How many trips to the dealer to fix a Sonata?

As some might recall, I have a 2007 Sonata that started backfiring, and
flashing the check engine light. The tow to the dealer resulted in them
replacing the engine. That actually didn't fix the problem. When I picked
the car up, the check engine light was still flashing, and the car ran like
crap. I drove it back to the dealer. The claim was that they had washed the
engine, and that caused a problem. He hooked it up to the scantool, and I
was able to drive it away.

Gas mileage has been horrible since. Fast forward to the end of June.... NC
state inspection due. I took the car to an inspection station, and it failed
the emissions test Code P0302. Back to the dealer. They said they thought it
had a bad fuel injector, and ordered one. They claimed they were swamped the
following week (July 4th week), and would call me to come in. No phone calls
the month of July. I call them July 17, and ask what's up? They said bring
it in July 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
injector, which they said doesn't take long. I get told that they needed to
order a sender, and that it would be in Saturday morning, and I could pick
the car up then. I get a call Saturday saying no part came in. End of day
Monday, the sender didn't fix it, so they ordered an oxygen sensor, and it
should be in Tuesday. End of day Tuesday, no part. Wednesday afternoon, I
stop by, and they say the car will be ready. I come back, and pick the car
up.

Now I go back to the inspection station (you've got 30 days to get it
re-done). It fails again. They said it's missing readiness indicators, and
it has a code P0302 stored. The inspector said I should come back again
after driving it for a while. That might take care of the readiness
indicators, but he said the code might still make it fail. I've not yet gone
back to the dealer.

The best part is: even though I specifically asked about the missing
hardware (capnuts, wiring harness screws), and the service manager said they
were replaced, they are still missing.... My kid even heard him say it.

How many times does it take to fix a problem like this?

In case someone's thinking troll, or that I'm trying to BS (yeah, this
sounds even to me to be that unbelievable), I'll be happy to provide
Hyundaitech my VIN so he can look at the history.

 

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.

 

Actually, there's been no "pay" involved. This is a 2007 Sonata made in June
2006, and purchased in December 2006.

 

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.

 

In case someone's thinking troll, or that I'm trying to BS (yeah, this

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 www.hmaservice.com-- 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.

 

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

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

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

The service department must be covered up here, they will not eve
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.

 

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

Mat

The car is an 02 Sonata LX with 72,000 miles on it. The problem ha
been vibration when the brakes are applied that feels like warpe
rotors. The original rotors were turned twice, only to solve th
problem for a few thousand miles. New rotors were installed by th
dealer and they seemed to be OK for around 10,000 miles before th
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 model
from EBC and there is still a very slight vibration. This leads m
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 th
rotors. I am in the process of acquiring a more accurate gauge fo
further investigation

Been driving since before disc brakes were used on cars and never ha
this problem before. I think Hyundai should have solved this proble
since the car was under bumper-to-bumper warranty. Their decisio
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:
http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_warped_brakedisk.shtml

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

--
NW AZ home for sale in growing area near Laughlin, NV-


http://inlandempire.craigslist.org/rfs/370324491.html

http://www.hoobly.com/0/0/383472.html

 

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.