HYUNDAI: CHRONIC ELECTRIC SYSTEM/Light Bulb Failure! How About ARECALL?

Since buying my 2004 Elantra GLS, now showing just 76,000 miles, I
have had to replace front, rear and tag light bulbs on 21 separate
occasions.

And that's the good news!

These bulbs require removing such components as the battery to get at
the front drivers' sockets, and accessibility of all the lights is
nearly impossible unless one has hands like birds' feet.

The manager of the Exxon station where I've had most of the light
replacement work done says he's had similar problems with his Elantra,
and has worked on three others with regularly failing lights.

Forget dealing with the dealer. Unless the car is under a recall,
you'll pay up to $75 for a single replaced bulb.

Any other unfortunate Elantra owners here with chronic light outages?

 

If you're considering doing just about any routine maintenance on an
Elantra, you might want to reconsider. These cars are designed/
constructed to make changing light bulbs, fan belts, batteries, etc.,
prohibitive both manually and economically, this side of a dealer, who
just might have to get to you car tomorrow. At outrageous cost, of
course!

 

Why did you reply to your own post using a different name?

 

Changing battery easy, changing the rear bulbs has been easy, the
belts look a bit challenging, would leave that job to a pro.

 

Bulb failures are not that uncommon these days as bulb quality gets
lower and lower. You can blame the original bulbs on the
manufacturer. After that, it's related to the person who purchased
the replacement bulbs. If you can find long life bulbs, perhaps
purchase those. As for the H7 headlamp bulbs, I know of none of these
that provide long life in any vehicle. One of the posters here has
even tried reducing the voltage to the bulb to no avail.

 

<Previous stuff is largely a car with frequent need to change bulbs and
that requires either being a contortionist or moving unrelated car parts>

My experience suggests that by-and-large the better bulbs are made by
the "Big Three" (GE, Philips and Osram/Sylvania), or by a
recognizeable-name Japanese manufacturer such as Ushio.

Also look at where the bulbs are made: My experience is that the better
ones are made in USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, and with Mexico not far
behind. Indonesia - maybe, but I don't feel too bad about Indonesia.
With China, quality varies and is often low because China is where too
many OEMs looking at price more than quality go for the cheapest low-bid
contract manufacturers. (However, I have seen good things made in China.)

They still make light bulbs in USA, but mainly higher volume ones such
as 4-foot fluorescents and A19 size incandescents (usual shape and size of
40, 60, 75 and 10 watt USA-usual incandescents).

I would have a look at what is used in cars with 100,000 mile warranties
that include bulbs.

- Don Klipstein ()

 

One amazing thing about my 1982 Accord is that the only lights I have
ever had to replace in over 250k miles are the headlights! That's right
- in owning this car for 25 years, they are all original except for the
headlights. But the high beams have never burned out, just the low beams.

While many people will insist that the fault has to lie with the bulbs
themselves, I am suspicious of the sockets. I don't know exactly what
goes on, but I have seen old light sockets at home repeatedly burn out
bulbs in no time at time. I think there has to be something about the
socket contacts delivering current in an erratic manner to the bulb.

 

That shouldnt make a bulb burn out quicker since the filament
is up to temp and you dont get the cold inrush problem.

Maybe the only reason its the low beam that
burns out is because its whats used much more.

 

Oh, geesh: please with the cross-posting. Some of us block
excessive cross-posters along with dumping gmail altogether as
it's an unregulated relay. Netiquette problems, spam, etc., you know.

But this is a good issue.

Unconscionable engineering; well, on the other hand, this may be
worth cross-posting about. It's rampant in auto manufacturing.
Ford's put the clutch slave cylinder inside the transmission!
And I recently replaced my driver's power window assembly. The
design is horrible. But is's also horrible in my friend's GM car;
his is designed just like it is in my 2000 Sonata: it's
engineered to break and that's that.

I just read through this thread.

Thoughts:
In electronics repair, we used to fix burned-out 6-volt bulbs
with 8-volt replacements when possible. There's often little room
for overvoltage condition.

It's traditional in auto systems to supply more than 12 volts. Do
your bulbs have 12 volt filaments? Well, your battery's normal
voltage is 12.6. In order to charge that battery, the
alternator's regulation must be set higher than that. I recall
that it's something around 14v.

If your bulbs are designed for 12 volts and no more, they're
going to fry. The sources of bulbs can be critical in a case like
this. I sure as hell would not be buying replacements at the 98
cent store!

Many years ago, I found that the bulbs in my SAAB were failing at
an alarming rate due to bi-metallic corrosion at the aluminum
sockets. Original bulbs were Philips, with chrome bases.
Replacements from the chain stores were American: brass bases.
Brass + aluminum + electricity + moisture = corrosion.

Again, the issue is using the right parts (although it was
especially mean of SAAB to use cheap one-piece aluminum
combination fixtures.

My solution, here, would probably be to go to a _real_ auto parts
store and get the bulbs there. They'd hopefully sell decent ones.

Other than this, what I'd do is to measure the system's charging
voltage.

You may not see this since I've killed all replies except to
alt.autos.hyundai.

Richard