Headlights, fog and,taillights

2004 Sonata I have had to replace every headlight,foglight,and tail light
bulb in my 04 Sonata, I do not drive on rough roads, I have 57 k for
mileage, had anyone else had this experience?

Thanks
Tom

 

I have an 04 Sonata and as yet, I haven't had to replace any lights. Have
you had your car checked?

 

The dealer says the bulbs are not covered under warranty.
Tom

 

Certainly the bulbs would not be covered under warranty - no manufacturer
covers bulbs. You are experiencing a pretty high rate of failure of bulbs
throughout the car though and that alone would point to other problems. I
would like to believe the dealer would investigate this.

 

If you've got 57k on your car and you drive with the lights on, then that's
quite a bit of time in use. As long as they all didn't blow at once (or
near the same time), it's doubtful there's anything else going on.

The headlamp bulbs are covered under warranty until you reach 60k.

 

If you've got 57k on your car and you drive with the lights on, then
that's
quite a bit of time in use. As long as they all didn't blow at once (or
near the same time), it's doubtful there's anything else going on.

The headlamp bulbs are covered under warranty until you reach 60k.

 

Typically, bulbs fail prematurely for two reasons:

1. Excessive vibration and
2. Overheating caused by overcurrent caused by overvoltage.

Do you drive on a lot of really rough roads?

If not, have you had your charging system checked? I assume that the
ECM monitors voltage, but I'm not sure of that.


Matt

 

I had two headlight bulbs replaced in my 2001 Elantra. One at 21.000
miles by one dealer for about $22 and the second at 59,800 miles at
another dealer which was FREE. He told me headlight and foglight
bulbs are guaranteed for five years, all other bulbs for one year. He
added, "Either the other dealer doesn't read the warranty details or
he is "double dipping," getting paid by the factory and the customer.

 

This is my daughters car and I called the dealer, and complainted about the
fog and headlight bulbs, and was told that it was not warranty and they
probably are double dipping.

Thanks
Tom

 

You should perhaps begin taking your business to another dealer, then.

In response to Matt, the PCM monitors voltage, but does not control it on
the '01 Elantra. It will know when there's a voltage issue, but it won't
be able to do anything about it (until it fries and the car won't run).

 

It won't set the MIL if over voltage is detected?

Matt

 

I think the MIL only sets for undervoltage. Go figure.

 

It makes some sense. The battery should be a large enough load that
it keeps the voltage down to a safe level for the electronics. OTOH,
if the voltage is too low the electronics won't work right.

If I was losing lights and did not have another reason I could see I
would start looking for a bad connection to the battery or a failing
battery that was letting the charging voltage go a bit high. I'm
thinking 0.1 v ranges. Measure the voltage accross the lightbulb and
accross the battery posts with the engine revved up to cruising speed.
It should be the same or very close.

 

For the OP - not sure if you checked this but my wife just came home with a
ticket for a headlight out in our 04 Sonata. I went out and pulled the
connector and reseated it and now the headlight works again. Did you try to
reseat your connectors before buying new lamps? It used to be common for
cars to experience this but that was mostly years ago. Can't go by my
one-off experience, but I wonder if the Hyundai connectors are prone to
either moisture or corrosion buildup.

 

The alternator regulates system voltage. I've seen numerous cases where
the voltage regulator (inside the alternator) fails and produces too much
voltage. Most of the time the owner sees the problem and has it fixed (or
the alternator stops charging at all) prior to other electronics in the car
blowing up.

 

This is a common failure mode for these halogen headlamps. In my case the
headlight was out until I opened the hood and then closed it. The shock of
dropping the hood 12 inches made the headlight start working again. This
"trick" worked twice in the following 3 days or so and then the light was
out for good. I thought I had a wiring or socket problem but it was the
bulb. The parts guy at the Hyundai dealership where I got the new light
bulb from said this is pretty common.