hyundais

[CAP1]

ok guys......those of you driving hyundais....in specific, early 2000's, and more than likely late 90's sonatas.

 had a customer brought his 02 sonata v6 in. his son was driving it, and hit a speed bump. the entire alignment(according to him) went whacko. my first thought was that the kid went blasting across a speed bump doing about 40-50mph, and pummeled the control arm, or spindle.
 boy was i wrong. the kid wasn't speeding, or doing anything wrong whatsoever.

 the engine cradle was rusted. rusted worse than an old ford. on the passengers side, right where the rear mounting point for the lower control arm is, was nearly totally gone.

 the cradle. see those rusted holes? they are where the rear of the control arm was mounted. the weldnuts pulled right through by hand...


view from the other side....that part sticking up with the bushing on it, is one of the mounts, where it bolts into the car. i'd think that this much rust severely weakened that.....


close up from the inside....


close up from the outside...


closer yet...


 thankfully, nothing bad happened. i can only imagine how bad it could've been, if this had caved in, or allowed the control arm to rip out at highway speeds. this car is a 2002, and only has 99k miles. in talking with other mechanics about this, and a couple scrap yards, i have found out that this is a fairly common problem with these cars. i would suggest any of you driving a hyundai take it in to have it checked.

[cobia38]

 i take it no state inspection in your area right ?
 if so,then the moron inspecting is blind and should loose his lisense

[CAP1]

i take it no state inspection in your area right ?
 if so,then the moron inspecting is blind and should loose his lisense

 there is, but for 2 problems. for whatever reason, they actually STOPPED doing safety inspections at the state run facilities. us that do them at private facilities are not allowed to fail a car for a safety problem. most private facilities don't even do a safety inspection anymore because of this. i still do, as do the other 4 shop owners right in my area. in pa, that would've been caught.

 the other problem is that this guy's driving on an 010 sticker. i honestly can't believe he hasn't gotten ticketed for it yet.

 the car's got a new cradle in it now, and it actually runs very well........

[morfiend]

 Cap,

 A similar thing happened to my 98 accord,only you couldnt see the rust under the paint!  My mech. took a prybar and showed me how bad it was......  I traded it for a CRV that week!  The service Manager is a buddy and wanted my car when I got a new 1 but after he saw the problem even he didnt want it.

  Of course they salt the roads here for about 5 or 6 months of the year!



   



   

[CAP1]

Cap,

 A similar thing happened to my 98 accord,only you couldnt see the rust under the paint!  My mech. took a prybar and showed me how bad it was......  I traded it for a CRV that week!  The service Manager is a buddy and wanted my car when I got a new 1 but after he saw the problem even he didnt want it.

  Of course they salt the roads here for about 5 or 6 months of the year!



   



   

 they salt the roads here too, but my problem with this, is that even fords don't do that anymore. you know? fords that used to nearly blow away if you sneezed on them? 

[Karnak]

 

That's dreadful.

[eagl]

I last drove a hyundai back in maybe 1992 and it was so awful I haven't gotten behind the wheel of one ever since.  A friend of mine had a really nice one in Korea back in 2006 but I still think there are better alternatives for not that much difference in price.

Give me a honda any day over hyundai.  If I couldn't afford a new honda, I'd get a nice used honda before any sort of new hyundai.  Fortunately I never buy anything on credit (except my house mortgage) so saving up for a new car isn't hard.  I just don't buy anything until I can pay cash.  Sure makes it easy to prioritize

[AAJagerX]

I last drove a hyundai back in maybe 1992 and it was so awful I haven't gotten behind the wheel of one ever since.  A friend of mine had a really nice one in Korea back in 2006 but I still think there are better alternatives for not that much difference in price.

Give me a honda any day over hyundai.  If I couldn't afford a new honda, I'd get a nice used honda before any sort of new hyundai.  Fortunately I never buy anything on credit (except my house mortgage) so saving up for a new car isn't hard.  I just don't buy anything until I can pay cash.  Sure makes it easy to prioritize

American cars are as good or better these days.  Why don't ya try one of those?  Be American, Buy American. 

[eagl]

American cars are as good or better these days.  Why don't ya try one of those?  Be American, Buy American. 

I did.  My sedan is a Pontiac G8 which I bought to replace my Firebird after I had 2 kids.  I also needed a minivan and test-drove all of the American minivans, and not one came anywhere close to the design and mechanical quality of the Honda Odyessy.  It wasn't even close, the Honda was better in every single way I could think of to compare them.  Better engine.  Better transmission.  Better fuel efficiency.  Better handling.  Better seating position.  Better visibility out the windows.  Better doors.  Better seats and seating flexibility.  Better load capacity.  Better interior materials.  Better GPS nav system.  Better radio.  Better climate control.  Better storage flexibility.  More cup holders.  Nicer dealership and better service, even though both the GM and Honda dealerships in town were owned by the same family.  Choosing the Honda over any other minivan may have been the easiest car purchasing decision I've ever made because there was simply nothing else that came close.  Even the toyota sienna which is higher rated by consumer reports handled like a poorly designed boat compared to the Honda.

The fact that the G8 was built in Australia is pretty much a non-concern...  Many Hondas are assembled in the US so it's a draw there.  Plus the basic platform the G8 was built on was popular enough that GM updated it and will be building a Chevy version (Chevy SS) in the US in a few years. 

[RngFndr]

Dam salt on the road will do it every time..
He was lucky it didn't happen while at a critical moment..

[CAP1]

I last drove a hyundai back in maybe 1992 and it was so awful I haven't gotten behind the wheel of one ever since.  A friend of mine had a really nice one in Korea back in 2006 but I still think there are better alternatives for not that much difference in price.

Give me a honda any day over hyundai.  If I couldn't afford a new honda, I'd get a nice used honda before any sort of new hyundai.  Fortunately I never buy anything on credit (except my house mortgage) so saving up for a new car isn't hard.  I just don't buy anything until I can pay cash.  Sure makes it easy to prioritize

 early 90's hyundai? you probably had an exel? those were "throw away" cars. and you're right they did suck. what they did do, however, was to put hyundai on the map. they essentially did the very same thing honda did.....bring throw away cars over here, sell them for stupid cheap, get their name known,....

[homersipes]

my buddy has a 2001 gmc 2500 and the bed was getting the rust bubbles under the paint, so he pulled the bed off, and found that if he had hooked to a trailer it probably would have ripped the hitch right out of the truck the frame was rotted so bad.  will have to let a coworker know about this, his wife has a sonata my wife gets home yesterday and tells me the truck caught on fire, she was kinda exagerating but could have caught on fire had she not unplugged the resistor.  the heater had lost the number 5 speed about a month ago and I never thought much about it, but I guess this is a very common problem with gm, I did a search and found this in trailblazers and pickups. several trailblazers have actually caught on fire from this.  So something people might want to check if they own one of these.

seems to me that the automakers would have to fix these "know" problems to me

[CAP1]

my buddy has a 2001 gmc 2500 and the bed was getting the rust bubbles under the paint, so he pulled the bed off, and found that if he had hooked to a trailer it probably would have ripped the hitch right out of the truck the frame was rotted so bad.  will have to let a coworker know about this, his wife has a sonata

 this is why i put this up here. so you guys n gals could check your stuff, or let friends/relatives know. to me, that is absolutely frightening. if mom was driving a hyundai, i'd be taking it from her and give her my truck again, till i could check that out.

[eagl]

early 90's hyundai? you probably had an exel? those were "throw away" cars. and you're right they did suck. what they did do, however, was to put hyundai on the map. they essentially did the very same thing honda did.....bring throw away cars over here, sell them for stupid cheap, get their name known,....

It wasn't my car, it belonged to my brother's girlfriend.  I can't remember what kind it was but yea maybe it was an exel or something like that. 4 door compact if I recall correctly.  About the size of an escort at the time.

[CAP1]

It wasn't my car, it belonged to my brother's girlfriend.  I can't remember what kind it was but yea maybe it was an exel or something like that. 4 door compact if I recall correctly.  About the size of an escort at the time.

 yep. exel. 1.6 liter(i think) carbed engine. they were ok for what they were. they got people into cars for nearly half the price of similar cars back then. i had a couple customers that had them. they were generally happy'ish with them, and eventually all of them traded up to real cars.