2002 Hyundai Santa Fe Pricing and Specs

A modern automatic transmission is a very complex piece of equipment with a whole bunch of parts that have to be talking to each other for it to work properly. Your best plan of attack is to have the vehicle inspected by a transmission specialist who is familiar with this transmission and should be able to diagnose the fault.

But it sounds like there’s something broken or loose inside that is not allowing the engine’s power to be transferred to the car’s wheels. This could be anything form an input or output shaft, a clutch assembly, torque converter or even the gearsets themselves. Perhaps the fault is in the valve body (the part that actually selects each gear) but until it’s torn down and inspected, you won’t know what’s going on.

The other major cause of a car not moving when it’s in gear is that there’s a broken driveshaft or CV joint. The symptoms can be very similar, so check the whole driveline before committing to repairs.

It's not possible to say absolutely that you will get another 90,000 km out of your car, that would take it to almost 300,000 km, which is a lot of kays by any measure. But as the car has given you no trouble to date, I would think you could reasonably expect it to keep on going for some time yet.

MOST vehicles have a diff whine, it's the nature of the type of gears used in diffs, but you rarely hear it. Most car makers manage to isolate the noise so it doesn't travel through the car. They use all sorts of techniques to ensure it doesn't become a problem. The problem with the Santa Fe could lie in the diff itself, it could also lie in the suspension or body which can act as amplifiers. I would take up Hyundai's offer and have them fix the problem.