Help with 98 Sonata charging problems

Discussion in 'Hyundai Sonata' started by news, Feb 24, 2007.

  1. news

    news Guest

    Hello,
    About an hours worth of driving, the charging system fails, I replaced the
    battery as per Sears diagnostics recommended that the batter was dead.
    (battery was still under warranty, so it was a free replacement) they
    indicated the alternator was working just fine......... Next day, the same
    thing happened, dies on me and after an hour or so of driving. After it if
    cools off, I can jump start it, and runs fine for about an hour again......
    I'm guessing the alternator needs replacing.???.. but I've heard there's a
    separate voltage regulator ??? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
    THANKS!
    Dave
     
    news, Feb 24, 2007
    #1
  2. news

    Mike Marlow Guest

    A couple of things come to mind Dave. With a car that old, grounds and
    connections always become areas of suspicion. Clean, tight, and solid
    mechanically at the connector. It's even plausible for faulty connections
    to be heat related, which would be consistent with it running for an hour
    before having a problem.

    Did you have Sears test the system during a failure period? That would be
    appropriate. I think, given the description, I'd initially be lean towards
    an alternator, even though the diagnostics did not point that way. When an
    alternator is not working properly, the car will run off of the battery
    until the battery voltage drops too low. At that point, the world ends.
    I'll bet it's not so much a matter of it cooling off as it is that it takes
    time to recharge the battery by jumping it.

    As for the voltage regulator - I don't know if the 98 Sonata has an external
    regulator. It's been a long time since I've seen a car with one, so I'd
    kind of doubt it, but that's a guess. Have you looked at www.hmaservice.com
    yet? It's a free website by Hyundai and it has service manuals for all
    American Hyundai's. You'll need to use IE (Mozilla and other browsers won't
    work), and you'll need to download the Adobe SVG viewer - go to the site
    requirements link, you'll see. There's a world of information on that site,
    although it's one of the worst sites that has ever been written, from a web
    site development perspective. Oh well - guess you can't have everything.
    That site may answer the question of the voltage regulator.
     
    Mike Marlow, Feb 24, 2007
    #2
  3. news

    Nick Guest

    I would assume since after you replaced your battery that the problem
    would be the alternator. I had my sister's 99 Elantra alternator which
    began failing at 70k miles. The problem with the Hyundai was that I
    didn't get any indication from the battery light on the console like I
    would get on my Hondas. From what Hyundaitech was saying, it is a
    common problem in which the Hyundai alternators (Hyundaitech correct
    me if I am wrong) will continue to partially work even with a failure
    which most other car manufactures the alternator will just go.

    Don't rule out the possibility that it could be dirty contact
    terminals to the battery. Make sure to clean these because I have
    never seen so much corrosion as I did on our Elantra. I ended up
    replacing the terminal a few weeks ago because it was so corroded that
    it wouldn't stay on the terminal.

    Nick
     
    Nick, Feb 24, 2007
    #3
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