2003 Hyundai Santa Fe Reviews

Engine and transmission problems from day 1.

I bought a new Santa Fe in 2003.

At just 7 years old and barely over 100,000 miles, the engine quit. Hyundai only offered to sell me a new engine. Had 3 other Hyundais before this one that all had problems.

The Santa Fe is their biggest seller and if it won't last 7 years, how long will the rest of their line last?

I will never own anther Hyundai. It's all Toyota and Honda from here on. My daughter's Honda has over 200,000 miles and has never needed anything over than an oil change and regular maintenance.

I can't believe that the clutch is going on my Santa Fe, it's only done 49000 miles. A new clutch is going to cost £162 from a main agent, then another £240 to have it fitted. After reading the reviews on here about the clutch problem with the Santa Fe, where people seem to replacing the clutch every X amount of miles, I'll be selling mine as soon as the new clutch is fitted.

It's a shame as the car I like a lot, it has a stylish body, nice and comfortable, drives great and I get 35 to the gallon around town. Shame the clutch lets such a nice car down.

Transfer case went out at 94,000. Otherwise I did most of maintenance myself and even got 80K miles out of the tires. I changed the spark plugs and plenum gasket. I did the oil changes, rotated tires on a 3000 mile basis and changed the brakes myself. It was a very easy operation. I did have it into the dealer to have the transmission and transfer case oils changed and the belt changed. Hyundai refused to honor the warranty because I could not produce service records. The warranty people told me that the records needed to be from a Hyundai dealer, but, I got them to back off of that it had to be a Hyundai dealer. They told me that owners don't really do the work that they say that they do. I was very dissapointed with Hyundai's response on the warranty. They told me that the transfer case leaked. They were the only ones that touched it.

Otherwise the car has performed well and was comfortable. It was just very disappointing to get the poor response from Hyundai. If it were not for the local dealer and the warranty department, I would get a new one in a second.