… that my 2000 Hyundai Grandeur has developed a fault that no one has heard of before?
by Stuart Livesey
For the latest on this story see Hyundai Meltdown.
Our 2000 Hyundai Grandeur has been running a little sluggish lately and She-who-must-be-obeyed and who only knows two speeds (flat out and stop) decreed that it must be fixed – it was spoiling her driving experience.
So off I toddled to the mechanic this morning who took it for a test run and found that it seemed to be ‘a little flat’. I thought it might have been the plugs and so did he and after checking the service record it definitely is time for the plugs to be replaced … but wait … there’s more.
Tucked away under the manifold cover towards the back of the motor on the driver’s side is a small electric motor. According to the experts the motor controls the ‘variable throat’ on part of the fuel injection system and in our Grandeur the top of that motor appears to have melted.
The mechanic rang his contact at Hyundai and was told that no one has ever had that problem in a Hyundai Grandeur before … so there’s no cheap alternative but to buy a new one and no one knows what the price of that little electric motor might be.
So while he’s waiting for Hyundai to get back to him with a price our guy is calling a few wreckers to see if there’s a second-hand part available.
I guess I’ll know if I’m thrilled or not when I get the bad news about the cost of the part in the New Year.
Still, things could be worse. While I was picking the Grandeur up the mechanic got a phone call from another regular customer who had just destroyed the gear box in his Nissan Patrol … and he was planning on going away in it over Christmas.
In the town where I live most decent mechanical repair shops were closing at lunchtime today and not re-opening till January 2.
4 thoughts on “Should I be Thrilled …”
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I have be trying to get my Wifes Hyundai Grandeur 2000 fixed since June 2004 the problem is the electronic seat moves backwards and down while you are driving but according to Hyundai there are no faults with this car and it has never been reported by any other else.
During the time Hyundai have had this vehicle I have had other damage and problems such as Air Cond. no longer works, trip meter now does not work, doors now lock themselves or open themselves without any outside help, paint taken off guards; doors, door handle taken back to plastic, things have fallen out from under the dash, internal door handle drivers door falling off.
These problems and damage have only occured when I have taken the car to Hyundai (Ballina and Sydney) and they were all pointed out to staff which didn’t care and didn’t take responsibility for!
During this time not only have I been lied to on numerous occasions, threatened with legal action on a number of occasions, I have also been verbally abused by staff as well as threatened with physical harm (was told “to stop trying to get this fixed as there is nothing wrong and if you continue I will come down and sort you out”).
As off todays date I’m still waiting to have these problems fixed. I was told by there top tech. that Hyundai does not have the technical abilty to fix the seat problem and was told that this is a problem with the full range of XG’s
Man I feel your pain.
When our XG was a little over a year old we began having a similar problem with the driver’s seat – plus the boot would occasionally pop open when we were driving. I don’t know what the dealer did to it but they fixed it. Unfortunately I can’t as the dealer because that was down in Hobart and we’re no in Queensland.
One of the lights in the trip meter assembly also failed while it was under warranty and they replaced the whole unit. Once again that was in Hobart but the local dealer here in Hervey Bay told me that there was someone in Brisbane they could send the assembly to for repair if it failed once the car was out of warranty.
We’re also beginning to experience problems with unlocking one of the doors and we both have a vague suspicion that we had similar problems years ago and it was just a matter of re-programming the keys – but we’re not sure about that.
Our experience with Hyundai head office was much more positive. We called their customer service number on day somewhere between Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour when a warning light came on. One dealer wouldn’t take five minutes to run a diagnostic test to see if it was something critical and the other’s diagnostic tool broke. The customer service number gave us the advice we needed without any hassles.
As for Hyundai dealers – well the local service manager has been known to cross the road when he sees my wife coming and at the dealership in Hobart the General Manager gave us our very own service advisor.
On the other occasion one of their service advisors came up from Brisbane to give us some advice on the never-ending pinging that the local fuel produced. His advice to move up to one of the premium grades was spot on but he couldn’t explain why our car needed premiun in Queensland when it ran ok on ordinary unleaded in Tasmania.
You see, you never tell my wife that she wouldn’t understand or that she’s imagining things – she can reduce a drill sergeant to a quivering jelly when she arcs up so service managers just don’t stand a chance 🙂
As soon as our Grandeur fell out of warranty we went straight to a local mechanic who is an absolute gem and if you can find one like that where you are then start using him and if there’s a problem with the motor then he should look to Mitsubishi for the parts because the motors for those were all built by Mitsubishi and Mitsubishi branded parts are usually cheaper.
The generic platinum plugs are about a third of the price compared to the ‘genuine’ Hyundai parts.