaced a clutch. I've taken several cars past 100K and never yet had a clutch fail.

Matt

Hyundai has been very good about fixing manufacturer?s defects under warranty. The problem with the clutch disc is that it?s not covered against wear beyond the 1 year/12,000 mile adjustment period.

I?ve repaired a couple of these that I thought would be wear issues, but when I got the transmission and clutch out found that a piece had come off the flywheel or some other defect actually occurred leading to the clutch issue. Customers are definitely happy to hear "found a defect, Hyundai will pay for repairs."

"Deck" wrote: > After reading all the horror stories about the 03 Tiberon > clutch/flywheel > problems, that Hyundai WON"T fix, just wondering af they are > fixing any > other problems with drive trains on their cars under the > 100,000 mile > warranty? Now that I have two Hyundai's, I shudder to think > that they > won't honor warranties!

You guys are right on in your comments. It can be done to shift not using the clutch, but I don't do it except to illustrate to the kids it can happen! Speaking of kids, I'm teaching them to drive a standard shift Ford Ranger.....it has 84 HP......talk about slipping the clutch. If you can learn to operate the clutch with that kind of power, you can learn "feel" any clutch.

Focus Guys??? That sort of thing can easily bring about a less than complimentary string of responses. Have you tried looking through the archives of this newsgroup? I believe a google search will probably turn up some threads that will answer your question.

In short - yes, people have reported drive train repairs that Hyundai covered. Whether that satisfies your question is impossible to tell, but it does answer the question asked.

Where is that documentation?

Matt

the fact that they completely changed the design of the clutch/flywheel on

2005 models, plus go to: See all the problems..plus so many complaints that a class action suit isbeing compiled