2005 Hyundai Sonata from North America - Comments

Rear Brake Issues.

I bought my 2005 Sonata brand new in January '05. Just recently at just under 18,000 miles I had to have the rear brakes and rotors replaced. I had just had the car inspected at the dealer in January '06 (when the 1 year/ 18,000 mile warranty on the brakes was still good) and no mention of brake issues was made. In April '06 I took the car into the dealer after hearing the brakes squeaking and feeling some play in the brake pedal. The dealer informed me that the rear brakes needed replacing and that (surprise, surprise) they were no longer covered under warranty. The dealer wanted $400 to change the brakes. My fiance bought the parts and replaced them himself for less than half that price. I've been told it's very rare for rear brakes to go at such a low mileage and that it probably should have been seen two months ago during inspection. The general opinion I'm hearing is that the dealer didn't want to replace the brakes for free (per the warranty) so they didn't mention it.

That's a good theory except that the factory warranties the car not the dealer. The f actory pays the dealer to replace parts. The factory wanrranty on adjustments is not 18 months 18K miles rather 12/12K.

For what it's worth...

I once heard that dealers (dealers in general, not necessarily Hyundai) we rated higher by the factory for not having too many warranty repairs. This would be an incentive to not fix every single problem. Does anyone know about this?

Well, I just took my car back to the dealer on Tuesday for the 3rd time. Squeaky/Squeal is still with us. The dealer claimed to hear the noise from the front. They told us they had checked the back brakes, rotors and bearings and found no issues...again. They said the only thing they found was some rust and dirt on the front pads. They cleaned them and told us it was good to go. We went to pick it up and didn't make it a mile down the road before the squeal was back. We took it right back to them and the service manager had the tech pull all four brake pads. Supposedly they found a loose bolt on a rotor (back/right) and claimed that was the issue. They tightened it up and all was quiet for a day or so. Today is Friday and the squeak is back with a vengeance. The curious thing to me is that it doesn't squeak when I use the brakes. It squeaks when I'm driving (accelerating or at a steady speed) and when I turn... mostly to the right. Any thoughts on this?

The factory does keep track of dealers warranty repairs for a lot of different reasons. One is to make sure dealers don't do too much of one kind of work. It is possible that a rogue manager could submit false claims and that's one reason for factory tracking. The other is to see trends in their vehicles. There is no real reason for a dealer not to complete a legitimate warranty repair it is a profit center... And that is what they are there for...

I used to work for consultancy firm and one of the clients was an auto company where we made a dealer report and follow up system where dealers were analyzed on a regular schedule. Being a "car crazy" this job was one of the most interesting I've ever had since I got an in depth view on the car industry at least a part of it. I was responsible for the data warehouse implementation retrieving raw data from dealers, process them and make reports to dealer coordinators. The main reason was to monitor dealers to reveal any potential misuse but the system had other usage areas as well. That's why we cross referenced all kinds of data with historic data based on error types and models. Any discrepancies came up as a flag for follow up.

I don't know what the rules are for Hyundai dealers, but I suspect they are rather restrained. But that's no surprise since most models are sold in the lower price segment. A lot of warranty work will cut profit even on expensive models and on a 15K car there is room for very little repairs. In most cases this is no problem, but you may be stuck in the middle between the dealer and the manufacturer if the dealer feels the heat from the manufacturer.There's a lot of statistical models involved to calculate what normal deviations should be, but if a dealer gets "unlucky" and end up with an excessive amount of repairs this may affect the customer since questions are being asked from the manufacturer. The worst is unspecified repairs like electronics bugs where dealer spends a lot of time, but few parts to weed out an error. A few cars with a lot of problems may get the statistics wrong and the customer may suffer.

We purchased a 2005 Sonata in March, 2007 from the local dealer. It had 32,000 miles on it and a new set of Goodyear Eagle tires. AIr conditioner failed in the spring of this year-losing freon rapidly. Some dye indicated a crack in the condenser coil.

Went back to the dealership to purchase a coil--was asked the exact date of manufacture of the vehicle and the VIN. They said there had been a change in design during the year of manufacture. Didn't make any difference--they didn't have the condenser coil, but it would be $450 (in the box) if they did.

Went home and ordered on on line from RockAuto for $179 and it was delivered two days later. Took two hours to change it out and recharge the system. RockAuto knew nothing of a mid-year change and the part fit well.

Trying to adjust the headlamps per the owners manual is enlightening. Low beams are too low, but the high beams are just right. The owners manual gives great instructions for adjusting the low beams-what it doesn't tell you is that the low beam adjustments also adjust the high beams. Three letters to the Hyundai headquarters and two telephone calls for written instructions as to how to correct--their response---contact your local dealer.

The Goodyear Eagle tires lasted less than 35,000 miles. Won't buy any more of those!