OK....the 2600.00 story.
Went out to my Big Brown truck one summer day. Noticed a puddle under the rear differential, not a big one...just enough to set off the service alarm bells in my head. Went to the dealership, the truck still under warrantee and all at the time. They examined it and determined that one of the seals on the unit had failed. Now, the first thing that should have worried me is that they had come right out and told me " we've never replaced those on the Santa Fe as yet". I figured ok, do you know how to do it? They kindly answered " Of course, we have been trained to do it but have never had to do it on a SF so soon" Now you have to be told this one thing about my SF. It does alot of mileage. Probably the highest mileage any Santa Fe has in the province because we commuted 500 km per week on a minimum. So the truck was up there, but still under factory protection at the time They had the truck for 3 days! It took them that long to get the parts and remember what to do with them. They replaced the faulty seal supposedly and gave me back the SF. I checked for 3 days and there wasn't any leaks so I figured ok it was fixed and they have something they can tell HQ that they knew how to do this. Three months later the truck needed an oil change. No big thing and I usually took it to the dealership to get that done. I liked the service there and even learning on my truck at the time had not deterred that feeling. Except that they had no openings to do the service. I figured gee, I really need to get this oil change done with the driving I do. So I take it to a local place to get it done. The change went as advertised, all done no remarks about any problems found on thier inspection. The time of year we were driving at this time didn't give me the chance to see any new "spots" so I was going about things as usual on a trip down to the city in the morning with the wife, in the dark of morning. She mentions that there seems to be a sound that she has never heard before. It was coming from the rear and I listened and it almost sounded like a tire rubbing. I slow down a bit and it seems to get a bit louder. There was a service station not far down the highway and all of a sudden I hear this bang as if I had run over some debris and the sound turned into a low groan. Figuring a blown tire or something I nurse the truck into the parking lot. Checked all the tires, all were up. The sound didn't occur in idle so it wasn't likely an exhaust failure. There was not exterior damage to the truck so it wasn't wind. Get back into the truck and we agreed that it had to go the dealership even though we were now over the warrantee period by about 6k. Dealership phones me late that afternoon. Seems that in thier opinion the place that did the oil change failed to replace the differential fill plug properly and had "stripped the connection to the point the plug wouldn't tighten" thus causing all the fluid to spray out under pressure and frying all the gears. Problem 1 with this story of theirs - the oil change was 2k ago. Problem 2 with the story - no reported problems at the oil change place. The third problem - I demanded the parts from the dealership.
You see, I was able to tighten the plug with no effort at all. So, I said the Service Manager - this was caused by your boys not doin the job right. He of course refuses to take blame. I mention that it was apparent to me that you guys were learning on my truck. Oh no sir....we knew how to fix it.
After a week of futzing around they finally put a new Differential into it and it cost me 2600.00. I still have the part. It still seals fine. Hyundai Canada refuses to own up to the foul up and my truck has never seen the inside of a dealership repair shop since.
