Hyundai Problems

Most Hyundai engines with a rubber timing belt require belt changes every 100,000km. Stretching this interval is pushing your luck as a failed belt will destroy the rest of the engine. With that in mind, you’re already over that limit by about 10,000km, so a change sooner rather than later is in order.

The car will, indeed, drive perfectly even with an old timing belt. Until it doesn’t. At which point you have an engine bay full of junk and a big engine replacement bill coming your way.

It all depends on how you define long and bulky. But no seven-seater is going to be exactly small, is it? That’s because, to accommodate the third row of seats necessary to seat seven a vehicle physically has to be a certain length and there’s just no getting around that.

But I take your point; a lot of the seven-seat SUVs out there do seem pretty big. Again, however, that’s not a bad thing if you plan to fill all three rows of seats and still have some room left for luggage. The smaller seven-seaters aren’t all that good at this as the third row gobbles up the luggage space, making these cars best for those who only need seven seats on an occasional basis. If that’s your situation there are lots of mid-sized seven seaters around, but they’re pretty much all SUVs.

And while it goes against your preference for a smaller vehicle, the very best seven-seaters aren’t SUVs. They’re usually people-mover vans such as the Ford Tourneo, Kia Carnival and VW ID. Buzz. In fact, some of these even seat eight. They’re also a lot better for accessing the rearmost row of seats and they’ll still have lots of luggage space even with all seats occupied. And, yes, they look big, but that’s physics for you.

In the meantime, you could look at slightly less bulky options including the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-80 and Toyota Kluger. There’s also been speculation recently that Subaru’s seven-seat Tribeca might make a return to the Australian market.

This model Hyundai i40 had two different automatic transmissions depending on which engine was fitted. If you have the petrol engine, the transmission will be a conventional torque converter six-speed automatic. However, if your car has the turbo-diesel engine, the transmission will be a seven-speed dual-clutch unit. At which point things change.

These dual-clutch units (and not just Hyundai’s) have shown themselves to be a bit under-engineered in some respects. And when they start to develop wear in the clutch packs, they can definitely start to behave poorly including rough shifting, shuddering when moving off and other problems.

But either way, you are going to need the services of a transmission specialist to determine what’s wrong. Even if you have the conventional automatic version, you might still find it has serious internal wear or failures, but only a detailed diagnosis will tell you the whole story.

On the other hand, you might be lucky and simply have a transmission with low fluid level that will be restored to health by a top up of that fluid. You’ll still need to find from where it’s escaping, however, as this is a sealed system and should not lose fluid over time.

This is not an unknown problem with this make and model. Sometimes the stereo system will start by losing sound on the FM radio, then progress through to the CD player and even the Bluetooth system. Eventually, you won’t be able to get any noise out of the unit at all. Apparently, it’s a glitch in the unit’s electronics and cant’ be fixed via a reset.

The advice is not to buy a second-hand unit from a wrecked car, as the same problem is likely to occur down the track. The good news is that there are companies in Australia that have developed a fix for this and can return your stereo to full working order. You can find them online.

The other solution would be to ditch the original stereo and fit something new with better quality sound and maybe even features like an integrated reversing camera.

What you haven’t told me is whether your car has an automatic or manual transmission. And that means different things if the transmission has somehow been over-filled.

In the case of a manual gearbox, you’ll find that the extra oil will probably soon be evenly distributed across the bottom of your car as the excess exits the scene through either a breather tube or a seal or gasket.

But if it’s an automatic, the extra fluid could cause the entire transmission to behave strangely, as this type of gearbox relies on the correct internal fluid pressure to select gears, change gears and, in fact, make the car move at all. Again, though, the extra will probably force its way out through a seal or gasket and then you have a much more complicated repair to make.

The best advice is to check the level of the fluid as set out in the owner’s handbook and make sure the level is correct before driving anywhere else.

This is not an unknown problem with some Hyundai engines, although, to be fair, most of the oil burning problems were in earlier models than yours. That doesn’t mean you don’t have the same problem, though, and it’s definitely worth checking out and finding a solution.

The first thing to do is to contact Hyundai Australia’s customer service department, and let them know you have a problem. My experience has been that Hyundai takes customer satisfaction very seriously.

The next step is to determine exactly how much oil is being consumed. The dealership will be able to help here and will probably fill the engine with oil, seal the dipstick and send you away to cover 1000km or maybe more. Then, the oil level is checked again and you’ll know precisely how much has been consumed over a known distance. Based on that information, you may be able to negotiate a deal with Hyundai that sorts the problem without you paying for the entire bill (if, for instance, it’s determined that a new engine is required).

Obviously, there are lots of factors at play here, including how many kilometres the car has covered and its service history. But it’s definitely worth getting to the bottom of the problem sooner rather than later.

There are many reasons this could happen, and they could be mechanical or electrical. An engine that revs freely with no load on it, but goes weak at the knees when a load is placed on it, could be suffering from poor fuel supply, a faulty ignition system, internal wear, a blocked exhaust or even a worn driveline that is creating excess friction. You could even have a seized brake or something equally fundamental going on.

But it’s also true that the car’s computer can send the engine into what’s called limp-home mode if it detects a serious problem. Limp-home mode limits the amount of power the engine can make or how fast it can rev, as a means of protecting it against further, more serious damage. Perhaps that’s what’s going on here. Certainly the symptoms match that diagnosis. The best advice is to have the car electronically scanned to see what fault codes are thrown up by the computer. Only then do you have a decent starting point on where to look for the root problem.

If the engine is not getting hot and the temperature gauge is reading normal, it’s difficult to see how the coolant could be boiling. Perhaps what you’re seeing is the coolant in the overflow bottle bubbling, which can appear as though it’s boiling. But the reality might be that you have a leaking cylinder head gasket.

When that happens, gasses from the combustion process can escape into the engine’s coolant system and appear as bubbles in the overflow system. And to the observer, that can look very much like boiling coolant.

Either way, you need to find a good workshop that can check this stuff and figure out what’s really going on. Only then can you diagnose the root problem and tackle it.