2002 Sonata acquisition question

My boss is looking to purchase a new car for his wife. The dealer
is offering him $3500 trade-in for her old car. He is offering it
to me for the same price.

The vehicle is a 2002 Hyundai Sonata LX, 6 cyl blk/blk with 102K
(mostly daily highway commute).

Body: Pretty good, no rust through and only two blistered areas
by rear wheel wells. Front fender was replaced when she hit a
raccoon. Small scrape on rear bumper.

Interior: quite nice, just minor wear as expected.

Maintenance: Some dealer, some indy, all records.

Tires are fairly new Hankooks.

Now, the questions.... there is a high-pitched noise when the
brakes are applied. Seems to come from the right rear. I don't
hear it when the parking brake is applied. I don't think the car
has ABS. Any nasty surprises possible here? I can replace the
rotors and pads myself, unless there is some factor I don't
know...about $100 and a day's work?

Two, the "check engine" light is on. He says he's been told it's
a code for the "fuel sensor". Something in the fuel tank. It's
currently past due for inspection. Will I have a problem with NYS
inspection since the light is on? I'm willing to buy an OBC-II
scan tool, or whatever, to turn the light off/ identify the
problem. Any thoughts?

My last car was an '85 Camry, my current car is a '92 Sentra. I
just finished putting in exhaust, right control arm, rotors and
pads in the Sentra and am able to do most repairs myself if I
know what to replace. By my standards, the Sonata is positively
luxurious and I don't mind putting some work into it. However, I
don't want to play "replace $1000 worth of sensors trying to make
the light go off". I am not familiar with Hyundai so I would
welcome any advice as to this car's quirks.


PB

 

No surprises with the brakes. Just another car with disk brakes.

Yup - you're going to fix that before NY will pass it for inspection. All
vehicles past 1994 are subject to the requirement that a Check Engine light
is an automatic failure. You can't just get it reset either. The computer
will look at the cycles in the on board vehicle computer and if it has not
cycled enough times since the last CEL was cleared, it fails.

The good news is that the evap canister repairs on these is pretty straight
up. You shouldn't have to pour a ton of money into this to clear the CEL
issue.

 

Pretty much agree with Mike here. Depending on the trouble code,
significant diagnosis may be required to find the cause of the check
engine lamp.

 

Thanks to you and Mike for your replies. I've taken the plunge
and bought the car, although I do not have it yet.

I'm still thinking of buying a scan tool. JC Whitney lists them
from $40 to $500. The sub-$100 ones look pretty iffy. The $500
model I could hook to my laptop definitely calls my inner geek,
but might be overkill. I could probably use a scan tool on an
occasional basis, and if it saved me a trip to the dealer it
would probably be near a break-even investment. Any models or
brands to look for/avoid?

PB

 

I don't have much experience with aftermarket scan tools, so I don't have
much advice.

If this is going to be a long-term investment, you should purchase a CAN
compataible scan tool. In the next few years, all vehicles will need to
use that communciations protocol, and not all scan tools are compatible
with it.

If you're looking for something basic, all you need is one that will read
codes and tell you what they mean (usually in a book). The next step up
to be considered would be something that actually reports data, but this
is a typically a larger expense than a do-it-yourselfer can justify.

There are a few posters here who have experience with some of the tools.
Perhaps they'll share.