XG350 Do you own one? A they a good car?

Before buying a 1998 Cadillac Catera, I considered the Hyundai XG350,
because it was about the same size and had nearly identical features plus
a slightly larger engine. The Catera has a 3.0 6 cylinder engine. The
Catera was less expensive because of the unfavorable maintenance history
of that model. My warranty is good for 3 more years, and then I may look
at the Hyundai again, especially now that a new service center is being
established near me.

I couldn't find anything about owner's experiences with the Hyundai and as
the dealer was not near me, I decided to pass on the Hyundai.

So please tell me your experience with the XG350? How much did you pay
for it, how many miles and have you had any unusual repair experiences?
How are they as a daily driver and for long trips?

 

We bought a used 2002 a year ago for my wife and I liked it so much I
bought another used 2002 for myself (figure parts swap later on in life).
One
had some extensive time in the shop (all 100% under warrenty) to fix
intermittant problems - probably why it got traded in - turned out to be
an intermittant short in the wiring plus a couple other things, but other
than
that they have been great. The only thing I don't like about them is their
parts seem to be quite expensive. Tranny fluid almost $5 a quart, Fram air
filter $20 when every other Fram is around $8. Don't even think
of replacing the inner cabin air filter...$40. You also have to take the
engine apart
to change sparkplugs (which I havn't done yet, but my 60,000 is comming up
and I'll have to do plugs and timing belt then). On a positive, its
probably the
easiest car I've ever worked on to do oil, tranny fluid, and antifreeze
changes.

 

We bought the XG350L new in Oct 2003, and now have 8000 mile w/o any
problems. We get about 15 MPG in town and almost double that on the
highway.

Love the car!

See www.epinion.com for more info.

 

Bought a new 2002 XG350. It has 22,000 miles on it already. NO problems
whatsoever mechanically. The ride and comfort levels are excellent. I just
found out in a thread of this NG why the drivers side window seemed to roll
down on it's own occasionally. It was operator error. A senior moment on
my part. lol it seems that is a feature on the car to enhance getting heat
out of the car when it has been out in the sun on a hot day.

The radio is about a worthless piece of poo but has an excellent
cd/cassette player sound system in it. The teen aged kid next door to me
came over one day and wanted to know what kind of Bass subwoofer amp I had.
I told her none and she couldn't believe it.

Stations received on the FM radio are about half as good reception as my
wife's Buick Regal radio. The AM side is a joke. A 5,000 watt AM station
cannot be heard over the engine whine over 7-8 miles from the station. It
is junk. It is not much better with the engine not running. If the station
is not close, you won't hear it. A $5.00 transister radio would be a far
better receiver hung on the rearview mirror like we used to do 45 years ago
when you didn't want to run your car battery down with vacuum tube
monstrousities

It is geared a little low for me and will about snap your neck at low speed
when you get on it taking off. I think a little higher gear ratio would not
only help that problem, but help on city fuel economy too. i believe it
would still have plenty of power with the change. At 60 mph in 5th gear it
turns about 500 rpm faster than my wife's Buick at the same speed and in
5th gear also.. Her 3.8 litre GM v/6 will beat the fuel economy in town but
the XG350 will outrun it hands down. You can drag race with it if you want
to.

 

We bought an '03 XG350L in Dec 2003 and have no complaints. I'd buy another
one. Car has great power. I still haven't gotten used to the initial surge
when accelerating. On a recent trip it got 27+mpg on the highway. In the
city, it's been around 22-23. Only negative so far, like the previous
poster mentioned, the wiring for the radio is total crap. CD/Cassette
player work fine. For the FM dial, the reception and sound is great. But,
for the AM, it worthless. AM comes in with a lot of static in this car.
Also, if you run the rear-defrost, the radio reception is effected. Per
our Hyundai Service Manager, this is due to the antennae being in the rear
window. Bad design on Hyundai's part. Friends/Family can't believe how
loaded the vehicle is. We chose the XG350L over a Volvo S80.

 

Which is why AM is friggin worthless.

You realize a standard radio ariel is worth about 1mpg. Considering
theres nothing worth listening to on FM much less AM, this is no major
loss...

JS

 

Well, unfortunately, if you want news, weather, and sports or even the
cursed talk radio, you have only two other alternatives. One is to
subscribe to a satellite radio service, the other and cheaper fix is to use
the wiring and speakers in the car and add an after market receiver to the
car. I have written to Hyundai about this and they claim that they are
making improvements to newer models. I have a friend that installed an
after market top of the line Kenwood and a electrical telescoping antenna
on the front fender. He now has a good system. He used the existing speaker
system and wiring harness.

I really cannot figure out why the engineers would ever put some junk into
this otherwise luxurious vehicle.

 

| Well, unfortunately, if you want news, weather, and sports or
even the
| cursed talk radio, you have only two other alternatives. One is
to
| subscribe to a satellite radio service, the other and cheaper
fix is to use
| the wiring and speakers in the car and add an after market
receiver to the
| car. I have written to Hyundai about this and they claim that
they are
| making improvements to newer models. I have a friend that
installed an
| after market top of the line Kenwood and a electrical
telescoping antenna
| on the front fender. He now has a good system. He used the
existing speaker
| system and wiring harness.
|
| I really cannot figure out why the engineers would ever put
some junk into
| this otherwise luxurious vehicle.
|

I am knowledgeable about sound equipment. However, I'm new to
Hyundai installations. The performance on the stock radio in my
(new to me) 2000 Sonata seems quite respectable; I've only had
the car for three days, so I haven't gotten around to testing the
CD and cassette sections (the first step will be to clean and
demagnetize the cassette head).

From what I've read in this thread, it's obvious that the OP's
problem has nothing to do with the equipment, but is isolated to
the antenna in the rear window -- a design that'll deliver
terrible reception. I'd assume that Hyundai would have put a
receiver of very good quality into the XG350.

A standard ordinary antenna should fix the problem. Antennas are
just plain physics; very simple devices. Cheap ones perform as
well as expensive ones. They just have to be long enough to
resonate within the FM band (I recall 31 or 32 inches). The AM
usually will take care of itself given at least this much length.
Always remember that with an electric antenna, you need enough
unobstructed depth underneath the thing to accomodate its
retracted length. That's why an ordinary "8-ball" whip design may
offer more placement options. It may not be practical for this
individual car, but my favorite location for an antenna is high
up at the right rear just next to the roof, pointing staight up.

It would be logical that Hyundai's radio uses an ordinary
standard antenna connection at the radio, despite their use of a
custom inferior window antanna. To a "real" aftermarket antenna,
you can simply remove the existing cable and use either the one
that comes with the conventional antenna, or install it with an
extension cable. Note that when installing a whip antenna, the
antenna must be firmly grounded to the metal of the car body.

Always be alert to the incredible amount of BS surrounding car
stereo. The reason why I just bought the Hyundai is that my last
car was totaled by a drunk who smashed into it. In the meantime,
I've been catching up on the "state of the OEM art" in a couple
of rental cars. What impressed me is the utter lack of respect
for the user's CDs. The design of the CD slots ensures that CDs
will get dirty and scratched from simply inserting and removing
them. Auto cassette designs are a -little- better, but they've
always been designed so that if the tape gets stuck in the
mechanism, the only way to get it out is to remove the radio from
the dashboard and open up the radio. Ouch!!!

Richard

 

If its a Hyundai stereo, I can tell you its the lame reciever. When you
live in a country thats dwarfed by most states high performance FM
reception isn't much of an issue...

The window-based antenna has some funky issues. It obviously has less
gain than a standard fender dipole, due to the fact its more
'influenced' by the body metal, but its backed up by a very powerful
signal booster... Unluckily this boosts *everything* including totally
out-of-band noise which lowers the overall peformance of the FM
reciever...

From what I can tell the amplifier will get you VERY good signal *if*
the antenna is getting much of a signal. Soon as the signal drops out
(or a heavy noise generator is nearby, like another FM station) the
reciever's effective performance goes straight into the hole. This
isn't a big deal rural but it makes for lousy radio performance in the
city...

 

| If its a Hyundai stereo, I can tell you its the lame reciever.
When you
| live in a country thats dwarfed by most states high performance
FM
| reception isn't much of an issue...
|
| The window-based antenna has some funky issues. It obviously
has less
| gain than a standard fender dipole, due to the fact its more
| 'influenced' by the body metal, but its backed up by a very
powerful
| signal booster... Unluckily this boosts *everything* including
totally
| out-of-band noise which lowers the overall peformance of the FM
| reciever...
|
| From what I can tell the amplifier will get you VERY good
signal *if*
| the antenna is getting much of a signal. Soon as the signal
drops out
| (or a heavy noise generator is nearby, like another FM station)
the
| reciever's effective performance goes straight into the hole.
This
| isn't a big deal rural but it makes for lousy radio performance
in the
| city...
|

Agreed.
But let me introduce another consideration: Hyundai typically
would offer a few different stereo receivers for every car model
(they did for my car). It's reasonable to assume that some are
good, and some are "entry-level" quality. The cheapos are pretty
poor.

I live in an urban region that can get rather nasty regarding FM
reception. I've also kept tabs on signal propagation patterns as
part of a former business. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, as
you can imagine, there is a mixture of flat lowlands and steep
hills that run pretty high above sea level -- reception can be
messy. So far, I'd say that the radio in my 2000 Sonata GLS is
pretty decent.

Obviously, if reception of any radio is going to have a chance,
the window antenna's gotta go. A conventional monopole whip is
what's needed. And they're dirt cheap.

Another consideration: AM radio has always been transmitted with
vertical polarization. This means that the carrier waves are
broadcast in vertical "ripples." A horizontal antenna is oriented
exactly wrong for decent efficiency, and that's what's in that
window. FM is transmitted in the horizontal plane. However, it's
also transmitted in the vertical plane, too, and the percentage
of vertical to horizontal power has grown steadily: "drive-time"
advertising is sold at a premium, and the best way to get the
most people listening to your advertisers during drive time is
with drive-radios, and this requires vertical whip antennas. I
rest my case.

Richard

 

I am a ham radio operator and the condition you are referring to is
"intermod|"

I went to the local Hyundai dealer here in Mo. to talk to him about the
problem. His response was "Well no one listens to AM anyway and you can get
the local FM stations, can't you?" "That is all you need anyway"
I laughed at his apparent lack of knowlege about any type of radio
reception, and walked out.

As an advocate of outside antennas for better reception from radios to
2-way radios to cell phones, I believe that one area would probably fix a
majority of the difficulty. Just stepping out of a vehicle with a hanie
talkie can give a vhf signal as much as a 9db gain in signal strength.

 

You are correct Richard. If anyone doubts this try taking a vhf or even a
uhf low power handie talkie that uses vertical polarization in it's
transmit and receive of a distant repeater. you lay the talkie over on it's
side and you will lose the repeater due to it's polarization change in
respect to the vertical antenna at the transmitter site. AM reception has
long been vertically polarized signals since it's inception years ago.
There is some bending over the long distance propagation called skip, but
most of the local stuff relies on ground wave vertically polarization. on
1.8 to 2.0 MHZ known as the 160 meter amateur band, a lot of hams use
cross polarization for fairly local communications 25-50 miles. A
vertically polarized antenna will outperform the latter on long distance
propagation.
you seem quite knowledgeable in your statements. I wonder if you are in
some way associated with the broadcast industry or are perhaps an amateur.

 

| You are correct Richard. If anyone doubts this try taking a vhf
or even a
| uhf low power handie talkie that uses vertical polarization in
it's
| transmit and receive of a distant repeater. you lay the talkie
over on it's
| side and you will lose the repeater due to it's polarization
change in
| respect to the vertical antenna at the transmitter site. AM
reception has
| long been vertically polarized signals since it's inception
years ago.
| There is some bending over the long distance propagation called
skip, but
| most of the local stuff relies on ground wave vertically
polarization. on
| 1.8 to 2.0 MHZ known as the 160 meter amateur band, a lot of
hams use
| cross polarization for fairly local communications 25-50 miles.
A
| vertically polarized antenna will outperform the latter on long
distance
| propagation.
| you seem quite knowledgeable in your statements. I wonder if
you are in
| some way associated with the broadcast industry or are perhaps
an amateur.
|

Thanks for asking.

My experience has been concentrated in music, audio, music
psychology, and music technology. Along the way, I've been a
classical radio announcer (operating a commercial broadcasting
station while one duty), and put in time as a technical writer in
the trenches of Silicon Valley, handling a few broadcast radio
and cell phone re-transmission projects. In writing, I try to
explain technology in "English," so that the information is
understandable by everyday folks. I hope that I've done this in
my former post.

I also had my own custom stereo business a while back. So, in
these lines of work, I've always taken note of signal propagation
characteristics wherever I've lived and worked. I also know how
entertainment radio audio is juggled and mushed by the
broadcasters. All this comes home to roost when I drive around
listening to this Hyundai radio: I note, too, that the particular
radio is the top model offered for the 2000 Sonata -- it's the
one with the CD changer, all ready to jam up (I don't trust these
mechanisms). I'm certainly not an expert about Hyundai radios --
I haven't had the car a week!

No, I haven't been a ham. However, let me acknowledge that you
folks know your stuff about antennas and propagation -- amateur
radio people are awesome in this. I suspect that hams know more
about antennas than the people who design them for a living.
The concepts involved in resonance and polarization are not
limited to radio propagation -- this is physics. I know that you
know that.

Richard

 

| I am a ham radio operator and the condition you are referring
to is
| "intermod|"
|
| I went to the local Hyundai dealer here in Mo. to talk to him
about the
| problem. His response was "Well no one listens to AM anyway and
you can get
| the local FM stations, can't you?" "That is all you need
anyway"
| I laughed at his apparent lack of knowlege about any type of
radio
| reception, and walked out.
|
| As an advocate of outside antennas for better reception from
radios to
| 2-way radios to cell phones, I believe that one area would
probably fix a
| majority of the difficulty. Just stepping out of a vehicle with
a hanie
| talkie can give a vhf signal as much as a 9db gain in signal
strength.
|

Let me convert this a bit. 3 db represents a doubling of
power/efficiency. The decibel scale is logarhythmic. In other
words, 9dB doesn't sound like much, but I assure the reader that
it's a huge improvement. Returning to the subject at hand: the
window antenna. Going to a good vertical whip antenna should
produce a very significant improvement in the radio's
performance.

I used to announce the optimum length of a radio whip antenna for
FM reception when I was in radio; it was 31 or 32 inches (I've
forgotten -- it was a long time ago). Perhaps "who" can give us a
precise length.

"Who," what do you think about my personal optimum antenna spot
on a car: just next to the right rear corner of the roof?
There's some reason why I don't think it's practical to put it in
the middle of the roof, and I've forgotten my logic. It may have
been that the vertical rear panel is stronger than the roof, and
better in terms of water leaks and the car wash.

Richard

 

Richard, for the FM reception 30 inches should work quite well. I think
most of the whips that are on cars now are about 30 inches. On reception ,
it is not nearly as critical as it is on a transmitting antenna on the
vehicle. The length of the antenna at 1/4 wavelength long is determined by
the formula 234 divided by the frequency in MHZ. That will give you the
length in feet and inches. The ideal place for a transmitting or receiving
antenna in right in the middle of the vehicle's roof. This however is not
practical. The reason for locating the antenna on the rear of the vehicle
is to keep it as far as possible from the electrical charging system as
possible to reduce interference from that scource.
Now AM is a horse of a different color. The more whip, or "Ariel" as the
old timers would call it, the better the reception. The older cars years
ago had only AM radios and were equipped with telescoping antennas that
pulled out to as much as 4 feet or even more.

I was a ham since 1967 and back before cell phones handled a lot of
military phone patches from Vietnam after the guys would get drunk,spend
all their money, and forget to call mom. lol

I gave Ham Radio up after it became a glorified CB band and they knocked
off the requirment of Morse Code proficiency to obtain a liscense.

Hams now can obtain a ticket by having a buddy give them the test and
getting a liscense by that means. I got mine in front of an FCC examiner
and had to drive 150 miles to K.C. Mo. to take the test three different
times for higher class tickets.

 

I just remembered why I prefer the location of the car's right
rear, just next to the roof:
When parking, it's the highest place to put the antenna. In most
of the world, people drive to the right side of the road. We
typically park the car on the right side of the street.

Whoops!
I was wrong. Let's shift this thing to the _left_ rear corner. My
reason was the least likely spot for the antenna to tangle with
tree branches when parking. That would be on the left, not the
right side.

I had to visualize this, and it just came clear while writing.

This position won't work with every car, of course. I last used
it with a '62 SAAB sedan. I mounted the antenna on a removable
cowl, which was pretty strong. I used a jury-rigged FM tuner
board in a plastic box that I'd patched into the AM radio. It was
important for me to have FM in the car so that I could listen to
my station on my way in to work, and especially, to see if the
person I was relieving was running the station on time or not and
if there were any technical problems that I'd have to deal with
on my shift. As soon as I could afford it, I replaced this setup
with a Blaupunkt that delivered superb performance and cost quite
a lot at the time.

Richard